Bullshit Job » New Guy

Worst Desk Location Ever

Cubed00d — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:04:46 +0000

After getting laid off as a highly-paid programmer at a startup I had the good fortune (??) to land another job within 2 weeks. It was a three month contract at another startup
company in a high-rise downtown. The pay was much less and I had no benefits – but I had to take it or lose my unemployment checks. Despite the circumstances, they saw fit to assign me the title “Senior Sofware Consultant” – a bullshit title if I’ve ever heard one.
On my first day, I arrived promptly at 8:30 and they had: no desk, no chair, no computer, and nothing for me to do. My new boss was out of the office.

Feeling less than welcome, I spent the first few hours putting my Senior Software Consultant skills to work with the the office manager (a rarely helpful, frequently interrupted, and psychotically perky woman in her 40s – you know the type)
removing my desk from a cardboard box and putting it together with a hex-wrench. When I was finished, they had me watch
someone else program who was very annoyed at my unexpected presence and much too busy to explain anything. My first day ended with me being introduced by some manager in a department-wide meeting as “our new programming resource”.

When I showed up the next day they had put my rolling mini-desk in a busy little hallway sandwiched between two cubes. No desk had been in that location before.
Consequently, as people walked around the corner during the course of the day, I was collided with no less than five times and endured endless, inane and consistantly smirky “Oh, look where they have you!”-type comments. The two cubes on either side of me were occupied by none other than my boss…and his boss.

Clicky for bigness

How Many VPs Does It Take To…?

Cubed00d — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:48:40 +0000

I am pleased to announce that Todd [last name misspelled and later corrected by SVP] has been appointed to the newly created position of Vice President, Group Marketing and will report to me. The dynamics of consumer marketing and circulation will warrant us growing our business through new revenue streams and channels and this role will be instrumental in identifying and executing on these opportunities. [Ed. Bullshit in boldface for your convenience. Evidently the company needs so many VPs they can't even get their names straight.]

Snacks

Cubed00d — Sun, 01 Dec 2002 21:48:21 +0000

2 Emails Received…

It has come to VP of Development [name]’s attention that the snack table in engineering has has exceeded $400 a week in costs. This is unacceptable, as we are trying to cut costs. A monthly budget for snacks has been allocated and when it’s out, it’s out.

Next email only minutes later:
Please welcome our new Project Manager, [name], he will be guiding our [project], which is already in progress. Please everyone assist him in getting up to speed.
[ed: I wonder how much this new, green Project Manager costs the company a week? And what is a Project Manager anyway? Seems like only Project Managers seem to know. I wonder how this guy scores on our quiz?]