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Dec. 3rd, 2003 11:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxIs having the desire to smack the snot out of a know-it-all-who-actually knows-nothing intern a bad thing? Probably. But I swear to God, how can one intern manage to piss off damn near everyone in the office and get away with it?
The computer guru and the engineering draftsman already can't stand her. Our poor 18 year old drafting intern constantly begs me for work so that she won't have to work with the intern-from-hell even when I don't have stuff for her (the drafting intern) to do.
The basic problem is the intern pushes too damn hard, is arrogant, and she doesn't know anything! I'm still perplexed as to why she isn't in college. Auburn University's architecture program is a 5-year professional degree. There are no short cuts. There's no dual degree thingie. Basically, sure, during your fourth year in the department you have enough credit hours to graduate... but you haven't completed an architecture degree. In fact you qualify for no degree at all. The professional architecture program is so specialized that many of the courses taken only apply to an architecture major... and you graduate architecture ONLY after you have gone through and passed your thesis project. This intern? She hasn't even freaking graduated with a degree yet. She dropped out of school on year 4. Now she's bought a house... and we're 2+ hours away from AU. Clearly she's in no hurry to get her degree, and without a professional degree or a master's you can't sit for the boards. So all in all, this intern is more or less a college drop out who has only worked at our firm and only has done that for a few months... and she's pushing to become a project architect.
Grr at that. Plus, thus far on top of pissing off the computer guru, the drafting intern, and the engineering guy. The Project Management Vice President of the company spent 6pm to 7pm at my desk complaining about her.
Oh, and why I'm really ticked off? Why was he at my desk complaining? We've got a project that I worked on a couple of months ago that was placed on hold until the school system came up with more financing. During the process of putting it on hold, we scaled back the project. So the project ended up having 3 or 4 different floor plans depending on whether it was shooting for a 3 million budget or a 6 million budget or something in between. This week, we have the go ahead to finish the project and (naturally) it's no ONE option they chose but pieces of each. Because we've managed to lose almost all of our Interior Design people at the firm, I've more or less been doing most of the ID work. Plus, I'm also the "go to" person for Adobe, Photoshop, etc when trying to work up marketing brochures and presentations. This week I'm buried with ID and marketing stuff and cannot work on the floor plans for the school project. Since TPTB want to move forward with the project, they assigned the Intern-from-hell to clean up the floor plans. But Miss-Know-It-All takes that as a go-ahead for her to redesign the project for the bits that she doesn't like.
So, tonight since I was the last person left in the office except for the VP in production. He looks up at 6 and sees that I'm still there and says "Oh good, I have some questions" he plops the "plans" down in front of me and asks out of curiosity why 2 columns don't line up with the rest of the column grid and that there were no columns at all in the west part of the building.
WTF?
I looked at it. Surely, I wouldn't have done something that stupid. I mean, sure, the time I had to glue all the disparate plans together for a presentation I had to do it in the space of a half hour and so I did it REALLY quickly so I knew there would be some goofs in it that would be straightened out later, but just have columns occur at random? That REALLY doesn't sound like me.
So I look at the drawing. Wait, that's not the way I designed the locker rooms in the gym. And I didn't just "place" the columns at whim. They came from the structural engineer. And the way the columns are in this plan makes no sense. But... this isn't my design. . .which is what I had to tell the VP. Then I pulled up the structural drawings to show him where the columns really were... and I discover that the plan that I had SPECIFICALLY saved with the date in the filename so that it would be clear which was the actual most recent version of the plan is...um... gone. It's not in the computer. I finally unearthed an old copy of the plan-- MY old plan and-- voila! Columns were in LINE! And they matched the Structural Engineer's drawings. And there were columns in the West half of the building. No, I haven't lost my mind! Showed the old drawings to the VP and he sort of nodded saying he had THOUGHT that the plans looked really weird.
This was the impetus of his standing at my desk for an hour bitching about the Intern-from-hell. Good fucking GRIEF! This little bitca redesigned the first floor but had no freaking CLUE what she was doing! She's fucked up the structural plan of the building... because she didn't "like" how I had some of the stuff. Um... intern, you ever think that maybe I was DESIGNING AROUND THE STRUCTURE?! This isn't school. We can't just say "and the building works because I say it does." This has to actually be built. And the requirements of the structural engineer have to be heeded, you can't just say "But yeah, I like that column better three feet to the right. And I really don't like that column over there at all so I think I'll pull it out."
The thing is, thankfully the VP walked over to my desk to ask me about the bizarreness of this plan, but sheesh! Since she's "sneaking" these changes in because she isn't claiming them, and it makes ME look like the idiot. . . except that the VP (who is new and has only been with our firm for about 2 months) is beginning to catch on that the Intern is an idiot... and that's why he spent the hour complaining to me. On top of all that, while she was screwing up the whole structural plan she never DID get around to fixing the things the VP had WANTED changed on the plan... and she'd removed the audio room that the audio engineer had WANTED in the plan. (And this after she spent the afternoon redesigning a ADA ramp I had told her 3 months ago to leave the hell alone. I know she doesn't like where that ramp is, but the ramp WORKS. We have sections of the ramp as it is. And we have less that 100 billable hours left on the job. Don't freaking waste time redesigning a ramp because you want it 5 feet in the other direction. And, BTW, there are reasons I have things the way I do. Yet again she came to me today asking "can I move this." I'm too damn busy to sit down and go through whether what she wants to do is even possible. I basically told her that I don't care (because I really don't) but before she heads out moving that ramp, she should speak to the mechanical engineer because that ramp is hiding a big ass mechanical unit. If you have to move it, he has to approve it. Now here's the thing, I *still* don't get why she is so het up on moving that damn ramp. Yes, it *is* 15 feet from the building, but by doing it that way I'm hiding the mechanical unit from the street without having to build a fence around it. If she does what she wants to do... you may have that ramp like she wants it but you're going to have a 15 ft wide by 18 ft HIGH mechanical unit just sticking out like a sore thumb. Plus, I had to inform the little know-it-all that you just can't send the mechanical unit away some 50 feet because you want to. . . at least not without having to add *other* equipment. There are finite limits on where it can be placed away from the mechanical room. (The girl has no freaking clue about how to coordinate with the engineers). If she wants to move that unit. Don't talk to me, go talk to the engineer and see if he will agree to it.
But again -- why freaking WASTE THE TIME?! We're short on hours, have way the hell too much to do, and she's trying to move something that WORKS and is already coordinated because she *likes* it better the other way? Give me a break!
Which is basically what the VP is saying to her. It's hard enough to argue with this girl constantly when she gets the bit between her teeth. You tend to say, "Yeah, whatever, I'm busy. You want to waste your time, go right on ahead." But while I was willing to watch her chase her tail about the damn ramp (because the engineer really ISN'T going to let her move that mechanical unit), her making a damn mess of the plans is something else entirely. Gah! And I'm too damn busy with other stuff I need to do to monitor this girl. And besides, THAT isn't my job!
The VP started complaining about how "abrasive" this intern is. I ended up telling him that basically she disagrees with everything I ever do... which I personally blow off. She knows nothing. But, I have more than a sneaking suspicion that in her ignorance she's also off complaining about *me* and how she doesn't understand some of the stuff that I do (which in the real world is because she doesn't know what in the hell she's doing and I do, but she's too arrogant to see it.) The thing is, this girl is far more aggressive than I am. She's in there brownosing all the time and tooting her own horn and trying to make out like she's so incredibly talented... and I'm one of those dumb schmoes who tends to believe that competence and actually DOING the work is more important than walking around trying to gain some title of "project manager" (which the silly little girl is LOBBYING for and anyone who is paying attention knows she's in no way QUALIFIED to do). So there I am off in one corner of the room working quietly trying to actually accomplish stuff, and there she is making a mess but brown nosing up the whazoo.
Anyway, back to the VP, it was gratifying to hear him make the same complaints about her that I've made privately. The girl CONSTANTLY wants to "have meetings." I don't snap at people. No, really, I very, very rarely do. I know that on-line I come off as fairly high maintenance and even occasionally agressive, but in real life? Not so much. My rather pessimistic/depressive BtVS personality has little connection to my real life personality. I'm generally known for almost always being in a pleasant mood and being amenable to work with. I don't berate interns, am nice to secretaries (who like me), and have no in-office squabbles. I don't yell at contractors, and am generally pre-disposed to find mutually agreeable solutions to problems rather than snapping at someone. I've snapped at this girl. I've actually (and she's the only person ever) told the girl "Just do it because I said so" because I'm too damn busy to explain something to her for the millionth time and am sick of her constantly questioning every thing I do.
VP had the same complaint and even told her that if she came to him with one more question about why he did something she better damn well have a better reason to question it than she liked it better her way... especially when that's her only explanation. That she (vaguely) likes it the way she likes it, but has no concrete reason for why her way is preferable in any CONCRETE way to what he's already done. He's also noted that she can't figure out what she's supposed to do next, that she doesn't get her own work done but farms it out on others, and that she tries to schedule everything to HER convenience (and disappears at her convenience as well), and that she wants to have meetings every five minutes even if you're busy as hell and SHE is the one who can't figure out what to do.
I suppose I should be gratified that the VP is becoming as exasperated with her as I am (and he called her "grating" and somewhat arrogant in addition to biting off more than she can chew). The thing is, I've also been around long enough to know that those who put on the big act... tend to sucker my boss end (at least until they make a huge ass mess) and they do get all the pats on the back.
I've also discovered over the years that the ones who really do take advantage of the firm get away with it (I swear if this girl ever works 40hours in a week at the REGULAR 8 to 5 timetable I'll be shocked. No way can she have sick leave time. She's out with a cold or a headache a least once every two weeks). Meanwhile, little ol' me who has accumlated 400 hours of sick leave, never gets credit for being...well... pretty damn dependable for 10 freaking years.
Sigh.
And I have a hell of a lot of work to do tomorrow too.
Real life really can suck, can't it?
At least I have a fairly good idea that the VP is going to jump on the girl for making a mess of the plans by moving things around to suit her without paying any attention to why I had done things the way I had and not paying attention to the stural engineer. And since this VP has the ear of the senior VP, maybe it will get back to him as well (not that I trust the two faced Senior VP).
Have I mentioned lately that I'm not exactly thrilled with the current work dynamics at work?
Guess I have now.
And this has gotten REALLY damn long hasn't it?
Better end it. Though I think this is mostly catharsis. I can't imagine anyone actually reading my all of this particular rant. :)
The computer guru and the engineering draftsman already can't stand her. Our poor 18 year old drafting intern constantly begs me for work so that she won't have to work with the intern-from-hell even when I don't have stuff for her (the drafting intern) to do.
The basic problem is the intern pushes too damn hard, is arrogant, and she doesn't know anything! I'm still perplexed as to why she isn't in college. Auburn University's architecture program is a 5-year professional degree. There are no short cuts. There's no dual degree thingie. Basically, sure, during your fourth year in the department you have enough credit hours to graduate... but you haven't completed an architecture degree. In fact you qualify for no degree at all. The professional architecture program is so specialized that many of the courses taken only apply to an architecture major... and you graduate architecture ONLY after you have gone through and passed your thesis project. This intern? She hasn't even freaking graduated with a degree yet. She dropped out of school on year 4. Now she's bought a house... and we're 2+ hours away from AU. Clearly she's in no hurry to get her degree, and without a professional degree or a master's you can't sit for the boards. So all in all, this intern is more or less a college drop out who has only worked at our firm and only has done that for a few months... and she's pushing to become a project architect.
Grr at that. Plus, thus far on top of pissing off the computer guru, the drafting intern, and the engineering guy. The Project Management Vice President of the company spent 6pm to 7pm at my desk complaining about her.
Oh, and why I'm really ticked off? Why was he at my desk complaining? We've got a project that I worked on a couple of months ago that was placed on hold until the school system came up with more financing. During the process of putting it on hold, we scaled back the project. So the project ended up having 3 or 4 different floor plans depending on whether it was shooting for a 3 million budget or a 6 million budget or something in between. This week, we have the go ahead to finish the project and (naturally) it's no ONE option they chose but pieces of each. Because we've managed to lose almost all of our Interior Design people at the firm, I've more or less been doing most of the ID work. Plus, I'm also the "go to" person for Adobe, Photoshop, etc when trying to work up marketing brochures and presentations. This week I'm buried with ID and marketing stuff and cannot work on the floor plans for the school project. Since TPTB want to move forward with the project, they assigned the Intern-from-hell to clean up the floor plans. But Miss-Know-It-All takes that as a go-ahead for her to redesign the project for the bits that she doesn't like.
So, tonight since I was the last person left in the office except for the VP in production. He looks up at 6 and sees that I'm still there and says "Oh good, I have some questions" he plops the "plans" down in front of me and asks out of curiosity why 2 columns don't line up with the rest of the column grid and that there were no columns at all in the west part of the building.
WTF?
I looked at it. Surely, I wouldn't have done something that stupid. I mean, sure, the time I had to glue all the disparate plans together for a presentation I had to do it in the space of a half hour and so I did it REALLY quickly so I knew there would be some goofs in it that would be straightened out later, but just have columns occur at random? That REALLY doesn't sound like me.
So I look at the drawing. Wait, that's not the way I designed the locker rooms in the gym. And I didn't just "place" the columns at whim. They came from the structural engineer. And the way the columns are in this plan makes no sense. But... this isn't my design. . .which is what I had to tell the VP. Then I pulled up the structural drawings to show him where the columns really were... and I discover that the plan that I had SPECIFICALLY saved with the date in the filename so that it would be clear which was the actual most recent version of the plan is...um... gone. It's not in the computer. I finally unearthed an old copy of the plan-- MY old plan and-- voila! Columns were in LINE! And they matched the Structural Engineer's drawings. And there were columns in the West half of the building. No, I haven't lost my mind! Showed the old drawings to the VP and he sort of nodded saying he had THOUGHT that the plans looked really weird.
This was the impetus of his standing at my desk for an hour bitching about the Intern-from-hell. Good fucking GRIEF! This little bitca redesigned the first floor but had no freaking CLUE what she was doing! She's fucked up the structural plan of the building... because she didn't "like" how I had some of the stuff. Um... intern, you ever think that maybe I was DESIGNING AROUND THE STRUCTURE?! This isn't school. We can't just say "and the building works because I say it does." This has to actually be built. And the requirements of the structural engineer have to be heeded, you can't just say "But yeah, I like that column better three feet to the right. And I really don't like that column over there at all so I think I'll pull it out."
The thing is, thankfully the VP walked over to my desk to ask me about the bizarreness of this plan, but sheesh! Since she's "sneaking" these changes in because she isn't claiming them, and it makes ME look like the idiot. . . except that the VP (who is new and has only been with our firm for about 2 months) is beginning to catch on that the Intern is an idiot... and that's why he spent the hour complaining to me. On top of all that, while she was screwing up the whole structural plan she never DID get around to fixing the things the VP had WANTED changed on the plan... and she'd removed the audio room that the audio engineer had WANTED in the plan. (And this after she spent the afternoon redesigning a ADA ramp I had told her 3 months ago to leave the hell alone. I know she doesn't like where that ramp is, but the ramp WORKS. We have sections of the ramp as it is. And we have less that 100 billable hours left on the job. Don't freaking waste time redesigning a ramp because you want it 5 feet in the other direction. And, BTW, there are reasons I have things the way I do. Yet again she came to me today asking "can I move this." I'm too damn busy to sit down and go through whether what she wants to do is even possible. I basically told her that I don't care (because I really don't) but before she heads out moving that ramp, she should speak to the mechanical engineer because that ramp is hiding a big ass mechanical unit. If you have to move it, he has to approve it. Now here's the thing, I *still* don't get why she is so het up on moving that damn ramp. Yes, it *is* 15 feet from the building, but by doing it that way I'm hiding the mechanical unit from the street without having to build a fence around it. If she does what she wants to do... you may have that ramp like she wants it but you're going to have a 15 ft wide by 18 ft HIGH mechanical unit just sticking out like a sore thumb. Plus, I had to inform the little know-it-all that you just can't send the mechanical unit away some 50 feet because you want to. . . at least not without having to add *other* equipment. There are finite limits on where it can be placed away from the mechanical room. (The girl has no freaking clue about how to coordinate with the engineers). If she wants to move that unit. Don't talk to me, go talk to the engineer and see if he will agree to it.
But again -- why freaking WASTE THE TIME?! We're short on hours, have way the hell too much to do, and she's trying to move something that WORKS and is already coordinated because she *likes* it better the other way? Give me a break!
Which is basically what the VP is saying to her. It's hard enough to argue with this girl constantly when she gets the bit between her teeth. You tend to say, "Yeah, whatever, I'm busy. You want to waste your time, go right on ahead." But while I was willing to watch her chase her tail about the damn ramp (because the engineer really ISN'T going to let her move that mechanical unit), her making a damn mess of the plans is something else entirely. Gah! And I'm too damn busy with other stuff I need to do to monitor this girl. And besides, THAT isn't my job!
The VP started complaining about how "abrasive" this intern is. I ended up telling him that basically she disagrees with everything I ever do... which I personally blow off. She knows nothing. But, I have more than a sneaking suspicion that in her ignorance she's also off complaining about *me* and how she doesn't understand some of the stuff that I do (which in the real world is because she doesn't know what in the hell she's doing and I do, but she's too arrogant to see it.) The thing is, this girl is far more aggressive than I am. She's in there brownosing all the time and tooting her own horn and trying to make out like she's so incredibly talented... and I'm one of those dumb schmoes who tends to believe that competence and actually DOING the work is more important than walking around trying to gain some title of "project manager" (which the silly little girl is LOBBYING for and anyone who is paying attention knows she's in no way QUALIFIED to do). So there I am off in one corner of the room working quietly trying to actually accomplish stuff, and there she is making a mess but brown nosing up the whazoo.
Anyway, back to the VP, it was gratifying to hear him make the same complaints about her that I've made privately. The girl CONSTANTLY wants to "have meetings." I don't snap at people. No, really, I very, very rarely do. I know that on-line I come off as fairly high maintenance and even occasionally agressive, but in real life? Not so much. My rather pessimistic/depressive BtVS personality has little connection to my real life personality. I'm generally known for almost always being in a pleasant mood and being amenable to work with. I don't berate interns, am nice to secretaries (who like me), and have no in-office squabbles. I don't yell at contractors, and am generally pre-disposed to find mutually agreeable solutions to problems rather than snapping at someone. I've snapped at this girl. I've actually (and she's the only person ever) told the girl "Just do it because I said so" because I'm too damn busy to explain something to her for the millionth time and am sick of her constantly questioning every thing I do.
VP had the same complaint and even told her that if she came to him with one more question about why he did something she better damn well have a better reason to question it than she liked it better her way... especially when that's her only explanation. That she (vaguely) likes it the way she likes it, but has no concrete reason for why her way is preferable in any CONCRETE way to what he's already done. He's also noted that she can't figure out what she's supposed to do next, that she doesn't get her own work done but farms it out on others, and that she tries to schedule everything to HER convenience (and disappears at her convenience as well), and that she wants to have meetings every five minutes even if you're busy as hell and SHE is the one who can't figure out what to do.
I suppose I should be gratified that the VP is becoming as exasperated with her as I am (and he called her "grating" and somewhat arrogant in addition to biting off more than she can chew). The thing is, I've also been around long enough to know that those who put on the big act... tend to sucker my boss end (at least until they make a huge ass mess) and they do get all the pats on the back.
I've also discovered over the years that the ones who really do take advantage of the firm get away with it (I swear if this girl ever works 40hours in a week at the REGULAR 8 to 5 timetable I'll be shocked. No way can she have sick leave time. She's out with a cold or a headache a least once every two weeks). Meanwhile, little ol' me who has accumlated 400 hours of sick leave, never gets credit for being...well... pretty damn dependable for 10 freaking years.
Sigh.
And I have a hell of a lot of work to do tomorrow too.
Real life really can suck, can't it?
At least I have a fairly good idea that the VP is going to jump on the girl for making a mess of the plans by moving things around to suit her without paying any attention to why I had done things the way I had and not paying attention to the stural engineer. And since this VP has the ear of the senior VP, maybe it will get back to him as well (not that I trust the two faced Senior VP).
Have I mentioned lately that I'm not exactly thrilled with the current work dynamics at work?
Guess I have now.
And this has gotten REALLY damn long hasn't it?
Better end it. Though I think this is mostly catharsis. I can't imagine anyone actually reading my all of this particular rant. :)
