Oct 20, 2011
Bossy’s New Sometimes Job
Many of you have been writing to Bossy, wondering what kind of things Bossy is doing at her new sometimes job. That’s a coincidence because Bossy is wondering what kind of things she’s doing at her sometimes job too!
The first thing Bossy does is curse. A lot. And when Bossy curses, she curses in the general direction of her work computer, since it’s a PC and not the Mac she’s accustomed to.
Working on a PC when one is accustomed to a Mac is like working with your dominant hand tied to your arse, especially if the one we’re referring to is Bossy.
The next thing Bossy does at work is try to get used to all of the new application interfaces.
For instance, Bossy wrestles the alligator that is Outlook:
Outlook isn’t just an email program, it’s a personal information manager. This is problem number one. Problem number two is the layout of the pages compared to Bossy’s beloved Gmail and iCal:
And what’s Bossy doing on Outlook in the first place? Bossy’s so glad you asked even though you didn’t! Bossy is on Outlook because she is scheduling meetings.
And no, Bossy doesn’t just schedule meetings! She also schedules phone calls!
Other work tasks include but are not limited to:
- Looking up work phrases such as include and not limited to to make sure she’s using them correctly
- Asking her coworker how to use the scanner
- Asking her coworker how to use the copy machine
- Asking her coworker what the password is for Wifi
- Asking her coworker how to use the coffee maker
- Asking her coworker for contact information
- Asking her coworker for more contact information
- Asking her coworker to warn Bossy right before she propels Bossy from the 8th floor window
What do you do at work, Bossy’s esteemed council?
I travel all over the world and write about it. It’s possibly the coolest job in the universe.
I read Bossy occasionally — and oh yeah, I don’t have a job.
Right now I actually hold three “sometimes” jobs, along with a side order of freelance every now and unpredictable then. All totalling many more hours and much less pay than I used to have at a full-time job. So, mostly I go around feeling resentful. “Outlook” doesn’t help with that, either…
Saddled with the BEST WORK of all, I change diapers and snuggle babies and potty-train toddlers who ask amazing questions like what do I do at work ?~! “When Daddy goes to work and Mommy goes to school, what does Yynda (sic) do all day…”
Mostly, I pretend I’m working.
–>Read Bossy’s blog!
Then read and respond to emails from two work accounts and one personal account all day.
The key is that if you’re goofing off to scowl at your monitor when a coworker passes, they’ll think you’re really concentrating……………on not getting caught!
I work in an office, as well and do the same exact things as Bossy. Except, I don’t think anyone wants to push me out of a window. Yet!
Usually I write content for websites, but these days I just spend a lot of time freaking out about Google’s latest algorithm changes.
Well, I would tell you but I’m more obsessing over #1’s
job. Heaven.
Apparently I work with Bossy. Because I am the one others ask all those questions of. But when not planning ways to eliminate annoying coworkers I help college students pay for college. I use outlook for EVERYTHING.
OMG I want #1’s job tooo Bossy’s Mom, I’ll take the 1st half of the year and you can have the 2nd half.
I pretend to work and collect a check. #10 can you help me pay for my kids college???
Nancy
I remember Outlook. Invented by the people who invented voice-activated software and all that other stuff that never does what it’s s’posed to do.
My job? Writing & editing, freelance, from home. Which makes me far to fortunate to say one more word. Other than: I’m working AND in my PJ’s.
Same as yours “sometimes” job but “always-times”. Sigh!!!
OMG – the words “Olivia” and “work” are never used in the same sentence.
At least according to Olivia’s DH, who defines “work” as “something done for money outside the house.”
Olivia writes for money “inside the house” and does lots “outside the house” but not for money so these don’t fit the definition.
Trust Olivia to “work” outside the box!
I love me some outlook, if the person is internal Bossy can see if the person is available (if they keep their damned calendar updated) without ASKING first.
I would much rather IM or email someone than call and I find myself aggravated when some old school, yo person calls me instead. WHY IS MY PHONE RINGING??!??
As an executive assistant who works from home I am in love with outlook and all its hermity allowances.
At my last job, I did EXACTLY what you do. Literally. And I got paid over $20/hour to do it! (Sorry. I just had to use an exclamation mark.)
Oh. And Bossy, that sentence “Other things Bossy does at work…”? It should have said “include but are not limited to”. (,,,but you know that. Wait. Was that some kind of a joke?)
To the relief of my former colleagues, I am retired, she said with a smirk on her (aging) face.
After 19 years at home raising two wonderful boys, I am now back to work (as the “administrative secretary” at my church) paying for said boys’ college educations. Well, I only make enough to pay for one semester for one of those children, but it helps….
Mostly I pretty much fill in all the gaps in the regularly Full Time employees jobs, while I just log in my hours as a Part Time Contract Employee. And mostly, I do all the obvious tasks relating to the jobs of FT sales and marketing folks while I just log in hours as a PT legal consultant. And mainly, I take calls during the hours during which I have explicitly blcoked out as being ‘unavailable’ as a PT employee with no benefits.
I used to count money and numbers, and later I organised the people and offices that looked after the money. Then it was time to train other people to count the money. 20 years full time.
Then I decided to stay home in what my husband laughingly refers to as my early retirement. He’s confused because there is just as much dust on the fridge, and I still have no plan for dinner.
Bobbie! Me, too! Only I haven’t found that magical outside job yet. (Maybe I need to start going to church? And see if they need an admin. asst.?) In the meantime I watch 6 month old twins(!) one day a week and that pretty much wears me out, son. Oh, and I write for free because I am an idiot. Outlook? Dismal!
I’m a Stay-At-Home-Mom to a 23 year old student teacher who tells me lovely stories about her little Kindergarten students.
I make sure she eats breakfast, lunch and dinner and I DVR her favorite shows and we go for 3 mile walks where she vents to me about all the Kindergarten Helicopter Moms.
Pay=$00,000 per year.
At work I teach college students that it’s OK to end a sentence with a preposition and it always has been. Despite decades of misinformed high school English teachers pounding that lie into our heads, the preposition rule was never a rule. Winston Churchill supposedly wrote something like “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.” That’s one thing I do at work. Debunk English rules and wonder why people remember that one and yet can’t remember when to use they’re or their.
Otherwise, I stand up on the big desk in the front of a classroom and tap dance while my trained monkey plays a tiny accordion so my students will stay awake after playing beer pong all night, and then I come home and grade stacks and stacks of poorly written papers. Why poorly written? Because high school English teachers teach stupid fake rules about prepositions instead of making kids write and then telling them how to do it better, a skill which we in the writing world call editing and revision.
I laughed so hard at this post! We just hired a new part-time assistant and his “what I do at work” would be the exact same as yours! And he’s a mac user too and cannot get the hang of our “non-intuitive” pc’s or outlook.
My newly retired other half has finally figured out his Outlook calendar for home computer. Life is good again. Relied on it for many years at work. I haven’t worked for three years. All my computer is cloud stuff now. Sometimes that can be annoying, but mostly okay. Hope I can still pull off registrations and spreadsheets for an event coming up next month. Wasn’t all that proficient with Excel. Wish me luck.
#20 – I think we worked at the same place, and I think we retired at the same time – and I think my husband is just as confused as yours, cause there is no dinner plan, laundry is in a pile on the floor and the dust is on the fridge. But, I tell him I have a good day every day as opposed to the bad days I used to have – so he is confused in a good way!! And I used to use Outlook all the time, and I did not mind it at all!
I cannot stand Outlook–though they make me use it too.
I am teaching in a position that, while not my dream job, is actually a little fun.
I think I love you, Bossy
I’m a stay-at-home Mom of seven-year-old twins, but I’ve started volunteering at the library I used to work at before the kids. I mostly replace faded spine labels in nonfiction, as well as make sure everything corresponds with the catalog as I go through. It helps me get back in touch with the collection, which I figure is pro-active, since I want to slide in there when they have a paying part-time job available. It feels good to use my brain in that way again.
Well, TECHNICALLY I translate long (often tedious) medical/technical texts from French or Spanish into English or teach English to (often unmotivated, sometimes surprisingly good) university students. But in REALITY (at least for the first part) I spend waaaaay too much time on Pinterest and Twitter and YouTube. The state of my bank account bears this out. Being freelance and working (mainly) from home is great and all that, but if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. Heh.
I sit at work doing about what Bossy does. Looking at two stupid screens all day. But I also have to write the programs Bossy uses. Sorry
I work in the operating room as a circulating nurse, two 12 hour days a week. I love my job….even the snarky surgeons! I hope to be a RNFA someday. Oh, and I am also a mama of four great kiddos under 10!! Whew, I am tired!
Would LOVE to have # 1’s job as a side gig!!
On a good day I get to write long-form video scripts, go on shoots, interview people on-camera (although only they are on camera, not me). Or I send out radio and TV commercials (“traffic”) to the stations. On a bad day it’s Office Crap 2.0. On a REALLY bad day I have nothing productive to do except filing, which starts with a visit to BOSSY. Which makes it a good day.
And yes, I know that most of those phrases above are real sentences; I’m working on a Masters in Butchered English. In my head.
Two days of the week I write and edit. Three days (just from 8-2) I work for the large finance office of a big hotel chain (rhymes with Blairiott), reconciling bank statements. After I get done with that stuff I pick up my first grader. Which I have to do right now!
What do I do at work? Silly you! As little as possible to still get paid! Just like everybody else.
Alas, I work plenty with outlook but having 656 Junk emails and 30 suspected Junk emails, with 5 unread “acceptable” emails, tell me the Bossy’s email is a spammers playground…
My last job but one, I discovered one of the coolest things about Outlook is that you DON’T have to call people up and ask them if they are free for a meeting – you can look into their Outlook and find out for yourself!
Of course this only works if they actually use their calendar, but still….Once I learned that, then I started getting pissed off at all the folks at my New New workplace who apparently must have kept paper appointment books because they didn’t know what popped up when you clicked that little calendar over there.
I don’t quite do what Bossy does, but I spend a lot of time with calendars, since I book an event venue. The Powers that Be decided not to spend the money on a venue-calendaring data base, so we created an Outlook calendar specially for the venue so we could share it among all the people at work. But the Boss can’t figure out how to use it, so we have to maintain two calendars – the Outlook one and a paper one for her. Sucks.
Oh, and my other work duty? I created (well, within the framework set up by the IT guys) and will in future maintain the departmental website.
I was responsible for all the content on the website, gathering the photos, creating the hyperlinked pdf documents and stuff, and everything. I was given a deadline of September 1 to go live. There’s one webpage that my Boss decided she was the only one qualified to write a two-paragraph “Our Mission” kind of piece – so all summer long I gently reminded her I was awaiting her copy.
She finally submitted it to me on October 4th, but she said she had to run it past HER Boss for approval. We presented the draft page to said Boss’s Boss, who wanted us to wait to go live until she could edit the piece Boss wrote.
I’m still waiting for the final text (what day is it now?). That’s what they pay me to do – sit around and wait for the Boss’s Boss to edit two paragraphs of text.
My problem is I’m paid to do stuff, while they, apparently, are paid not to do stuff.
I appear to be the Office Manager for a chiropractor (who also happens to be my best friend, so no annoying boss stories). I schedule appointments, collect payment, do the books, all the usual stuff. I also make popcorn and bake cookies for the patients, and decorate the office for holidays. That’s what I *appear* to be doing. I also spend a lot of time reading Bossy, watching Facebook, playing Words with Friends, and working on my own business, part of which is painting astrological designs on ceramics, and another part of which is making delicious fudge. Not that I’m painting and making fudge at work, but there’s website stuff to do, and marketing, and stuff like that there.
BTW, Outlook is banned from my office. By me. Cuz I’m in charge.
I spend most of my days in a photo studio, creating wrinkles in fabric in just the right places, or interminable amounts of time moving small objects 1/16th of an inch to the left and then moving the same objects 1/16th of an inch to the right. (Did you know the industry lingo for 1/16th of an inch is a “hair”?) Sometimes, if I’m really really lucky, I get to perfectly lace hundreds of pairs of athletic shoes. Then I go home and drink several glasses of wine and try to pretend I’m not developing a bad case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
At least I get to work on a Mac.
Mrs. Tuna hates Mac, it is the work of the devil. Work now? Not so much, got laid off last month.
I freelance and multi task by doing laundry, dishes, reading bossy and designing graphics and websites. I love it!
Dear Bossy,
Also I reset password, and unlock accounts. And I tell people to reboot their computers a lot, and other computery things.
I answer phone calls from nurses, doctors, and all other sorts of hospital personnel who don’t know how to use their Outlook.
Fun help desk story from this week: Lady calls to say that the printer is out of toner. Ok, no problem, I’ll set up a ticket and send that to your local…what? Oh, no….they HAVE toner, it’s just on a high shelf where she can’t reach it. So she called the help desk. I would have helped her, but my arms are short too. Especially when trying to reach from Denver to New Jersey.
Oh Bossy, you make me laugh! You can move things around in Outlook to make it more like what you’re used to. At work I am a Mid-Level State Government Bureaucrat. i write procurement documents. Hahahahaha. What I really like to do, but seldom get to do anymore, is write computer software documentation, although the fact is that no one ever reads the documentation.
Oh Bossy, what I do at work…I started in June. My first day this awesome woman trained me from 9-12 then went to the boss and gave her notice then never came back. (could I really be THAT bad?) Then a guy in the office was so offensive that he caused the other woman in the office to quit and then he was fired. And for the rest of the summer I did all three of these people’s jobs plus my own. And now in October they are just getting around to hiring replacements for these people. So I’ve been crazy busy but so glad to have my job in the midst of all this madness. I am happy you have a job too and hope it turns out well for you.
For the last 15 years I have run a reception / visit program desk at a really cool, UBER smart kid college with all macs. Although I am nearing retirement I have tons more facebook friends in their 20s than in their 60’s. My husband uses outlook and is always dissing my t-bird. and gmail.
Well, tomorrow I’ll go back to work, supposedly to defend the tax base of the suburban county next to the City where I live. Having been out last Thursday and Friday, I will spend most of my morning wrestling with Outlook and however many hundreds of e-mails awaiting my attention. It’s almost not worth taking time off! Oh, yeah: that will be after discussing the World Series with colleagues. Go Cards!
please correct that to “e-mails that are awaiting my attention.”
It’s hard to write & listen to the ball game at the same time.
LOVE your new “co-workers” Bossy! You so funny!
At work, I cook for three kids, feed them, do their laundry, clean up after them, help with their schoolwork, volunteer in their classrooms,check them and their classmates for lice (yay!), chair the board of their preschool, provide wise counsel when they need it, teach sunday school, drive them to their various soccer & swim practices, lead girl scouts, and. . . pour myself a tall one when the workday is done
I’m a nurse who works for a health insurance company and gets to call our members to try and talk them into going for a colonoscopy. One old guy’s reply, “Absolutely not. I don’t even like people sticking their finger in my face.” bwaaaahhaaaaa!
I am an Architect which sounds more glamorous than its pay! A lot of my colleagues have lost their jobs and I am thankful that I am still employed and making 20% less than I used to make three years ago.
What a funny post
#20 needs a nap right now!
#51 is a hoot!
My working days are over, but I do like Outlook. And, OMG am I ever grateful they didn’t use Macs where I worked.
btw-did your saintly coworker give you the nifty hat?
Ooops it is #23 that needs a nap, but I loved her post. #20 is doing fine.
At work I lead a psycho-education group for 8th grade students. I meet one on one with 7th and 8th grade students to hear all of the drama that goes on in their day. Sometimes I panic at work when I hear about some of the things they get into. And sometimes I sit around and wonder where these 7th and 8th graders are when I send a call slip for them and they don’t show up.
When I’m not testing saltwater samples and shellfish samples for fecal coliforms, biotoxins or viruses, or shucking clams and mussels or sterilizing contaminated test tubes or washing said test tubes or making media or mopping the floor or making distilled water or testing the pH of things or looking at tiny creatures under a microscope, I am reading blogs like this one and dreaming of a life outside of the lab in the big bad world and dreaming that maybe next year is the year i will get a tan!
They’re lucky to have you, Bossy!
I drink lots of coffee, sue some people, and make sure the Glade “plug-in” air fresheners are relatively new, because I drink lots of coffee.