So for my next job…..

Ok, so this is my first post and I have to admit it’s a little scary. This whole thing started because of a friend of mine (Catherine, who’s blog can be found on the Blogroll) thought I should start one instead of IMing her all my crazy boss moments.

But it had to wait until I left the job, because lets just say that the semiconductor industry in Silicon Valley is not very large and someone would have recognized his quirks….and then I would have been fired, which would have been bad….

But since I quit anyways, I guess it doesn’t matter anymore

However, that leaves me with no crazy boss moments, since I left office jobs and went to work for Starbucks instead. Which, while sounding stupid and illogical at first, actually makes sense in the long run. But I’ll get into that some other time.

So, to start, some crazy former boss moments.

Lets just start with the entire way he works. He does research (very good research actually) on the computer industry and cannot type (and at 60something, refuses to learn). If you stop and think about the fact that he produces voluminous reports on computer parts and opportunities in the tech industry, you will wonder how, exactly, these huge reports are produced. Let me take you through the process.

• He either handwrites or uses speech recognition software to get his thoughts on paper.
• Handwritten notes must be typed up using specific templates and formatting
• Speech recognition documents have to be corrected. Meaning I had to listen to him speak in my hear while reading what the program produced and correcting as necessary. This guy breathes heavily and has an accent, so it could get a little interesting. If you were watching me you’d see me jump occasionally. To speed up the process I’d usually speed up the voice, which was like listening to the Chipmunks…probably Alvin.
• Docs get saved on zip disks (a network would be too much to ask for) and labeled with date, save time, and initials of person typing.
• Then someone has to double-check or “DC”, meaning comparing the handwritten notes with the typed version to make sure you got everything.
• The DC’d version goes back to him, for his (handwritten) changes
• I makes the changes on the computer (both his and the DC changes), print out another version with a new date and save time and give to someone to DC.

This process of DCing, his changes, and making the changes goes on until he decided he’s done with it.

THEN (oh, we’re not finished yet!) the paper is heavily edited, because this guy can’t write worth shit. Sentences are contracted, paragraphs are pulled together, word usage is edited, etc.

Oh, and he doesn’t even read his emails on the computer…..I would print out all emails, he would read them, write responses which I would type and give to him to review, and then send. Which was really annoying when someone would send over presentations for him to look at and I had to print out 100 pages from PDFs (huge PDFs will kill your printer in case you were wondering).

The best one was the “Happy Birthday” email he had me send to his son.