What things at your job are unneccary or a pain in the ass for no reason?

For me as a teacher/coach the coaching requirements are mostly a waste of time. Completing the Lindsay’s Law stuff on the Ohio Dept of Ed website via Safe account is maybe the most user unfriendly thing I’ve ever dealt with. Complete pain in the ass.

Meetings often accomplish nothing...then a month later you do it again....repeat.

How about your jobs?

Mostly just unnecessary meetings that could be avoided with a 5 minute conversation at someone's desk. 

Right now, very little other than one annoying coworker who feels the need to fill the office with mindless chatter constantly, because we all apparently need to hear about her drama and every fucking headline she sees on whatever news site she goes to.

But a couple years ago, we had a meeting/connecting-loving supervisor. The sort of no-life dweeb who babbles constantly (horrible at organizing his thoughts to be remotely concise, so he just droned on and on and on), needs to keep in touch regularly and was far better at wasting peoples' time than they were. I'm used to just doing my job and not talking with managerial types unless either they or I had something important or new to discuss, so that was annoying as hell to deal with him. Especially since, on top of that, he was a corporate suck-up, so if you did have an important concern, you knew you'd just get a "Well, we all have to deal with it, so just keep doing it and it'll blow over soon."  response where you knew he'd babble at you about team stuff daily, but if you needed him, he'd be too spineless to actually stand up for you.

I've recently been tasked with handling nutritional/ingredient label compliance for HUGE customers, ie Trader Joes, Walmart, etc.

I have zero experience with this and my previous company had an entire team (5 people) that handled these responsibilties. Instead of hiring someone who's actually qualified, my superiors have the "just get it done!" attitude. So that's what I'm doing. Literally googling what the fuck I have to do and learning on the fly. It's absurd.

posted by Heretic

Right now, very little other than one annoying coworker who feels the need to fill the office with mindless chatter constantly, because we all apparently need to hear about her drama and every fucking headline she sees on whatever news site she goes to.

But a couple years ago, we had a meeting/connecting-loving supervisor. The sort of no-life dweeb who babbles constantly (horrible at organizing his thoughts to be remotely concise, so he just droned on and on and on), needs to keep in touch regularly and was far better at wasting peoples' time than they were. I'm used to just doing my job and not talking with managerial types unless either they or I had something important or new to discuss, so that was annoying as hell to deal with him. Especially since, on top of that, he was a corporate suck-up, so if you did have an important concern, you knew you'd just get a "Well, we all have to deal with it, so just keep doing it and it'll blow over soon."  response where you knew he'd babble at you about team stuff daily, but if you needed him, he'd be too spineless to actually stand up for you.

That’s our Special Ed administrator 

posted by Automatik

I've recently been tasked with handling nutritional/ingredient label compliance for HUGE customers, ie Trader Joes, Walmart, etc.

I have zero experience with this and my previous company had an entire team (5 people) that handled these responsibilties. Instead of hiring someone who's actually qualified, my superiors have the "just get it done!" attitude. So that's what I'm doing. Literally googling what the fuck I have to do and learning on the fly. It's absurd.

Geesh

Before I retired:

1. Bi-weekly staff meetings held by the top district guy.  It used to be just for his direct reports.  Then the direct reports thought "why should we be the only ones to suffer?", and they started making THEIR direct reports (including me) attend.  Two hours of my life I'll never get back, every two weeks.
2. Mandated training on stuff just because someone said so.  OSHA made us give 30-minute service talks quarterly on electrical safety awareness requirements to ALL employees, even though it only applied to maintenance employees.  Quarterly, mind you.  It's bad enough to have to go thru training that doesn't apply to you, but to have to endure it over and over is the height of absurdity

posted by Zunardo

Before I retired:

1. Bi-weekly staff meetings held by the top district guy.  It used to be just for his direct reports.  Then the direct reports thought "why should we be the only ones to suffer?", and they started making THEIR direct reports (including me) attend.  Two hours of my life I'll never get back, every two weeks.
2. Mandated training on stuff just because someone said so.  OSHA made us give 30-minute service talks quarterly on electrical safety awareness requirements to ALL employees, even though it only applied to maintenance employees.  Quarterly, mind you.  It's bad enough to have to go thru training that doesn't apply to you, but to have to endure it over and over is the height of absurdity

 

Yes, we have those public works videos 4x a year on about 15 different topics. My favorite is ladder safety...I mean we are on fucking ladders virtually every gym class

posted by Ironman92

What things at your job are unneccary or a pain in the ass for no reason?

For me as a teacher/coach the coaching requirements are mostly a waste of time. Completing the Lindsay’s Law stuff on the Ohio Dept of Ed website via Safe account is maybe the most user unfriendly thing I’ve ever dealt with. Complete pain in the ass.

Meetings often accomplish nothing...then a month later you do it again....repeat.

 

How about your jobs?

For me as a teacher/coach the coaching requirements are mostly a waste of time. Completing the Lindsay’s Law stuff on the Ohio Dept of Ed website via Safe account is maybe the most user unfriendly thing I’ve ever dealt with. Complete pain in the ass.

Meetings often accomplish nothing...then a month later you do it again....repeat.

I've somehow become the go-to informatics pharmacist within our pediatrics group despite zero training in that area. I've wasted a ton of time trying to solve IS problems that other people are paid to be solving.

posted by ernest_t_bass

 

For me as a teacher/coach the coaching requirements are mostly a waste of time. Completing the Lindsay’s Law stuff on the Ohio Dept of Ed website via Safe account is maybe the most user unfriendly thing I’ve ever dealt with. Complete pain in the ass.

Meetings often accomplish nothing...then a month later you do it again....repeat.

For me as a parent of an athlete, watching the Lindsay’s Law video from the Ohio Dept of Ed is maybe the most boring thing I've ever dealt with.

Whenever I have to go thru legal for anything.  I honestly feel like they should be debarred and just hand it over to me at times.