Communications

No matter what job you do, you still have to work with people. Now while I'm a great advocate of diversity in all forms in the workplace, there are some days when I wish that everyone I work with was just like me.

Now when I need to contact someone in a hurry, I pick up the phone. It's a wonderful tool for speedy communication. So why is that some people have to send an email to you asking you to call them? They have my number. They have both my work number and mobile number. It's just to reinforce the power structure that exists, mostly in their minds. I'm more important than you so you call me pal! And of course when I call them during working hours, on their mobile just in case they're out and about or whatever, the phone rings out and I have to leave voicemail. And they don't return or even acknowledge the call. Maybe it's something to do with the fact that Ireland now has over 100% mobile phone usage. Maybe they've more than one mobile and I called the wrong one. Maybe I shouldn't bother in future and pretend to be as extremely busy as they like to appear and just wait til they get pissed off enough to call me. That should sort it.

Now students who are working between their college years are a great source of fun and frustration. And a great source of cheap labour. The adage "you get what you pay for" definitely holds true here. You end up explaining everything to them, telling them what to do, checking what they've done and then explaining to them what they should've done the first time. Now The Student at work is one of these. A nice enough person but Jaysus, what a drain on your time and emotions. I'm standing there, answering one of his questions and halfway thro' he interrupts me and fires out several other questions. Is it any wonder The Student doesn't know what to do. Sure I laugh 'cos if I don't I'll ending up levelling him.

Now technically capable people (nerds) like myself understand the difference between "files", "records" and "fields". The Student uses these terms interchangably when describing his work.

"So I'm gonna create 5 of those, right?" he says to me.

"5 of what?" I ask.

"Files".

"No, records - 3 in one file, 1 in a second file and 1 in the third file. Plus there's another fourth file with all those 5 records in it".

"Oh yeah".

Pause.

"What?" he says.

Cue detailed explanation...again.

"And" I say, " each of the records in the first 3 files have about 30 fields while the records in the fourth file have around 100 fields each".

"Ok. 5 files. No I mean records. With fields in the files. No, errm...no, wait. Why's that? I mean the thing with the records or fields. I mean how do you know how many fields there are?" he asks incredulously.

"Cos it's says so in the specs - they're the 2 large documents sitting on your desk that you and I went thro' together earlier".

"Oh yeah, right. I'll do that tomorrow".

And you know what I'll be doing first thing tomorrow, right?