A. Evidently, when it’s given to you by your boss’s boss’s secretary.
Every month, we have to fill in this stupid charge code thing. It’s especially stupid for me, because I only ever have one charge number, so it’s just a matter of pulling out my timesheets for the month and adding up the numbers. But it’s always due on the last business day of the month. So we get a reminder email saying “Please have your [foo] hours in by noon on Friday” about a week before. Then we get another reminder at the beginning of the week. Then a few of us get another email a few days before it’s due. And then today, 21 hours before the deadline we were given, my boss forwards me an email from the secretary saying “I sent these guys three reminders already and they still haven’t put in their time”, and a note from the boss saying “PUT THEM IN ASAP!”. WTF? If the deadline is noon tomorrow, why can’t I put it in tomorrow morning? I wrote back to her saying “if noon Friday isn’t the real deadline, why were we told that was the deadline?”
The way I see it, I have a very good reason for waiting. I’m paid hourly. That means if there is nothing for me to do, (and or the weather is nice for flying or kayaking), then I have a duty to bugger off and stop costing them money for nothing. So I don’t put in my hours until the last minute, because I could end up putting in my hours on Thursday morning and then run out of task so need to take off Thursday afternoon.
So I guess it comes down to: do they want accurate numbers, or is this just an exercise in bureaucratic masturbation?
Update:
Oh, it gets better. Here’s an email from my boss
Curious why you can’t just complete a simple little task without making a big deal about it and copying in the rest of the team. In doing so you take up additional time on their parts as well as mine. Mike and Wanda review the input prior to noon to ensure it is correct. Noon is the actual cutoff time in the system. I find it absolutely ridiculous the amount of time it takes us chase all of you down each month. You have an entire month to put your time in – why wait until the very last minute to do so?
It’s the nagging annoying message deadline. We get that here too. Mind you, people still don’t do stuff in time because they nagging messages get ignored by almost everybody.
There is the real world deadline, and the drop-dead deadline. It’s a pity your admin staff are telling you the drop-dead one as if it’s the real deadline.
“or is this just an exercise in bureaucratic masturbation?”
I’m surprised you even have to ask the question, even in the rhetorical sense. I filed the post under B for “bureaucratic masturbation” the moment I saw the words “charge code”… (grin)
*nods* Matt beat me to it. Exactly that.
What bugs me is that they nag about getting timesheets in on time, but then it takes three months to get my invoices paid.
This would make a great dilbert!
Good idea, Darrick. I’ll send it in.
Curious why you can’t just complete a simple little task…
Uh-oh, passive-aggressive alert. I never, ever engage with anyone who’s curious why I’m talking such crap or puzzled that someone like me should be acting like a jerk, on the basic principle of not endorsing lies – they’re not curious or puzzled at all, they just want to say what they think without actually saying it.
Not engaging with your boss can be tricky, though.