Endless office moves and pissing away cash
Every time someone gets bored of where they sit they decide to move, or the whole department moves. This isn't due to any business reasons, purely because they fancy a change. I've even had very senior managers move across the room to be nearer their team (an excuse), then ask to move back a week later as "it's too dark over there".

I've done about 30+ moves so far this year, and our company only has 100 people. Working in IT this means I get the pleasure of wading through all the shit and scum they stack up under their desks and humping their PCs around the building.

We've just had a big company meeting to tell everyone that we need to save a load of money as a main client has reduced how much work / money our company gets. Everyone in the company had to attend. People got laid off...

A department decides to move to another floor, and buy new funky shaped desks, even though the current ones are in 100% perfect condition. Managers sign this off.

Then a different department decides to move, even though there's not enough space for their department or storage for all their documents... So they're spending money on getting cupboards built.

And now they've decided to spend money on re-decorating large parts of the office... The parts that were done late last year!!

I wish I had something witty to say about it all, but unfortunately that's just a very small part of their daftness. Joy.
(Future Handsome Young Millionare, Sat 12 Jun 2010, 23:19, 4 replies)

*clicks hard*
I also work in IT, and the habit of Musical Offices is the bane of our lives.

What we find usually happens, no matter how many times we protest and ask for better planning next time, is that they'll actually move without telling anyone then get straight on the phone to IT with "Hey I just moved I NEED MY COMPUTER AND PHONE CONNECTING NOW!! Help, I can't do any work this is an emergency people will die the world will explode!!!" (wait, it wasn't such an emergency when you were spending 2 days moving your shit around because you were bored?) and so we have to drop everything else and get them sorted. Or they'll pick the one corner of the building that doesn't have any cabling nearby, or insist on the centre of an office that doesn't have floor boxes.

And yes, the amount of shit they stick to their monitors, side of PC, photos and birthday cards straddled over monitor and keyboard cables etc... eek.

As you say, there's always a lot of money pissage, not just our time (therefore wages on time that could've been spent doing something more constructive) but that of the maintenance crew and costs involving redecorating, changing walls, adding cables and termination, etc etc/
(Cloudane, Sun 13 Jun 2010, 0:52, closed)

^^ All this
They make me laugh at our place, You're an HR monkey, you moved without telling us, of course we have no idea where you're all sitting.. I've got 3 confused IT guys here in reception that have no idea either.. Here's one, why not let people know beforehand? Pah!
(Beer Elf Thought this was like a campfire, anyhow, on, Sun 13 Jun 2010, 10:59, closed)

Cronyism
Is also rampant as I work in the media industry. Virtually every time someone gets a job of any importance the first anyone knows about it is when an email goes out telling us to congratulate them. Never a chance for anyone else to apply as it was already decided (that the job goes to their buddy).

Zero notice new starters are another frequent thing; The fun part being they usually have no where to sit in the department they are supposed to be working with, as no one thought to make sure there would actually be a desk available. Que them asking us where the person can sit. Oh, and 'if they can also have a computer to work on as they're already in the building that would be great yeah'.

As for the office moves they should now be a little easier because we recently put IP phones at every desk and every computer runs through them, so we no longer have to patch any cables in. Yay.

Macs are another thing that bug me - I'm pro choice and happy that they exist, they do some great things and innovate. However they're still crap in a corporate environment. Give me a Windows PC any day! ;)
(Future Handsome Young Millionare, Sun 13 Jun 2010, 20:44, closed)

That's a sadly universal experience.
*clicks in agreement*
( monkeon schmonkeon, Mon 14 Jun 2010, 1:15, closed)