Dance like no one's watching

I suspect Fillet might have gone for a job interview last Friday ‘cos although our office allows dress down on Fri, she was wearing formal work attire.  In addition, she took half day leave for Fri afternoon.  I asked her what’s the reason for her not dressing down and she said she was meeting friends who dress very formally and thus she wanted to “match them”.  For someone who loves to dress down, that sounds like a mighty lame excuse to me.

In any case, I wouldn’t mind if she finds another job because she doesn’t seem very cut out for our business.  I mean, she sure isn’t the brightest spark around… this was a conversation we had this morning.

Fillet: If the premium terms of payment says 30 days, does it mean I have to write the exact date down?
Me: Yes.  Of ‘cos you have to specify the exact date in your billing.
Fillet: So if it says “30 days terms of payment”, I cannot just say e.g. 21 July 2010?
Me: Erm… but if it’s due 30 days from today, given that the month of June only has 30 days, then of ‘cos it’s 21 July 2010 right?
Fillet: [Points to calendar] So I have to count 30 days to get the date?
Me: *Pauses* if the month itself has 30 days, then obviously it will be the same date as today, just a month later right?  If the month has 31 days, then it’ll be one day less lah!  E.g. If it’s due 30 days from 21 July, then it’ll be 20 Aug lor!
Fillet: So I have to count lah?
Me: [Deciding that this is another of those "I can't out talk stupidity cases] Yah.

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Read something funny when i got to office this morning. There was this mass e-mail sent to the user group name, “Non-US Colleagues”. The 1st line of the e-mail, however, said this: “For all users outside the US, please ignore this e-mail which is meant for US colleagues only.

I couldn’t help laughing when i saw the mail. Funnier still, the sender was from our IT Dept..

Posted by Wordmobi

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I was quite incensed when I got an email from a London underwriter saying that he is not keen to underwrite contracts governed by Singapore law.  What a snooty, ill-informed London born Chinese.  Does he not know that Singapore law was derived from English law; that the English appeal courts have cited judgements made by Singapore courts in part of their verdicts; and that Singapore has been ranked by the World Bank as the easiest place to do business, for the third year in a row?

The stupidity I face everyday. 

For the full results of the World Bank survey, click here.

For more information on Singapore law, click here.

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Ok… I should be more forgiving.  The underwriter replied to thank me for the website on Singapore law and said that he will read up on it.  He conceded that his comment was due to his lack of knowledge of Singapore law.  (I gave the reason that I wanted him to be comfortable with Singapore law since it’s based on English law and I foresee more deals with him going forward). 

I suppose some people (even if their ancestry is from China), may never have stepped into Asia before. 

I can be such a bitch.

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This is what I call brilliance.

I received an email from an Indonesia colleague saying that the valuation report I asked for had to be divided into 5 files due to the large size.

Sure enough, there were 5 Adobe PDF parts… but all sent in 1 email.

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Was working late yesterday evening and saw HR online just before I left for the night.  Feeling bitchy, I told her about the run-in I had with village idiot equivalent in my office.  Now, this “village idiot” is from our IT dept.  Let’s call her ITM (IT Moron) for short. 

I saw the ITM sitting at Booze Queen’s desk so I asked BQ what happened.  BQ’s grouse was that her keyboard was not displaying symbols correctly.  For e.g., the # symbol became £ and so on. 

I told BQ that’s due to the Keyboard Input setting and could be changed from the Control Panel or the Language Bar at the systray.  But too late.  ITM was already hard at work on BQ’s pc.

She was working on her “solution” for some time and it obviously wasn’t successful.  I was wondering what on earth was taking her so long to fix something that could be done in like 4 steps.  Curious, I went over to BQ’s desk and to my horror, the ITM was deleting and reinstalling BQ’s entire user profile.  *Faints*.

I told BQ that wasn’t likely to work ‘cos your Windows setting is still defaulted to Keyboard Input – English UK.  But BQ was kind.  She said, “Never mind lah.  She already halfway through.  Just let her try lah”.

I was like er, ok.  But the ITM’s method didn’t work obviously so I got even more impatient (I mean how can someone who works in IT be sooooo stupid?) so I told ITM, “Actually you can just go to Control Panel & change the Regional & Language setting you know”.  (I didn’t bother to ask her to try the Language shortcut bar ‘cos I figured someone so stupid wouldn’t know it existed).

ITM was not happy.  Showing a black face, she said, “No.  I must do testing first”.  ITM then proceeded to delete the Keyboard from Device Manager and added it back.  Still didn’t work.  Good grief.  Test simi test?  Here I am offering her a solution and she says she still must test?  Duh.  Fed up, I walked away and said, “Wu liao”.

In the end, ITM gave up and said she had to escalate the problem to the bitchy IT girl.  *Rolls eyes*.  I can’t believe how stupid some people are.  A non-IT issue that can be solved in 5min, she had to do 45min of testing and still not solve it.  Duh.  After she left, BQ managed to resolve the problem herself. 

So last night, I offered to strike a deal with HR.  Fire the ITM and I’ll do her job, for 90% of her pay!  In these tough times, I think we need to chop off people who are obviously ill-equipped to do their job.  After all, if I take 5min to solve something she spends 45min on, assuming she works 9hr a day, I’ll only have to OT an additional hour to be able to do her jobscope.  Plus I’ll save the company 10% of the money paid to her.  Isn’t that a win-win situation for those of us who can work and the company?

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This is the stuff that gives me high blood pressure at work.  Not that I’m particularly mad about this or something but sometimes the stupidity just gets to me.

I sent this to the underwriter (u/wer) and asked him to confirm that my computation is correct.

The u/wer replied saying that I undercharged the premium ‘cos my table shows that the exposure ends on 1 Oct 2010 when in actual fact it ends on 31 Dec 2010.

I’m like duh?!  Sorry if I left out some details but there’s no change in the amount what!!  So I’m amending my table to this and resending it to him.

DUH!?!

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By my title, I mean to say that "dumb" found me.

Client’s Stupid Clerk: I’ve been trying to send emails to you.  It keeps bouncing back.  This happens everytime!  Can you please clear your mailbox?

Me: Er, my mail’s pretty ok.  Perhaps it’s the size of the email you’re sending?  I think there are a few attachments right?

CSC: You asked for all the documents right?  Legal opinions, loan agreement…

Me: Yes.  Do you know what’s the size of all the attachments?  I think my email server has a 5MB restriction per email.

CSC:  I don’t know lah.  The loan agreement is about 20+ pages.

Me: *Dumbfounded*

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When I was working at the phone-in helpdesk of a local ISP, I used to say I would one day publish a book titled "101 Stupid Users".  That could be module 101 for stupid users, or a compilation of 101 stories on stupid users… of which after they read the book, they wouldn’t be so stupid anymore.

Anyway, before I start on my "stupid users" story, let me tell you a story I heard from my colleague yesterday.  Her brother-in-law (BIL) is from the Jurassic ages.  He hates going to the bank so whenever he needs to get cash, what he would do is ring his provision store and order like loads of groceries and he’ll tell the provision shop owner, "Bring $2000 cash when you come".  So this way, the BIL gets his cash, together with his goods.

Recently, my colleague met the BIL again at some family gathering.  Very excitedly, the BIL said to her, "Tell you something.  If you ever want to get cash these day, you can just go to an ATM you know!  It’s so convenient!".

Bursting out laughing, my colleague said, "Oh my gosh!  Which age are you from?".

—————————–

P.S. Booze Queen – the colleague in question is your boss.  Hahahahaha.

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A friend of mine related this story to me on Sun…

My friend works as a pianist at a 6-star hotel.  During her break 1 day, she went to the kitchen to get a glass of water.  As she stood at the water dispenser with her drink, a pinoy trainee waitress came, carrying a half-filled cup of milk.  The trainee was about to fill up the cup of milk with hot water when my friend stopped the trainee to ask her what was she doing. 

The trainee’s most amazing reply was, "The customer wants skimmed milk".

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