Uhmm... maybe you should check your email?



  • Here's a little something to pass the time...

    This is a quote from my boss on his way to his desk: "Have you emailed me that report? I haven't checked my email."

    On a side note are there any new articles on the main page? I haven't checked. 



  • Arguably a rhetoric question, which could mean instead that he wants you to know that he cares about that report, or just as a reminder if you still didn't send it, or simply put : let me interrupt you with a silly question because I'm the boss.



  • Or just "I suspect you may not have sent me that report yet (but haven't checked) - so now is your chance to get it sent before I get around to checking..."



  • @aikii said:

    Arguably a rhetoric question, which could mean instead that he wants you to know that he cares about that report, or just as a reminder if you still didn't send it, or simply put : let me interrupt you with a silly question because I'm the boss.

     

    Yeah, I agree.  Definitely just a silly management technique to have an excuse to talk to someone.  The boss probably patted himself on the back after the encounter and thought, "Man, I'm really starting to connect with DOA."  



  • @GettinSadda said:

    Or just "I suspect you may not have sent me that report yet (but haven't checked) - so now is your chance to get it sent before I get around to checking..."

     

    Not as a boss, but that's the way I've used similar statements in the past to "gently prod" people who habitually slacked in getting me the info I needed to continue on a product. Gives them a nice face-saving option. Of course, a lot of them would ruin it by getting sheepish and admitting that they'dnot sent anything out yet and would do so right away. But I gave em the out.



  • I just usally get the:

    Boss: "why haven't you faxed over that report yet?"

    Me: "I did, 3 days ago"

    Boss: "No, you didn't, I just checked with the girls in the office, they didn't recieve it"

    Me: "OK, two seconds, I'll fax over another copy"

    I then print and fax the report, then, two hours later:

    Boss: "I thought you were going to fax the report"

    Me: "I did, two hours ago"

    Boss: "No you didn't I've been in the office for the last 2 hours and not a single fax came thru"

    Me: "Ok, hmm, is there any flashing lights on the fax machine"

    Boss: "Em, yeah, the second one is flashing red"

    I look at my one here (same model fax machine), and see that it's the out of paper light.

    Me: "Put some paper in the fax machine"

    Boss: mumbles...

     

    I found out later that there were 2 weeks work of faxes stored in the fax machine.

     

    I've had a similar conversation with the same boss about the weekly reports from the previous year, there were not on file so 'obviously' I had never emailed them to the office to have them print and file it. I got the boss to open his email and check his emails from that period and low and behold they were there, sent to <boss> and <office email>.



  •  You shold have faxed him over a doc on loading paper into the fax machine.



  • @kh_l2k said:

     You should have faxed him over a doc on loading paper into the fax machine.
    That's for novices. Real men just fax over blank pages for the fax to print on. @Hitsugi said:
    Me: "Put some paper in the fax machine"

    Boss: mumbles...

    What pisses me off the most about this type of behaviour is that over time the boss forgets his own fuckups and all he remembers is that employee x doesn't send in his reports on time.

     



  •  hey... is that avatar what I think itis... an upside-down cactoid man waving his cactoid arm...?



  • @Vechni said:

     hey... is that avatar what I think itis... an upside-down cactoid man waving his cactoid arm...?
    I'd pay good money to watch Vechni undergo an inkblot test.



  • I got one just as good:

    Boss: HEY! I TOLD YOU TO SEND ME THE F******N LDIF! I NEED IT NOW AND IT ISN'T ON MY INBOX!

    Me: I've been trying to send the file since yesterday. All my attempts bounced because your inbox is full. Haven't you noticed that?

    Boss: ...

    Me: By the way, I also put a copy for the LDIF in the "rack server". I even modified the motd so it would warn you upon login!

    Turns out he hadn't checked his email, and someone had sent him a 7Mb pr0n video, which filled up his email. He hadn't checked his email since, and he left really, really late that day. Seems he either didn't check his email, or decided to leave the video for ... erm... personal use.



  •  i agree with that its a most probly a reminder that he wants that report.

    Another option could be that he just wanted the gist of it so that he didn't have to read it.



  • The Boss might have just as well been busy doing something else, not wanting to waste time to go back to his workstation and check his email in case it wasn't even sent out yet. I've sometimes had my boss ask me that very question when he was running past my desk between meetings. Not much of a WTF IMHO.



  • @Vechni said:

     hey... is that avatar what I think itis... an upside-down cactoid man waving his cactoid arm...?

    Go play Darwinia, post haste! You can thank us both later.



  • My various bosses have done this frequently over time. Many times, it's that they really want the report by a certain time, but don't feel they have time to poll their email until then. As such, they want to make certain it's there when they do have time.

    I've found my bosses have tended to like the response of, "yes - it has a subject line of $distinctive_subject", unless the report request came over email. If the report request came over email, they expect it to be a "Re: $original_subject".



  • @tgape said:

    I've found my bosses have tended to like the response of, "yes - it has a subject line of $distinctive_subject", unless the report request came over email. If the report request came over email, they expect it to be a "Re: $original_subject".
     

    Thanks for explaining how email works.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    Thanks for explaining how email works.

     

    MasterPlanSoftware trolls the forum==good for tdwtf

    Others troll the forum==bad for tdwtf

     



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    @tgape said:

    I've found my bosses have tended to like the response of, "yes - it has a subject line of $distinctive_subject", unless the report request came over email. If the report request came over email, they expect it to be a "Re: $original_subject".
     

    Thanks for explaining how email works.

     

    Heh, you're funny. You talk like you thought it was all about a technical matter of how to drive an email client and failed to see that it was a description of a social interaction between two people.

    Are you playing at "Guess my syndrome" this week?  I'd say you're acting Asperger's. 



  • @matterific said:

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    Thanks for explaining how email works.

     

    MasterPlanSoftware trolls the forum==good for tdwtf

    Others troll the forum==bad for tdwtf

    So.....   was what you just did good or bad?



  • @Hitsuji said:

    I've had a similar conversation with the same boss about the weekly reports from the previous year, there were not on file so 'obviously' I had never emailed them to the office to have them print and file it. I got the boss to open his email and check his emails from that period and low and behold they were there, sent to <boss> and <office email>.

    I'm in the fortunate position of having access to the server logs, so if someone complains to me that a mail never arrived, I can generally tell them to the second when it was delivered to their inbox.  I usually suggest that it must have fallen into their junk mail folder and why don't they go take a look there for it.  Which also gives them an opportunity to check if it was just in their inbox all along without losing face....

     



  • @DaveK said:

    I'm in the fortunate position of having access to the server logs, so if someone complains to me that a mail never arrived, I can generally tell them to the second when it was delivered to their inbox.  I usually suggest that it must have fallen into their junk mail folder and why don't they go take a look there for it.  Which also gives them an opportunity to check if it was just in their inbox all along without losing face....
     

    We manage our own mail server on a single server, so the mail didn't even have to jump to another machine. And it most definately did arrive, as was proved later by getting the girls in the office to go back to their emails from last year to print it out.


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