Bis vor etwa 10 Jahren habe ich immer auf Baustellen gearbeitet. Jetzt bin ich auf einer Ebene angelangt, auf der ich mit Büromitarbeitern zu tun habe und ihnen bei bestimmten Dingen ein wenig Anweisungen geben muss. Ich dachte immer, dass die Büroangestellten Wunderkinderdinge erledigen, wie das Programmieren strategischer Computer-Sachen und das Verhandeln von Verträgen mit chinesischen Lieferanten.
Zweimal im letzten Jahr hat jemand eine XL-Tabelle hervorgeholt und damit geprahlt, dass er das selbst gemacht hat. Eine der Tabellen wurde so geändert, dass Aufträge mit hoher Priorität in Blau und Jobs mit niedriger Priorität in Gelb angezeigt wurden und die andere Tabelle nur Vorwahlen und Adressen von Websites enthielt, die wir in einer bestimmten Jobregion besuchen. Sie erklärten mir diese Dinge, als wären es bahnbrechende Tabellenkalkulationen, die die Branche veränderten, und ließen mich wissen, dass die Chefs nicht erkennen, wie talentiert sie sind.
Führen Sie alle nur die Dateneingabe anhand eines Skripts durch? In diesem Bürogebäude gibt es seit 20 Jahren Leute. Ich hörte, wie einer von ihnen sich einen Stellenbericht ansah und mich fragte, was ein Boiler sei, weil in einem der Stellenberichte eines Klempners stand, dass die Funkenelektroden am Boiler ausgetauscht wurden (er tippte es wahrscheinlich mit nassen Händen auf seinen Handys). Sie hatte den Polizisten nicht erwischt, nachdem sie 20 Jahre in der Bauindustrie genau die gleiche Arbeit erledigt hatte, um herauszufinden, dass Boiler wahrscheinlich Boiler bedeutete.
https://i.redd.it/8dl3zohfy82h1.jpeg
Von Theelfsmother
47 Kommentare
To quote Margin Call: „Speak to me as if talking to a small child or a golden retriever. It wasn’t brains that got me here, I assure you“.
No thinking allowed in the office. I’ve gotten sick of upper management not having cop on and the only thing that actually makes a difference is simply letting their mistakes or fuck ups happen. My dad once said to me after a particularly rough day that there’s „only so much you can do to protect people from their own ignorance. Sometimes you have to let them step in shite to learn why not to“
There will be a mix of stupid/normal/smart people in an office. Same as on site.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=3s&v=RYGYENxPNC4&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=3s&v=RYGYENxPNC4&feature=youtu.be)
Depends, I’ve worked in places full of thicks run by thicks and places full of geniuses led by geniuses.
I work in an engineering department full of engineers and we’re a pretty good bunch with our heads screwed on. But you have other departments like quality, validation, HR, finance, sales, supply chain etc.. so it could depend on what part of the building you’re sitting in.
You’ve likely overestimated them and well underestimated yourself.
Most people are just ploding along. Few have been somewhere years and do next to sweet fuck all while playing political games.
Lots places people just do the bare minimum as you’ll get zero reward for innovation. It’s rare to be in a place that rewards that’s tbh.
Builders will say shite like this and then argue that its simply not possible to set an arrival time and follow up on it
„whizz kid stuff like programming strategic computer stuff“
Its not 1980’s mate, maybe its you that should cop on
Is it just me that’s impressed by the Excel colour coding?
You called it an xl spreadsheet.
Is that opposed to an m or l sized spreadsheet?
Why did you swap the Y and Z keys?
Think you’ll find a booler on an XL spreadsheet
On these building sites you worked on, who was it that designed the buildings, brought them through the planning process, costed the job, procured the materials, programmed the job, ensured services were put in place, raised the finance to build it etc etc
etc
Not much. Innovation and rocking the boat are not encouraged. The next level up don’t want you showing them up!
Funny to look at a keyboard that laid out differently.
Why are there so many con artists in the building trade?
Life has many mysteries, I suppose.
It sounds less like the people in your office are especially dumb and more like you were told by someone when you were much younger that *you* weren’t particularly smart and internalised it.
Then when you realised your level, instead of it clicking that you were pretty smart, you just assumed that people you had been told were smarter than you must be doing whizz kid stuff you couldn’t possibly understand, when in fact they were doing the same dumbass shit as everyone else.
It’s like a weird external imposter syndrome.
Yeah too much thinking. „Theres no such thing as stupid questions“, is the biggest lie ever told.
Work “in an office” can cover anything from basic data entry to keeping everyone organized and everything running smoothly to PhD level analysis, so your question isn’t specific enough for an actual answer.
But if they’re showing you a spreadsheet they did that shows prioritization, it sounds like your organization has trouble with the “keeping everything organized and running smoothly” side of things and they’re showing you the tool they built to assist prioritization and improve that.
Also, an experienced person knows that it’s better to ask and confirm basic definitions than assume you know and end up with an ongoing cockup because someone meant something else.
And basic data entry is necessary for things like getting orders in, having a site to go to, having the appropriate inventory for the job, and getting paid.
Yes, every person working in an office is so mind numbingly void of critical thinking and logic that some higher power needed YOU, the main character, to step in and show how intellectually better you are than all of them because you saw a spreadsheet and someone made a mistake. Congratulations, you are now the smartest person to ever step foot in an office.
„I always thought office staff were doing whizz kid stuff like programming strategic computer stuff and negotiating deals with Chinese suppliers“
Some do, yes. You’re not especially likely to encounter them working in an admin job for a builders‘ merchant
While booler probably meant boiler, why make an assumption when it comes to electrics? For all they know a booler could be an important electrical component they hadn’t heard of ? (I know its not like but still, id encourage asking stupid questions rather than making stupid mistakes)
Booooooomers
“ xl spreadsheet “
You’re assuming you’re much better?
This appears to be a throw the bomb and run away type of posts.
I think this is more of a you problem. Starting with you not knowing how most office admin gets done and who by.
I’ve worked in Software Engineering and IT for over 20 years.
Everyone thinks they’re delivering nuclear reactor / moon landing level code. Everyone thinks they’re indispensable, or that their mate is, and that they’re all holding the whole company together.
This is not the reality. Sometimes it takes longer to solve problems when key people leave, but I’ve never seen anything fatal. You could lose a customer or two if you’re not careful, but it generally just makes people busy for a while.
There’s incredible hubris in the working world.
Thank god you’re here OP, will you man the fort whilst I go and dribble onto my keyboard? Good man yourself.
I too need a booler
That keyboard upsets me. And yes, offices are often full of people who think they are far more innovative and valuable than they actually are. It doesn’t help that the bar is often so low that any initiative is seen as groundbreaking.
It’s been ten years since you were on sites? I hate to break it to you but you also work in an office. A little less of the superiority complex and a little more patience and kindness will do you good.
Ah but Excel is a tricksy little bastard. They might have implemented some code that changes the colour of the cell based on the value, so if you type „High“ the cell turns red. That’s honestly, ‚buy me a beer because look how clever I am‘ level of Excel-ing.
A successful pivot table is almost as satisfying as an orgasm. I don’t even know what to compare a successful V Lookup to… 3 orgasms?
Don’t even get me started on successful use of PowerPoint.
Thinking? What is that? We are Borg!
IT worker here, 90% of admin data entry workers are average people with basic computing skills who can send an email and create a word/excel document. That’s all that’s really required of the job from the IT side (in a very basic sense, some jobs of course are a lot more advanced).
Any “whizz kids” that you could interact with will be working in IT or as external contractors for a job.
Also, learning the ins and out of excel beyond creating a few tables and filters is a genuine skill in my eyes. There’s so much you can do with it that not a lot of people bother to learn. My first successful pivot table and VLookup felt like I discovered fire.
David Graeber would have something to say
> Twice in the last year somebody has pulled out an xl spreadsheet and bragged that they did this themselves, one of the spreadsheets had been changed so that high priority jobs were in blue and low priority were in yellow and the other spreadsheet was just area codes and addresses of sites we visit in a certain region of jobs. They were explaining these things to me like they were landmark industry changing spreadsheets and letting me know the bosses don’t realise how talented they are.
I would imagine they had to look at a lot of data, interpret it, and then make that data presentable to people like yourself. You’re lucky their „xl“ spreedsheets are easy to understand.
It sounds like you’re working for a building contractor. The tech / programming in this industry is usually outsourced which means you won’t meet the office workers.
Also OP, you’re working with people you consider lazy/dumb? What does this say about your own position??
Love me a colour coded excel sheet.
I work in tech, do lots of tool building for internal use cases. Use plenty of ai etc etc. Currently working on a tool that will save infinite engineering & manger time, prevent incidents, and turns a quarterly process that would take weeks into a push of a button.
It started with a colour coded spreadsheet. That made it easier to pick out relevant data. Which in turn made it easier to find outliers. Continuous iteration. Automating relevant processes based on the finding. Iterations and so on.
Now I am the expert in that area, and can create a single tool that means nobody else has to be.
Clean, organised data is the foundation. Without it you can’t make all the cool things.
Yay for spreadsheets
A lot of office jobs are earning less than skilled trades and are glorified admin.
Some blue collar workers think anyone at a desk is earning 6 figures and is an oracle of knowledge. That isn’t the case, there is a huge range of skill levels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs
Bullshit office jobs that only involve bullshit computer work will most likely be replaced by AI very soon.
I was far too quick to jump to „well, what the fuck is a booler?“
There’s not that much correlation between people’s jobs and their intelligence. Unless you’re talking about doctors, engineers, barristers etc. And even then it’s often a specific type of intelligence rather than a quick mind. Often it’s just happenstance where people end up.
I’m an electrician by trade but I now work in an office environment with a lot of engineers and other professionals. The stuff that they talk about and make a big deal about takes up so much time and effort. I’m sat there thinking that they’re making things complicated for no reason. Just leave it up to the lads out on site, they’ll sort it. Then when I do have a relevant, difficult technical query they don’t want to know and will just refer me to a certain drawing or the manufacturers specifications. A lot of them are as useless as lips on a chicken.
I’ve worked in hospitality and now in the dairy machinery industry doing marketing for small companies. I usually end up being some sort of low level IT too. The amount of people in those offices and work spaces that use computers daily but don’t know one thing about computers boggles me. Ive done ECDL in school but am also quick to pick up computer things but christ I literally had to turn up the brightness of a 2nd in commands computer once.
They are also the same people who come to my desk asking for me to bend rules of time and space to get something to go „viral“. I explain the reasoning to them only for them to type it into ChatGPT „but chat says it can be done“ yeah, scroll down and see it needs a production crew which we cannot afford. Makes my eye twitch.
I’ve had a fairly high up person in the national branch of a big company send a contract document to one of our sales guys. He said his laptop can’t open it, it keeps crashing. Strange. I get it and it’s a Massive PowerPoint presentation… But when opened it’s a 18 page contract document thing…this guy who’s in charge of a lot of things went „oh yeah I want this to present to someone“…and clicker PowerPoint presentation instead of word. I get word is confusing and a bastard to move images around etc but christ alive.
It varies per person and position, but the keyboard in your thumbnail is a qwertz one not qwerty. So I would explain the odd typo.
Eh nothing now that AI is being forced down our necks in work. We have to show how much we’re using it and demonstrate how it’s helping us do our jobs better. I fucking hate it.
> Are you all just doing data entry off a script? There are people in this office building 20 years I heard one of them looking at a job report and asking me what a booler was because one of the plumbers job reports said changed spark electrodes on booler (he probably typed it on his phones with wet hands) she hadn’t got the cop on after 20 years in the building industry doing this very same job to figure out booler probably meant boiler.
This is someone who’s been burned before by not transcribing job reports faithfully, and instead of pretending they know what a booler is, they showed some curiosity and asked you.
A large proportion of work in any job is to cover your own ass. What if a booler was a new thing on the market? And she changes it to boiler, it’s gonna fall on her, companies don’t like people making mistakes and punish them for it instead Of accepting that mistakes happen. It’s a sad state of affairs but her bonus at the end of the year comes from lack of mistakes more than it does quantity of out put
Ah your just a miserable hoor.
First of all it’s an excel spreadsheet not an XL. You type that with wet fingers too?
Secondly, it’s not up to her to put the correct notes in it’s up to the plumber.
Thirdly, that’s not an English keep board, it’s seems to be German or something. So what would you know about office work, you don’t even know what the correct keyboard looks like.
Fourthly, you heard one of them looking at a job report and then they asked you a question about it? How did you hear someone looking?
Finally, he could have meant several different things, booler could have meant cooler? Why make that assumption and not just ask?