The most work messa...
 

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The most work message ever

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Teams message from our manager this morning:

"If those of you in the office today see four new starters, please make them welcome. They are on Jen's team".

Entire team:

"Who is Jen?"


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 10:24 am
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Ron Pickering's sister, Jen.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 10:27 am
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New starters please log onto the intranet and read the policy and procedures section

new starters: no IT access yet

🙂


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 10:37 am
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new starters: no IT access yet

No laptop, No security pass, No Desk and No Chair.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 10:42 am
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No internet access.

Phone IT helpdesk.
"We can't deal with that, we need you to log a ticket on our self-service portal"

Right - and how do you expect me to do that when I have no internet access and the self-service portal is on the company's restricted intranet site which I can't access without being logged into the system...?

Ah.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 10:45 am
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Well I for one warmly welcome the new starters on Jen's team, whoever he/she may be.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 10:51 am
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Ron Pickering’s sister, Jen.

Louise's sister. She's just like Louise, but just a bit less friendly.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 10:57 am
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OP, if you work for Reynholm Industries, Jen's team are probably in the basement sadly failing to negotiate the choppy waters of Four New People All At Once.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 11:21 am
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Every monday.

"Timesheet"


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 11:23 am
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For those of you asking "Who is Jen?" please refer to my message from 27 July introducing Jen.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 11:28 am
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You're just being negative 🙂


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 11:30 am
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TBH I was in the office so infrequently that pretty much everyone looked like a new starter to me. Even Jen.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 11:31 am
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Jen is the leader of the new team of 4 - and you're now the old team and surplus to requirements! 🙂


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 11:32 am
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For those of you asking “Who is Jen?” please refer to my message from 27 July introducing Jen.

I can't find it. IT says my mail client auto-deletes messages after 2 years.
Does Jen still work here?


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 11:33 am
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Jen is the leader of the new team of 4 – and you’re now the old team and surplus to requirements!

So the new starters are Famine Death Pestilence and War?


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 11:35 am
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tomparkin

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OP, if you work for Reynholm Industries, Jen’s team are probably in the basement sadly failing to negotiate the choppy waters of Four New People All At Once.

Where is the like button?


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 11:38 am
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Every monday.

“Timesheet”

Every tuesday

"Timesheet. Now"


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 11:39 am
 db
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Welcome to Jen's new team.

Doesn't matter where or when, tell me if you see Jen
If you see my friend


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 11:42 am
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Entire team:

“Who is Jen?

A friend of mine started a new job - and on the first day discovered that she'd been given an email address, an ID badge etc, all with the wrong first name. Then found out that press releases had also gone out announcing her to the public, in her new role, with the same wrong name.

So she thought - 'pfft, why not' and decided rather than go through the hassle of getting it all changed that from them on she'd be 'Jen'. And a couple of decades and several jobs later she's still Jen.

So - OP - 'Jen' maybe isn't a person but a state of being. You don't chose to be Jen, Jen is something that comes to you, when its your time.  Maybe this is a sign and its your turn to be Jen.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 11:50 am
 a11y
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Ron Pickering’s sister

Who?


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 11:54 am
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Pah! My place normally oes a "meet the new person" post on the Intranet with a photo, happens for everyone except... I started at the beginning of the pandemic and boss decided it was probably unwise for me to have such a post announcing me to the world. Four years lter and I still have to start presentaitons with a "Who am I?" slide because people don't know I exist.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 11:55 am
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Thread shock: Jen is the boss.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 11:59 am
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“Who is Jen?”

In the basement with Moss and Roy?  She looks after "The internet"...


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 11:59 am
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I'm Jen!

... and so's my wife!


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 12:20 pm
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You’re just being negative 🙂

THISTHISTHISTHISTHIS.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 12:23 pm
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Jen and the art of motorcycle maintenance


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 12:26 pm
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Can any of them fix any of the 5 broken (of 7 total) boiling water taps (and cold filtered water) we have in this office? If not, just send them to the filing room.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 12:26 pm
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The email servers are currently down. We will email updates as the situation develops.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 12:28 pm
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Knowing exactly what MCTD does for a living, I can indeed confirm that @thepurist is correct.

These are the additional resources that chancellor Rachel Reeves has been preparing to join our specialist teams of inspectors.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 12:38 pm
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No laptop, No security pass, No Desk and No Chair.

Because despite their manager knowing about the new hires for three weeks, they chose to notify IT and Facilities at 4:57pm on the Friday ahead of them starting on Monday.

So – OP – ‘Jen’ maybe isn’t a person but a state of being. You don’t chose to be Jen, Jen is something that comes to you, when its your time. Maybe this is a sign and its your turn to be Jen.

Jen Buddhism?


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 12:38 pm
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Wrong thread


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 12:47 pm
 mert
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Every monday.

“Timesheet”

Our time sheet system sends an automated email every monday between midnight and 4 am telling us we have unapproved time cards, usually from last week.

The system also won't allow you to approve them before finishing time on friday.

There are around 30000 people receiving these emails. Around 12 000 people don't even have ready access to their email accounts. And time cards are filled in automatically based on swipe in/swipe out, and approved by shift lead. Another 8000 (including me) don't have an official start or finish time and time cards simply exist to make sure we get paid...

Because despite their manager knowing about the new hires for three weeks, they chose to notify IT and Facilities at 4:57pm on the Friday ahead of them starting on Monday.

My first employer didn't even notify them until after i'd started and filled in a massive stack of security stuff. This was even after i'd been on a grad training scheme for 4 months, regularly in discussions with my future manager.

They then took a further 4 months.

In that time I'd actually joined the local cycling club, done a few of their events, befriended some guys in the club, worked out that Glenn worked in IT support for my employer, asked a couple of Q's of him, so he popped up and connected me, then got a mate to create the correct accounts and get me in the system. Connected me to MoD and DoD servers and so on.

Then the guy who got the actual ticket rolled up and asked why everything seemed to already have been done...

The department was eventually contracted out to a third party and things got worse. (The penalty clauses that were in the contract meant that they were paying my employer over a million quid a week, on a contract worth 90 million a year).


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 12:57 pm
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Interestingly, I'm in Team Jen. And my work involves timesheets. Makes you think 🙂


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 1:11 pm
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4:57pm

As if IT are still round at 4:57 on a friday.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 2:08 pm
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Depends where you work. Sometimes those poor bastards stay late every damn day trying to keep the wheels on.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 2:12 pm
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Knowing exactly what MCTD does for a living, I can indeed confirm that @thepurist is correct.

You beat me to it! Hope you are well up there.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 2:18 pm
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As if IT are still round at 4:57 on a friday.

...

Depends where you work. Sometimes those poor bastards stay late every damn day trying to keep the wheels on.

This was usually me when I was in IT.  The Warehouse staff would take the piss when I rolled in at 10am, with scathing witticisms like "afternoon, Alan!"  What they didn't see because they were queuing up at the exit at 4:59pm was I'd routinely be there for another two hours after they'd left, actually getting some useful work done rather than being mithered every five minutes.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 2:30 pm
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new starters: no IT access yet

On the first Wednesday in August, thousands of junior doctors change hospitals every year. And yet NHS HR and IT departments somehow get taken by surprise by this.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 2:35 pm
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“If those of you in the office today see four new starters, please make them welcome. They are on Jen’s team”.

Entire team:

“Who is Jen?”

Surely it would have been one person saying "Who is Jen" followed by a variety of +1 messages or a ?or ?on the original message 😉


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 3:18 pm
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1 email to the entire company of 3,500 people welcoming the new starter "Jen"

2,500 Reply To All saying "Hi"

3,000 Reply to All telling people not to Reply to All

??? Auto Reply TO All with Out of Office messages

5 Days of deliberate and accidental ri-igniting the email storm that drowned all other emails.

1 email to the entire company of 3,500 people explaining "Jen" had left after her induction week

2,500 Reply To All saying "Bye"

3,000 Reply to All telling people not to Reply to All

??? Auto Reply TO All with Out of Office messages

5 Days of deliberate and accidental ri-igniting the email storm that drowned all other emails.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 3:29 pm
 IHN
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I know I trot this one out whenever we talk about this stuff, but this is an actual email I got at work and is, in it's own way, brilliant.

Firstly, we have signed a transformational outsourcing deal with xxxx which will deliver an increase to our cost synergies from the £112m per annum in 2013, which we will still hit on time, to £143m per annum by 2015. This deal de-risks the embedded value, contractualises the delivery of the cost synergies, and it de-risks the execution of our plans, allowing us to focus on the other opportunities we have as a business.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 3:44 pm
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@ratherbeintobago this is my son. Was supposed to start last Wednesday. Looking like he starts tomorrow now, Tuesday, almost a week late, but still no it access.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 4:41 pm
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we will still hit on time

I'm finding it hard to not misread this.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 5:31 pm
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Good to see that General Melchett's School of Leadership has more alumni than all the nations universities put together.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 5:32 pm
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I worked at a large tech firm that sounds a bit like sauce...

An email went out to the entire GAL, 150k users, in error. There was then a multi day storm of 'please take me off this circulation list' etc - CC all. And on it went. After day 4, the MD stepped in with a very firm STOP! NOW!


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 8:15 pm
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@IHN was that a company now with no vowels?


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 8:32 pm
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FFS Jen's the IT help desk chatbot.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 9:00 pm
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I regularly got emails telling me someone I never knew had started, was having a leaving do.

Eventually I joined them having a leaving do.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 9:05 pm
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It’s threads like these that I wish I didn’t post under my real name.


 
Posted : 13/08/2024 10:49 pm
 IHN
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@IHN was that a company now with no vowels?

You mean the one named after a Scottish city? Nope.

However, let's have a little quiz

1) Name the massively successful sitcom that had characters called Joey Ross, Phoebe, Rachel, Monica and Chandler

2) Name the Des'ree  single of the 90s, where she famously professed to preferring eating toast to seeing ghosts.


 
Posted : 14/08/2024 7:35 am
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The sales manager coming round to ensure everyone says well done, on WhatsApp, to the sales team... for basically doing their job.


 
Posted : 14/08/2024 7:45 am
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Lots of people in including HR off on holiday this week because schools are back.

Which obviously means lots of new staff. All that paperwork is not sitting on empty desks. (Well it's not because most of them are still working from home so add that in as another delay).


 
Posted : 14/08/2024 8:03 am
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2,500 Reply To All saying “Hi”

We had a woman that sent a notification to the whole company telling us she was going on holiday. Triggered a couple of days e-mail arseholery until the IT team put a stop to it because the e-mail system was at risk of failure.  ?

Emojis still not working! Blimey.


 
Posted : 14/08/2024 9:13 am
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We had a woman that sent a notification to the whole company telling us she was going on holiday. Triggered a couple of days e-mail arseholery until the IT team put a stop to it because the e-mail system was at risk of failure.  ?

We had something similar - emails getting backed up in the system so no-one was sure if the email they'd sent had been read and not actioned or if they were supposed to have received an email themselves...

So everyone started adding Delivery Receipt and Read Reciept notifications.

Unsurprisingly, this did not assist the backlog of emails problem; in fact it made it exponentially worse as every email sent then generated at least one further email automatically.

IT emailed us all asking us to please stop this practice. An email that 80% of people didn't get for about 3 days.


 
Posted : 14/08/2024 9:18 am
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Ron Pickering’s sister, Jen.

I'm stunned that you think any of Ronnie (do you know who I am) Pickering's family are in gainful employment.

I have no doubt they get emails from DWP but I would bet it isn't employee related


 
Posted : 14/08/2024 9:37 am
 mert
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We had the email thing.

Last thing in the afternoon before a long weekend. Someone in corporate comms forgot to tick a box regarding OOO/autoreplies and in between sending the mail and the first of the OOO/autoreplies getting back to the senders inbox, switched their own OOO on. Which then responded to all the incoming mail.

Not 100% clear on all the details, but there was something like 10 million emails in the system within a couple of hours and a million being added every 15-20 minutes, then the system stopped. Took two or three days for IT to finish zapping everything.

AFAIK there were changes made to autoreply and OOO by microsoft (this was in the mid 90's, not recently).


 
Posted : 14/08/2024 9:49 am
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I'm genuinely astounded at the number of organisations who don't have "send to all" as a highly restricted privilege.

AFAIK there were changes made to autoreply and OOO by microsoft (this was in the mid 90’s, not recently).

Yeah, sounds about right. I've seen this happen (and had to recover from it) back in NT4 days. I think the default behaviour was changed circa Exchange 2003, so that you only ever send OOO once per sender.


 
Posted : 14/08/2024 11:07 am

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