Line up the martinis

I have reached the eighth level of hell.

Didn't know there was eight levels? Either did I.

My department post system conversion has taken hell to a level. This is past the you have to laugh so you don't cry level. We (or at least I) reached that level getting to the conversion when we were working seventy hour weeks creating the new system and getting it ready.

Very few people have gotten comfortable with the new system which we have been on for almost three months.

We have weekly refresher trainging because I really don't expect people to remember everything. EVEN THOUGH IT IS IN THE MANUAL I CREATED FOR THAT REASON. Maybe I am just expecting too much.

We have quite a few people who have been with the company for longer then they should be. We haven't been able to suggest they might be happier at a less demanding job (greeting people or asking if they want fries or maybe just retiring like they should) because HR won't let us.

We saw the conversion as a good (acceptable to HR) way to do that since if they can't do the job on the system we've had for twenty years they won't be able to on the new system either.

Guess what? We were right.

We have yet to reach even close to the production level we had preconversion and taking time for the weekly training isn't helping. We have had a backlog of two weeks of work since the conversion.

We've tried to bring in temps to help us get caught up. I had to let the temp I was training for the last three days go because she wasn't getting it.

What is so hard about matching the numbers on one screen to the numbers on another screen? My nearly five year old could do this!

And why is it so hard to get the temp agency to understand we mean cash application. Not credit and collections, not balancing the GL, not customer service. Just matching one set of numbers to the other and hitting save!

Ok it is a little more then that, but I would settle for that at this point!

So since it has been three months, the CEO must go before the board to try to find a way to explain this. He also gets to explain that the ONE temp I was able to train (and dreamed of making permanent) gave her notice effective the end of this week for a permanent position elsewhere.

Ten minutes before that news broke, the person we brought in to replace me (so I could be promoted and find this new level of hell, because everyone else needs to be fired) gave her notice effective the end of the month.

She wants to work closer to home and have a baby. The bitch! I mean she only drives 45 minutes the hell is that!

So now instead of letting go of the people who need (and deserve) to be cut; we are losing the people who are carrying the department while I train temp after useless temp instead of doing the job I should and want to be doing.