Team JP – www.officesleuth.com

Are You Done? Now Change!

JP, what a fucking character!

OK, I guess you can tell that I’m having one hell of day so far. Did you ever work for someone who you’ll swear just makes you change the way you do things to make your life a living hell?

If this rings a bell then you know JP.

We have a lot of monthly reports and analyses that we put together. After much fanfare and discussions between myself and JP and my team, we’ve gotten the monthly analysis down to a science. So this morning I’m sitting with JP reviewing the monthly processes and he gets that look. That fucking confused, stupid look on his face and I just know that my life is going to get a lot harder for absolutely no reason.

“What if we…”

That’s the way it always starts. We get a process perfected, we are able to get things done timely and accurately and then I get the fucking WHAT IF WE…

This happens at least every 5 or 6 months, it’s almost like JP sits up at night thinking, they’re way too efficient and they’re not working ridiculous amounts of overtime so how can I change everything they do from an automated process to be the most manual method that can possibly be done?

Here’s the thing, this has gone on for years. It’s always the same thing. He gets a fucking bug up his ass to shake things up but then next month we’ll take twice as long to get things done and he LOVES his data. So he’ll start to get (what I call) data withdrawal and after he sees how long his brilliant new methods actually take he makes us go back to the old method the following month.

(If I had to guess, The Gestapo demands information that JP doesn’t have yet so JP has to scramble and he doesn’t want to have to scramble the following month so he makes us go back to the original (perfected) procedures. (Until about 5 or 6 months later when he must get an idea and then he totally forgets what he went through with The Gestapo a half a year ago.)

After the big meeting I’m the one that has to spread the good word to the rest of my team. They know it will eventually happen but they still freak out when it does. (Imagine being able to put in a date and push one button to run a report but now, since you work for JP and that fucking bug crawled up his ass, he makes the process so antiquated that it would be like writing out a huge report by hand, in comparison)

JP is a data freak, he loves data so he asks us to provide ridiculous amounts of details (so much that he’ll never have enough time to go through it all even if he closed his office door, opened a cot and spend the entire week living at The Company.)

He’s like a hoarder, a data hoarder.

So I tell the group JP’s new plan.

“THAT FUCK!” screams Skank Sister # 2.

Now here’s the thing (and I’d never admit this to JP) but the Skank Sister # 2 works for me but her sister works for The Gestapo, so when she is really pissed it’s easy to convince her to mention things in the vicinity of The Gestapo (if not outright telling him.) Remember Skank Sister # 2 always rats on the lower man on the totem pole. (So she’d rat anyone in my department out to me, she’d rat me out to JP, and she’d definitely rat JP out to The Gestapo.)

So my plan was the next time JP got the data bug to casually “suggest” to Skanky # 2 to tell The Gestapo (you have to make her think it was her idea or she won’t do it, at least not willingly.) So by firing the group up and mentioning that I hoped The Gestapo doesn’t think it’s us causing the hold up next month, I think I planted the seed.

I hope she mentions it to him before next month’s reports are due. If The Gestapo reminds JP not to be late then JP will rescind the new details before we actually have to do them.

It’s not like I don’t want to do my job, but doing busywork just to make sure we’re busy isn’t productive, it’s a bullshit waste of time if you ask me.

The lesson learned: Data Hoarding is not cool.

JP, Master Storyteller (or Consummate Liar – You Choose)

Here’s another quality of JP’s that I find fucking irritating, and I’m almost positive that you’ve known someone like this at some point in your life.

I call it – JP, The Master Storyteller.

Get this – Every time anyone, and I mean anyone tells a story in front of JP, within five minutes he’s telling a story that completely outdoes anything you’ve just said.

Like a girl might be giddy and telling of exactly how romantic her, now, fiancé proposed to her over the weekend. She’ll have a gaggle of spinsters surrounding her in awe at this romantic chap and while she’s still glowing and in the spotlight – it’s fucking a regular laugh riot until – in walks JP.

And he always listens to the story that someone is telling and then he breaks into the conversation by saying … “That’s nothing” and then “You think that was…” (Fill in the adjective of your liking… good, bad…etc.) It was one of him favorite things to say… that’s nothing.

He’s pretty much the boss of everyone that pulls this shit so no one has ever told him to get the hell away or anything like that.

Within five minutes he is telling how he took his wife to Italy and proposed on a beach while eating fucking freshly caught Sardines right from a recently docked fishing boat where the captain and crew had a little grill cooking some of their catch.

Immediately, the attention has turned from this super-excited, newly engaged twenty five year old to this attention seeking fifty something who either is so narcissistic that he HAS to be in the spotlight or he can’t be happy unless he outdoes everyone else in the vicinity or he is a consummate liar.

I’m sure it’s one of those three but I haven’t been able to pinpoint which one.

The whole reason I bring this up is because up until today it bothered me but I didn’t really get the urge to physically strike him, it was more of an annoyance.

“That’s nothing, you think that car is fast, when I had my Porsche….”

“That’s nothing, you think you ate a lot, after a jog eight miles I eat…”

Now, like I said, this kind of crap doesn’t really bother me. I can easily let it go with nothing more than a slight irritation, maybe exasperation at times, but never do I get the feeling of rage.

Until today that is.

So a girl who works about 30 minutes from The Company didn’t show up this morning. She sits outside my office and her manager is in one of the offices next door. So when she didn’t come in I saw her manager ask her people right outside my office if anyone has heard from her.

Nobody has. Then the next thing the manager stops in my office to ask me what I think she should do and/or if I heard from her. (I don’t know why I would have heard from her since she doesn’t even report to me – but I said no and told her I’d help her out)

We start by looking in the company directory for her phone number while in my office when we hear a message over the loudspeaker. Over the loudspeaker comes a message to this other manager that she has a call on line 6.

She asked me if I mind if she uses my phone. “No problem”, I say and she calls into line 6.

Apparently, this missing girl had a bad car accident and basically totaled her car. She didn’t get badly hurt but she was shaken up and sitting on the curb while the cops sorted out the details. The manager basically asked if she was ok and if she was going to get checked out at the hospital, just to play it safe.

With that JP walked in and immediately had to know what was going on.

We told him about the accident and immediately he said “I need a report that she is working on, what time can she be here?”

We both looked at him with a face like “Really??” and the manager mentioned that she told her to just get checked out at the hospital.

“Put on speaker, put her on speaker…”

With that, JP sat his ass on my desk and basically took over the phone call. Telling her not to waste her time going to the hospital and all that kind of crap.

When she got around to asking how he would like her to get in because her car has been totaled…. I sensed it coming,

and I was right….

“That’s nothing, you spun around in the ice and smashed the side of your car into a cement divider on the highway, once when I had my Datsun I was run off the road in the snow by a couple of trucks. I skidded head first into a telephone pole, totaling my car.

They wanted me to go to the hospital but I said screw that I had a proposal that day and I was like the most dedicated employee at the firm.

Did I ever tell you about when I worked at that firm?”

I was fucking speechless, a girl that worked in The Company just was in a bad accident where her car was totaled and within five fucking minutes of him walking into the room he’s usurped the entire conversation.

Fuckin’ JP…

JP

JP is part of the senior management team and also I have the privilege of being one of his direct reports.

On the surface JP is a swell guy, calm, mild mannered. The kind of guy that you would go out to lunch with, order a big ass plate of sushi to split with the table and he’d have you pay for the lunch. While this might sound like I’m getting the big screw it’s really a huge benefit to us in two ways.

First, if he charges lunch then his expense report will get reviewed by the Gestapo, and nobody want to be scrutinized by the Gestapo.

Secondly, I love putting expensive “Business Lunches” on my card because I get the points. JP likes me to charge the lunch because he reviews my expense report… The Gestapo doesn’t have to get involved. A win/win.

The one thing I failed to mention about JP, before you start to gush over what a swell guy he sounds like. JP, to the outside world is just that, a swell guy but to those of us who’ve had the privilege of working directly with him – behind closed doors – you get to see the other side of JP.

Most people who report to him think he has a multiple personality disorder but I like to fantasize about him doing too much dope in the 60’s and his brain’s come undone and he was left with what I affectionately call the Jekyll and Hyde syndrome. There is no other explanation that I can come with. You could walk together in the hall and he’ll be the most chipper man you’ve ever seen, albeit a phony scumbag who is dying to get you alone in his office. On the surface all the other minions of the company think he is just dreamy.

Once the door closes, HELLO MR. HYDE…

And now I have to meet with this pain-in–the-ass for lunch to go over the new plans for the budget. My day couldn’t get any worse, I’m serious, drinking a drop of strychnine and spend the next week in the hospital recovering in agony would probably be more pleasurable.

Hung over with skank sister induced rage and now JP.

In keeping appearances, at the sushi restaurant (like in the hallway) he is the sweet lovable JP that everyone (who doesn’t work directly for him knows and loves) but unfortunately he ordered lunch in. We’re eating while we work, in his office.

The only thing worse than dealing with Mr. Hyde while trying to work is dealing with Mr. Hyde while you are TRYING TO EAT while trying to work. I might as well toss my sandwich in the trash because I can guarantee I won’t get to eat three bites of this thing.

I won’t bore you with all the details of my meeting but I will give you the highlights:

Casually met at his door with great, big hello (so all of the minions nearby can see what a swell guy he actually is)
Door closes
He points to my lunch (by now his secretary knows what I eat.)
Pulls up the budget file.
I take the first of three bites of my sandwich
He points to revenue we’ve budgeted for Branch # 2 and says “that won’t fly”
I say “but that is sales that the branch manager can realistically obtain, it’s over and above his current trend, I don’t think he’s sandbagging the budget”

Oh, JP loves the word sandbagging… I just want to be clear it’s not my word.

I quickly take the second bite of my sandwich
He responds, “Well, we’re just going to have to give them something to work for and then he increased their budgeted revenue up by 25%.”
I take the third and last bite of my sandwich.
“That isn’t realistic, that is about 30% greater than any month in the past 3 years. This is a recipe to fail.”
He goes, “Well, I can’t make it easy on them.”
With that I knew anything that came out my mouth was futile.

In the next move he grabs the rest of my sandwich and puts it into the container that housed his half-eaten salad and tossed them both in the trash.

He goes, “You weren’t going to eat that were you?” He always asks me if I’m going to eat something the second after he throws it away. The only meal he finishes every bite is sushi, it’s the only time I eat lunch with JP that I actually enjoy eating lunch with JP.

“So run along, make those changes and tell those stupid mother fuckers at the branch that they better think of a way to hit those numbers.”

“Yes sir” I said (well maybe not sir but I always feel like I’m getting orders from a drill sgt. when dealing with good, ol’ JP)

So I start to leave his office. This was actually a relatively mild experience to what normally happens. I think he blamed the branch managers for the numbers so I didn’t get the brunt that I normally would.

“Oh, and tell him the stop fucking trying to sandbag the budget. Make sure you tell him that!”

Sometimes, I’d like to drop a sandbag on his fucking head…

I take a deep breath as I leave his office, at least I don’t have to deal too often with the Gestapo then my life would truly be hell.