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Ask HN: What is the worst bullshit thing you were asked to do at $JOB?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the worst bullshit thing you were asked to do at $JOB?

#11

Post by frompdx »

mikewarot wrote: post #8

It was the 1980s, and I had just started working in the stock room at the local Montgomery Wards (A department store similar to Sears). Less than 2 months in, most of my co-workers were arrested and taken to jail, (they had been stealing by the truck load!) leaving me to handle all the pickups (the dock at the back of the store where you get your TV, etc) by myself on the Friday before Christmas. I did the best I cou…

Interesting. My dad worked for Montgomery Wards in a warehouse and has lots of stories about Montgomery Wards setting up various traps to tempt employees to steal. Usually it was something like leaving high priced jewelry in a seemingly unwatched area, but there would be a security worker nearby hiding in a refrigerator box or something along those lines. This was in the late 1970s.

Re: Ask HN: What is the worst bullshit thing you were asked to do at $JOB?

#12

Post by mikewarot »

frompdx wrote: post #11
mikewarot wrote: post #8

It was the 1980s, and I had just started working in the stock room at the local Montgomery Wards (A department store similar to Sears). Less than 2 months in, most of my co-workers were arrested and taken to jail, (they had been stealing by the truck load!) leaving me to handle all the pickups (the dock at the back of the store where you get your TV, etc) by myself on the Friday before Christmas. I did the best I cou…

Interesting. My dad worked for Montgomery Wards in a warehouse and has lots of stories about Montgomery Wards setting up various traps to tempt employees to steal. Usually it was something like leaving high priced jewelry in a seemingly unwatched area, but there would be a security worker nearby hiding in a refrigerator box or something along those lines. This was in the late 1970s.

Maybe they had some sort of insurance scam going? Interesting

Re: Ask HN: What is the worst bullshit thing you were asked to do at $JOB?

#13

Post by platoscubicle »

I worked for a company that manufactured and applied a hybrid sealcoat/asphalt product. The product was transported in 10,000 gallon tankers. During the winter my co workers and I would have to clean out the residual product inside of the tankers with pneumatic air chisels. It was freezing cold dirty ass work, I'm very grateful I no longer have to work that job.

Re: Ask HN: What is the worst bullshit thing you were asked to do at $JOB?

#14

Post by aejnsn »

I used to work in a laboratory that performed sampling, analysis, and outfall structural monitoring all under one roof. I led a new LOB for this lab where results, reports, imagery, etc., could be retrieved online in their state/federal/auditor-provided formats. Essentially, the only task most clients had to comply with their ancient reporting requirements was download, print, and throw these in a filing cabinet. Yes, I know, horribly wasteful, but energy industry and explicit legal text.

I was working one morning, and received an urgent phone call straight for me, not the support personnel or anyone else as usual. Uh oh. It was a client’s environmental compliance manager, and she was whispering on the call and frantically speaking. I asked her, “what’s going on, why are you whispering?” ... “My auditors showed up by surprise and I don’t have any of this year’s reports! Can you guys upload them to my personal Dropbox?” Oh boy. I asked her to hold, let me get the GM to her, and we would take instructions from there.

Literally, this large client had signed a contract, paid for a service that displayed sampling, results, and structural inspections within a GIS solution. All she had to do to comply with audits was once a day/week/month, take a few clicks to export all the reports to one big PDF or ZIP archive. I got curious and checked the audit trail, she’d never even logged into the web app. This was like 6-8 months into the year, and we were her only lab vendor. Had she even been monitoring her sites?

Re: Ask HN: What is the worst bullshit thing you were asked to do at $JOB?

#15

Post by 52-6F-62 »

giantg2 wrote: post #7
52-6F-62 wrote: post #6

I was asked to defend myself against accusations of theft of hundreds of pounds of copper cable. My immediate supervisor was loading his pickup truck in the morning and carting it down to the scrap yard down the road before anyone got in. It took one of the truck drivers for the shop arriving early one morning to notice it before upper management even checked the security tapes which showed him loading his pickup for…

Sounds like the security company/guard was useless in their job.

There was only a night watchman. When they see a familiar face doing something on the grounds, especially one of authority, they don't question it.

Re: Ask HN: What is the worst bullshit thing you were asked to do at $JOB?

#16

Post by runjake »

1. Be CEO's personal tech support during off-hours, at my own expense (fuel, time, etc).

He lived in some rich person's castle that was a long drive from my downtown dumpy apartment. Never even offered any sort of compensation. I was an hourly employee at the time.

I (and others) got the then new-fangled Caller ID on our landlines, because of him.

2. Physically removing hostile/out of control/drugged out people who were in our office.

I am a network/system engineer.

Re: Ask HN: What is the worst bullshit thing you were asked to do at $JOB?

#17

Post by giantg2 »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #15
giantg2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the security company/guard was useless in their job.

There was only a night watchman. When they see a familiar face doing something on the grounds, especially one of authority, they don't question it.

Not at the time, but it seems pretty bad to accuse someone else without checking the tapes and, you know, investigating.

Re: Ask HN: What is the worst bullshit thing you were asked to do at $JOB?

#18

Post by ddgflorida »

I got layed off and was told if and only if I do another 20 hours of work to finish documentation would I receive 2 weeks of severance pay. I tried to explain severance shouldn't require extra labor but I did the work anyway and received ZERO severance. I knew that outcome was a possibility.

Re: Ask HN: What is the worst bullshit thing you were asked to do at $JOB?

#19

Post by diamonddan »

Worked as a gas station attendant with a small store. They were supposed to have two on staff—one on pumps and one inside—but instead only willing to have on person on the shift, so people would fill tanks and take off without paying when you were inside the store ringing up customers. If your register came up short, as it always did, they docked your pay the amount missing (from stolen gas). So they put the cost of their undermanning on us employees. My solution was to take payments in the store without ringing up the item on the register. At the end of my shift I was always ahead. They couldn’t figure it out. I never stole, but I wasn’t going to be taken advantage of.

Re: Ask HN: What is the worst bullshit thing you were asked to do at $JOB?

#20

Post by 52-6F-62 »

giantg2 wrote: post #17
52-6F-62 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was only a night watchman. When they see a familiar face doing something on the grounds, especially one of authority, they don't question it.

Not at the time, but it seems pretty bad to accuse someone else without checking the tapes and, you know, investigating .

I’m with you there, my friend.
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