Mr. Fixit Returns To Factoryland

Well he’s back! Everybody’s favorite, Mr. Fixit. My bosses find they aren’t doing enough to fuck up my day on their own, they need outside help. You’ll remember in our last episode Mr. Fixit’s only suggestion was we reduce the distance one man walks from point A to point B in the execution of his duties. Although this would save time, he is right, it does very little to help with things like customers who add walls to their homes, without telling us, just before we come to install $40,000 worth of stuff which now does not fit. Hence we do not get paid, until we fix whatever needs fixed, no matter it was the customer’s fault…the contract says “paid on installation”.

I avoided Mr Fixit for as long as I could, trying to look like I was dealing with a crisis, walking quickly hither and yon, barking quick questions to the boys, pointing a lot. But eventually someone came to get me, “Mr Fixit has ‘improved’ your planning spreadsheet, wants you to come have a look.” My spreadsheet, current title NewDatabaseFb, which translates into version 6.1 and its not yet finished. I have put over 100 hours into this thing, finding ways to add all the new stuff everyone wants, making it completely idiot-proof yet user-friendly and dynamic, for a wide range of users. It is to become the central database for the entire network of 11 office staff, and two of the factory staff. We are also opening a second company, which will also schedule its work through this database.

And Mr. Fixit has, *swallow*, “improved” it for me. How nice. He said he DELETED the first 40 entries as they were “clogging it up”…there go the formulas also on those lines, which control other aspects. He GOT RID of my ‘buttons’ and the macros which they controlled. Macros which took me hours to write…so I wouldn’t have to teach people the complicated formulas that are used. He did all this so it would work with the pages he added…basically various types of graphs that are supposed to tell you if you are on track, production wise. I don’t need a graph to tell me what time it is, and they don’t even apply to this sort of manufacturing -where we do not make the same fucking thing over and over.

Of course he only butchered a copy. I don’t have to use the thing the way he left it. As a matter of fact, the way he left it makes it impossible to use. What pisses me off is that he obviously doesn’t know what the fuck he is doing, and I had to waste my time looking interested for my boss, while my other boss is screaming because A) He was left out of the meeting, B) The sky is falling because I am not there, and C) He was left out of the meeting.

Last I saw Mr. Fixit, he was measuring things again. No doubt if we cram everybody into the store-room, we can save anything having to move anywhere and what a beautiful world it will be. Hell, lets just get the raw material delivered to the customer’s house and we’ll build the damn things there.