#sharepoint document management

[websyn]

Boost Productivity with SharePoint Online Optimisation: A Complete Guide

In today's fast-paced business environment, maximising productivity is essential for staying ahead of the competition. For many organisations, SharePoint Online has become a cornerstone of their digital workplace, offering a comprehensive solution for collaboration, document management, and team communication. However, simply adopting SharePoint Online is not enough—optimising its features is key to unlocking its full potential and ensuring that your team works more efficiently. This guide dives into how to optimise SharePoint Online for maximum productivity and streamlined operations.

1. Customise Your SharePoint Online Environment

A well-organised and user-friendly environment is crucial to enhance productivity. Customising SharePoint’s home pages and dashboards ensures that employees spend less time navigating complex structures. By tailoring the homepage to display key documents, important tasks, and essential team resources, you can simplify access to the most frequently used content.

2. Leverage SharePoint Libraries for Efficient Document Management

SharePoint’s document libraries are central to managing content within an organisation. Properly organising these libraries using metadata and tags ensures that documents are easy to search, retrieve, and collaborate on. Optimising these libraries helps in managing version control and enables seamless document sharing and updates.

3. Enable Cross-Team Collaboration with Microsoft Teams Integration

SharePoint Online is deeply integrated with Microsoft Teams, which enhances collaboration across departments, teams, and even external stakeholders. By syncing SharePoint document libraries with Teams channels, employees can collaborate in real-time, access relevant documents without switching platforms, and track project progress more efficiently.

4. Streamline Workflows with Power Automate

One of the most powerful features of SharePoint Online is its integration with Microsoft Power Automate. With Power Automate, you can automate repetitive tasks like approval workflows, document routing, and notifications. By reducing the manual intervention in routine processes, organisations can significantly reduce errors and save valuable time.

5. Ensure Data Security and Compliance

In today’s data-driven world, security and compliance are paramount. SharePoint Online offers robust security features, including permission settings, user roles, and audit logs, to help businesses safeguard sensitive data. Optimising SharePoint’s security settings ensures that only the right people have access to specific information.

6. Optimise for Mobile Use

With a growing mobile workforce, SharePoint’s mobile compatibility is a game changer. By ensuring that your SharePoint Online sites are mobile-optimised, employees can access content, collaborate on projects, and share documents from anywhere—helping to boost productivity, especially for remote teams.

7. Utilise SharePoint Search for Enhanced Discoverability

One of the most valuable tools in SharePoint Online is its search functionality. By fine-tuning your SharePoint search settings, you can make it easier for employees to find relevant documents, lists, and resources. An optimised search function ensures that employees spend less time searching and more time on productive tasks.

8. Monitor and Analyse SharePoint Usage

To understand the impact of SharePoint optimisations, it’s important to track how users are interacting with the platform. SharePoint Online provides analytics tools that can help organisations monitor user activity, content usage, and overall engagement. This data is invaluable for identifying areas that need improvement and optimising workflows.

9. Embrace Versioning and Document History

Version control in SharePoint Online allows users to keep track of changes to documents and revert to previous versions when necessary. This feature is particularly useful for teams that collaborate on documents, ensuring that no important information is lost and that everyone is working from the most up-to-date version.

Conclusion

Optimising SharePoint Online is not just about enhancing the platform’s functionality—it’s about creating a seamless, efficient, and secure environment where employees can collaborate, share resources, and manage documents with ease. By customising the interface, integrating with other Microsoft tools, automating workflows, and ensuring strong security practices, businesses can significantly boost productivity and improve overall operational efficiency.

Remember, SharePoint Online’s real power lies in its flexibility and ability to be customised to meet the unique needs of your organisation. Take the time to optimise it for your business, and you’ll unlock its true potential to drive productivity and foster a collaborative workplace.

[bizsolution]

5 Key Components of a Document Management Workflow

A process of systematically handling documents throughout its life cycle is known as a document management workflow. Certainly, a document, since its inception, goes through several stages and is likely to get stuck in complex routing or get piled up in one or the other network drives.

The cost of document handling for organizations is significantly higher than you think. Even a single misplaced or inaccessible document weighs heavily on workplace productivity and reduces employees' overall response time.

However, when managed efficiently, document workflows prove to be the backbone of the day-to-day operations conducted within organizational settings. How does a well-structured document management workflow help in effectively managing and controlling documents? Let's find out!

This blog covers the 5 fundamental components that complete the document workflow within the organizational settings.

Document Creation: Document creation initiates the workflow where a specific file is either created, uploaded by the users, or captured through integrated systems like CRM, etc. As it is the first version of the document, keeping consistency in file naming and initiating automated workflows becomes crucial to successfully accomplishing the other stages.

Document Organization: Once documents are created, organizing them systematically impacts the further accessibility of information. Creating dedicated repositories and folders helps users to efficiently classify the documents, preventing cluttered or complex hierarchies. Also, leveraging SharePoint for document management allows users to add specific metadata, keywords, and tags to the files, making them accessible at the time of need.

Document Distribution: Uninterrupted information sharing is critical to enhanced productivity and informed decision-making. It significantly impacts the flow of information within the organization. Certainly, a DMS with integrated communication tools like Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and more makes the task more manageable. Furthermore, features like permission-based access for stakeholders, co-authoring, and document versioning facilitate flawless document control, ensuring a secure document-sharing environment.

Document Approval: The approval stage plays a vital role in various processes, including quality control, risk mitigation, and compliance, in different industries operating in a highly controlled environment. Defining clear roles for approvers and requestors, automating the routing process, and adding notifications or reminders can help organizations achieve transparency and accountability within the system.

Document Retention: This stage marks the end of a document life cycle. After the document gets approved, retaining it for future reference is essential. Documents are a great source of corporate knowledge and are required to meet necessary compliance, regulatory requirements, and audits. A proper document retention strategy ensures that the information is securely stored and disposed of when no longer needed.

Key Takeaways

Apart from covering the entire stages of a document life cycle, a document workflow plays a crucial role in enhancing the overall operational efficiency of the organization. However, implementing it can be a challenge for most organizations. A document management system is a robust platform for digitally implementing the document workflow. With advanced features like auto naming, automated workflows, versioning, co-authoring, and metadata integration, modern businesses can control and manage the entire document workflow efficiently.

[vbeyonddigital23]

Best Practices for efficient document management on SharePoint

Document Management on SharePoint have the capabilities enable seamless handling of documents, ensuring faster processing of information between departments to drive critical business functions. 

Microsoft SharePoint is one of the most important enterprise collaboration tools available today. And with the present scenario of remote work and geographically distributed teams, the benefits of an enterprise connectivity platform such as SharePoint are multifold. While cost optimization and higher productivity are among the key benefits, SharePoint is also extremely useful as a centralized document management and sharing platform for enterprises. Microsoft SharePoint is one of the most important enterprise collaboration tools available today. And with the present scenario of remote work and geographically distributed teams, the benefits of an enterprise connectivity platform such as SharePoint are multifold. While cost optimization and higher productivity are among the key benefits, SharePoint is also extremely useful as a centralized document management and sharing platform for enterprises. 

Users can build fast, dynamic, user-friendly sites and pages without coding and in virtually no time, and do much more. Moreover, they can manage information and documents integral to daily business operations and make them seamlessly accessible to users across the organization, while keeping sensitive information safe. We have compiled some best practices to help simplify your SharePoint implementation journey and help you make the most of SharePoint’s data management capabilities. 

Some of best practices to help and simplify Document management on SharePoint

Efficient information classification

Microsoft SharePoint makes it very simple to organize your documents and make them accessible based on an information architecture. This architecture ensures efficient classification of documents with the help of the following functions: 

Lists: Create lists to categorize and store documents such as emails, meeting agendas, memos. 

Libraries: Create libraries for editable documents to collaborate and co-author and edit documents such as invoices, contracts, policy documents, etc. 

Document Classification: Classify documents according to date, type of project, client, etc., with the ability to set access restrictions for sensitive documents. 

Metadata: Assigning metadata to your documents will allow you to track their contents instead of the file or subfolder location. 

Column Indexing: Manage libraries and large lists more efficiently with column indexing as this helps SharePoint analyze the data in the column faster. 

Library Views: Your SharePoint content can be presented more conveniently according to the purpose of viewing data, for instance, in the form of tables like those created on Excel, Gantt charts, calendars, and more. SharePoint also allows you to customize the library view by arranging columns in varying order for users to view the relevant data first. 

Standardized naming for documents

Creating simple and easily discoverable names for your documents stored in SharePoint can save you a lot of time and ensure faster processes. Here are some practices to help you with it: 

Use short names: Although the limit for file names was raised to 400 characters from 250 characters with SharePoint 2019, the platform still allows you to exceed this limit for libraries, sites, and files with long names. However, it is both fast and convenient to search for list items, libraries, sites, etc. if your URL address is short and specific, with abbreviations being particularly effective. 

Avoid special characters and spaces in library names: You don’t need to use special characters like a dot (“.”) or an underscore (“_”) at the beginning of a document name to bring it to the top of the list. You can, instead, apply SharePoint filters or views. Using spaces isn’t recommended either since they add at least three extra characters to the URL address. 

Avoid numbering document versions in the title: SharePoint offers a built-in capability for document versioning that eliminates the need to name and track your document versions manually. 

Auto-naming documents: Integrating SharePoint with third party tools allows you to use predefined rules to generate standardized names for new documents according to your company’s policy. This way, it allows for fast and easy searching and classification of files and supports consistency in naming. 

Robust document security & compliance

A good document management system must have built-in strong mechanisms to keep sensitive information secure. Given that several industries have to abide by a number of national and international data protection laws, enterprises must need to ensure that best practices are adhered to. Here’s how Microsoft SharePoint helps: 

User permissions and roles: SharePoint allows users to set permission levels that restrict access to specific documents based on an employee’s role. These permission levels range from “View Only” to “Full Control”. Managers and administrators can, then, leverage this capability to manage permissions and access on a group level instead of an individual level. This will ensure that your sensitive business information is safe in libraries created for such critical information, as employees are, by default, only given the lowest level of operative access employees require for their job. 

Policies for document retention and deletion: Many regional data protection laws specify exactly the time period for which companies can store certain kinds of information after which they cannot use the data and must remove it from their systems afterwards. This is where SharePoint’s document retention and deletion policies enable organizations to better manage their documents and avoid unnecessary usage of resources while ensuring effective regulatory compliance. 

Check Out feature: The “Check Out” feature is used to lock a document to prevent editing when multiple people are working on it or when one user is already editing it. Hence, you can make sure that no unnecessary, unauthorized, or erroneous changes are made to documents, especially those containing sensitive information. 

Security alerts: SharePoint allows you to detect and prevent security violations pertaining to sensitive information by setting up alerts for specific user activities on sensitive documents. This means that administrators or managers are notified when somebody accesses, modifies, and/or shares a document. 

Backup and recovery configuration: International data protection regulations, such as GDPR, for example, mandate companies to deploy robust backup and recovery mechanisms. SharePoint allows you to recover documents deleted mistakenly, and also to set retention policies that specify a certain duration for which documents will be stored in the recycle bin. 

Leverage the most out of SharePoint’s data management capabilities

SharePoint’s document management capabilities are extremely useful for enterprises given how they easily integrate with external or third-party tools and systems such as ERP and CRM. This ensures smoother handling of documents along with faster processing of information between departments to help drive critical business functions. 

VBeyond Digital can work with you to set up SharePoint sites, workflows, and asset libraries so you can take advantage of real-time collaborations. More importantly, as part of our SharePoint services, we place special emphasis on ensuring that all best practices stated here are adhered to help you derive maximum value from your deployment. Click Here to contact us regarding your SharePoint requirements. 

[sharepointdesig]

Get Customized SharePoint List Solutions to Streamline Workflows | sharepointdesigns

A SharePoint List is a versatile tool for organizing and managing data within an organization. It helps users track, store, and share information like tasks, contacts, or inventory. SharePoint Designs offers expert services in creating customized lists that streamline workflows and improve collaboration. For tailored solutions that enhance data management and efficiency, contact 9884189463. Enjoy seamless integration and optimized performance for your business needs.

[ms-demeanor]

One of the problems that came up this week is actually a problem that came up in December.

On December 15th we got a warning about disk health in a server; there is a drive that is at risk of failure.

A ticket was created for me to create a quote to replace the drive.

There was no part number associated with the ticket, and because of the type of server, there was no easy way to access configuration information online and our hardware documentation is a disaster (I have thought it was a disaster since the acquisition; I set up hardware documentation at the old job specifically to avoid issues like this and now all that documentation is gone because we didn't keep any licenses of the old job's CRM). This was not a situation where I could find a part number.

I contacted Tech Alice and asked her to check the part number on the server. Alice reported back that because the drive was part of a RAID array, she couldn't get the part number. She recommended asking Bob, and put her time entry on the ticket.

I contacted Tech Bob and asked him if he could find the part number for the drive on the server; Bob also reported back that he could not find a way to get the part number from the server, he recommended that Charlie collect the part number when he went onsite. Bob added his time to the ticket (still my ticket) and added the status "onsite needed."

Now it is December 23rd. I have messaged Charlie and asked him to check the part number when he is onsite and have added him to the ticket. I'm out of the office today, Charlie is out of the office next week. Charlie does not remember to look at the part number when he is onsite. It is the end of the year.

Now it is January 15th. We lost the first week of the year to assessments, and the second week of the year to the state and our clients being on fire - people were unable to go onsite because of all of that. Charlie is going onsite. I remind him to get the part number when he is at the client site. When he is at the client site he alerts me that actually he is at their other location, not the location with the server.

Now it is January 27th. Charlie is going back onsite, he is on my ticket, the ticket is set to onsite needed. I remind Charlie that we need the part number. Charlie does not remember.

Now it is February 6th. We have created a whole new ticket for Charlie with the *EXPRESS STATED PURPOSE* of going onsite to collect a part number for the failing drive in the server. Charlie marks the ticket as "waiting materials" and makes a note that he can't replace the drive until we order the part.

Now it is February 7th. We have explained, in writing, in Charlie's ticket that we can't order the part until he goes onsite and collects the part number, because we cannot get it because the server won't report the part number if it's in a raid array for reasons that I'll be honest I do not understand.

Now it is February 14th. Charlie closes his ticket and he and Bob pull me into a meeting. The server at the client site is so old they're not sure it's a good idea to replace the drive. Charlie has recommended that the project team quote a migration to sharepoint, which the client has expressed interest in in the past. Bob makes a note of this in my ticket. But I do not close my ticket. I do not close my ticket because I know there must be some fuckery coming. So I put my ticket to "on hold" and set it to reactivate on March 10th so that I can follow up with the project team and see if the migration project is making any progress or if we still need to replace this drive because the server drive is still failing.

It is March 13th. I have a bad week. A very bad week. My manager looks at my open tickets and asks why on earth I still have a server drive failure ticket open from December. I explain that I only have it open to follow up on the migration because the technician suggested server replacement but if there wasn't progress we should still quote a drive, but I still didn't have the part number.

My manager puts me in a chat with me, Charlie, the Project team lead, my manager, and the service team lead and asks what the fuck is going on. I paste Charlie's last update on my ticket and say that I'll be happy to quote a hard drive but I still don't have the part number.

Charlie says "Oh, I put the part number in the ticket" and pastes a photo of a drive (low light, low contrast, and blurry but with a visible part number) in the chat.

"Great!" I say, and immediately assemble a quote and find stock. Then i look back at my ticket. "But I'm actually not seeing the part number on this [my] ticket. Where was that again?"

Charlie has put the part number on his ticket, which I was never on, which he closed.

"Ah, okay. I see."

And here's where the different standards that all of us are used to using work against us.

My old job built RAID servers all the fucking time. It was totally standard, totally easy, totally sensible, and I always knew to double the number of drives we needed for the storage we got because we'd be mirroring. Because we'd be using RAID 10. Because it's robust and can take a lot of failure. A drive failing in a server configured with RAID 10 is not ideal, but it's also not a drop-everything and panic emergency. I *still* wouldn't want to leave it two months in an ideal world but I can't drive up to San Francisco and get a part number, and sometimes the world literally catches on fire.

However, these new folks use RAID 5.

A drive failing in a server configured with RAID 5 *IS* a drop everything emergency, because if one drive goes down the whole system goes down until you can replace the drive and rebuild the array, and because RAID 5 is slower than 10, this can take a very, very long time depending on how much data there is. And if *two* drives fail the data is *gone*

So.

Whose job is it to get the part number, and whose job is it to know that the server is at imminent risk of failure?

Well, now I have properly reconfigured my internal alarms about any failing server drive, but I don't understand why none of the three technicians who worked on this ticket with me didn't at any point say "hey this is an emergency" (Alice is from my old team and used to RAID 10 also, I'm willing to give her a pass) and I'm *really* confused why Bob and Charlie would recommend *not* replacing a drive in a server that is that close to failure.

(And again, I just didn't know. Believe me, I am never, ever going to shut up about drive warning tickets in the future)

And, the thing that scares the shit out of me and my manager and part of the reason why this has been a bad week and I'm having stressful conversations: What if I had just closed that ticket instead of letting it reactivate to follow up on? What if I had just marked it as done when Charlie gave me the update? It wouldn't have been an old-ass ticket in my queue that my manager flagged, it would have been a note in an after-action report when the client's server crashed.

(The client has the quote now with the statement "this failing drive puts your server at risk of failure and we strongly recommend replacing" but they haven't approved it yet because they're really cheap so I'm going to have to send it again and say "this is a mission critical part that you need to replace; your server is at risk as long as the drive is not replaced.")

So. The boss is asking "why is procurement taking so long" and really, now that I'm thinking about it - because he brought it up - how much of this really IS supposed to be my job?

[annerly-san]

Love and Deep Deadlines | A LaDS Corporate AU - Chapter 2

Summary:

Amidst the cut throat culture of Onyxion Enterprises where cutting-edge innovation is overshadowed by corporate chaos, no one talks about how hard it is to be an intern.

Alongside Caleb, the sales department smooth-talker; Zayne, the cold and unflappable CTO; Xavier, a director who might as well be an intern himself; and Rafayel, the overly dramatic Creative Director who brings his own flair to every meltdown, our intern is just trying to survive the workday. Oh, and don’t forget Onyxion’s very own CEO, Sylus, a walking HR violation who gets off on terrorizing his employees.

In this company, will love bloom before the deadlines run deep, or will the company go under first?

Chapter Navigation: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | ?

Alternative AO3 link:

I settled into my desk, making the rounds to introduce myself to my peers.

The warm welcomes helped to calm my nerves as I was just asked to settle down for now and watch some training videos on the overarching strategy within our marketing department.

It was truly corporate when there were hundreds of acronyms thrown at you left and right with the expectations that you already knew them.

I let out a sigh of relief, seeing that there was a pdf of the list buried in the Sharepoint file manager under “New Employee Resources”.  We love a self-aware corporation.

The twenty page long document was intense, and my monitor and docking station had not yet arrived.  The task of watching the training videos whilst taking notes and trying to find the acronyms required the usage of multiple screens.  My small laptop screen wouldn’t cut it.

At least the documentation for most things was there for a new employee.  The printer had step-by-step instructions on how to set up the network printer and get your print from the queue with your protocore identification band.  It should work with any printer in the building.

I sent the acronym list to the printer; a printer should be around here somewhere.

I stood up and wandered through the rows of cubicles, searching for the nearest one.

The rows of cubicles stretched out like a field, divided on occasion by a floor-to-ceiling divider to separate specialized teams, and I wandered through the rows peering occasionally around to see if there was a hidden printer somewhere.

After wandering for a good while, it all looked the same to me.

I was lost.

Were all office buildings like this?  Everything looked the exact same, how would you know where to go?

I’m sure that Caleb had the same problem and probably painted his cubicle with extravagant stripes of orange and blue and filled his space with model planes and apples to find his spot better, but I wasn’t employed in any permanent position to be decorating my own cubicle like that.

I turned the corner, finding a printer was no longer the priority as there was a rising panic that I’ve lost my way back to my team’s room.

My dread was interrupted by a loud banging in one of the corridors.  Curious, I traced the source.  Tucked against a partition, was my original objective for leaving my desk - a printer!

But along with finding my goal, I stumbled on the interesting sight of a man with short blonde hair fiddling with the control panel, occasionally hitting it with his hand in frustration and giving it a kick for good measure.  His aggravated assaults on the poor machine were the source of the banging sounds that I heard earlier.

“Why are you not working?” he groaned into his hand.

Did he not know how to use the printer?  Maybe he is an intern like me?  I’m sure that if I didn’t find the printer guide earlier, I would have been doing this exact same thing.  The thought of finding another co-worker in a similar position gave me the confidence to interrupt his frustrations.  “Is the printer not working?” I asked, approaching him with a friendly smile.

He turned to face me, blue eyes locking with mine as I saw  the annoyance behind them, but he was professional enough to not let it be directed at me.  “I don’t know how to work this stupid thing,” he muttered, hitting the printer again.  “Ah, sorry.”  He rubbed his head abashedly.

I jumped at the sound, but quickly got over it.  “That’s ok!” I said with some optimism in my voice.  “Can I try?”

Interns should help one another out.  I gave him my name as an introduction, extending my hand to shake his.  “I’m new here!  I’ve just started as an intern!”  He locked eyes with me and gave me a friendly smile, nodding at my words and grabbing my hand with a firm shake.  I beamed at the prospect of a new friendship.  “I read the printer guide, do you think I can try and see if I can help you out?”

 “Please do.  Go ahead.  My name’s Xavier, by the way.”

A sense of happiness coursed through me as I thought that I could make friends with a fellow intern this way.  We could help each other out.  If we’re on the same floor, he would be in marketing as well.

I tapped my wrist on the flat panel scanner, the printer humming and blinking green as it authenticated me.  My documents populated in the queue and I made sure that the right one was selected before entering in final specifications and hitting print.

My acronyms worksheet came out on warm paper, double-sided and stapled neatly in the corner.

“Hey!  I got it to work!”

Xavier looked stunned as he went back and forth staring between the stack of papers in my hand and the printer.  “...That’s amazing…!”  He looked at me dead in the eyes.  “You’re telling me you did that without black magic?  Or several tickets with the IT desk?  Hours on the line with them into the dead of night?  Are you sure you’re just an intern?”

I laughed and gestured to his hand for his protocore id band.  “What are you printing?  Want me to help you?”

Xavier let a small smile crawl up onto his lips as he nodded.  “Yes, please!”

He watched eagerly as I showed him how to use his protocore band to authenticate with the server and pull his documents off of the cloud.

I couldn’t suppress the laughter bubbling in me as he was so thrilled that the printer could also staple and hole punch the sheets.

He finally held up his stack of documents in awe.  He called my name.  “You’re amazing!  Thank you!”

“It’s no big deal!  I’m happy to help a fellow intern out!”

“Hm?  Intern?”  He looked confused at my words, but I was too excited to focus on that part and the words came out of my mouth before I could stop it.

“Let’s be friends!  I’m new, so I haven’t met anyone yet, but I was happy to run into you here, Xavier!”  There was a slight flush on his face, and I felt that perhaps this wasn’t how you made friends in the corporate world.  “O-oh, unless you don’t want to, or you work somewhere else-.  I didn’t mean-”

“N-no, we could be friends!”  Xavier placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder.  “I…I would like that.”

I couldn’t resist the smile on my face from the excitement of my first work friend.

But I was probably gone from my desk for long enough, and now that I had my prints, I should really head back.  The issue was that I just didn’t know where to go.  Perhaps Xavier did.  “By chance do you know where the product marketing group sits?  I got lost trying to find the printer,” I admitted, rubbing my head in embarrassment.  “It kinda looks all the same here, huh?”

“Oh, product marketing?  Yea, they sit over in group D3, do you want me to walk you there?”

“That would be great!  Only if you don’t mind!”

Xavier smiled at me.  “Not at all.  Let’s go.”

I trailed happily behind him with a skip in my step.

“We’re here.  Is this your desk?”  He pointed at the desk right by the door.

“Yep!  I sit here!  Hey, if you ever need me or just want to hang out just let me-”

“Huh?  Director Xavier?”  My words were cut off by Tara’s surprise.  “What brings you here?”

My brain short-circuited. Director Xavier?

“Oh I was just showing her the way back to her desk,” Xavier pointed at me.  The smile dropped from my face and cold chills ran down my spine.  He wasn’t an intern?  He was a higher up?  I was just prancing around the cubicles with him a minute ago.  We high fived each other and made a work bestie vow.  But he was one of the bosses?

The world was collapsing before my very eyes.  My 20-page printout of the acronyms nearly fell out of my hands.

“Oh so you’ve met our new intern already!” Tara clasped her hands together happily.  “We were going to introduce you later during the all-hands, but this works better!”  Tara turned to me, pulling me by the shoulder to turn and look at Xavier.  “As you know, we all report to Jenna, and Jenna reports to Director Xavier.  He oversees product marketing, so we’re one of the few groups that he manages.  You could say that he’s one of the bosses that we do a lot of work for.”

It took all my willpower to not let my jaw drop to the floor.

He was a director and I called him a fucking intern.  I asked if we could be buddies.  What kind of intern has the audacity to ask the director to be besties with her?

This might be my first and last day on the job.

“I-It was really nice to meet you, D-director Xavier-” my voice trailed off and I struggled to maintain eye contact with him after the embarrassment of calling him an intern earlier.

Xavier was much more composed than I was.  It was no wonder he was a director.  He gave me a kind smile, reaching out his hand to me.  I took it and watched it flop awkwardly as he shook it.  Tara looked at me with concern.

At this point, it doesn’t matter anymore.

“It was really great meeting you too.  If I have printer problems again or if you also want to hang out, I’ll be sure to drop by now that I know where you sit,” he stated before clutching the bundle of papers he printed close to his chest.  “Thanks for your help again.  I’ll see you around.”

My cheeks flushed red as I watched him leave - my eyes were burning holes into the cubicle walls.

Tara patted me on the back.  “Well look at you!  We were going to set up intros next week, but you’re such a go-getter!  Nice work!”

I felt my soul leave my body.

I wanted to go home.

I wallowed in my despair in the corner of my desk. My monitor and docking station were set up in a daze as I stared blankly at my screen, training content passing in one ear and right out the other.

What kind of employee calls their director an intern, asks to be friends, and hang out with each other?  And on their first day?

I buried my head in my hands as the memory of our interaction resurfaced in my head.

A loud ping from my laptop woke me from my trance.

[Caleb]: hows ur first day so far?  u hungry?

[Caleb]: wanna get lunch w me?

The messages from Caleb reminded me of the time.  At least I could catch a break after all of this.  I messaged Caleb back.

[Me]: bruh im gonna die ;(

[Me]: leggo to lunch pls.. where food at

I waited a few seconds, seeing Caleb’s chat icon pop up to indicate that he was typing.

[Caleb]: hold tight pipsqueak

[Caleb]: im on my way to get u ;)

[Me]: pls rescue soon ;(

I rolled back in my seat. The tapping of my fingers against the desk didn’t do much to calm my nerves. My mind was still spinning from the morning’s catastrophe with Xavier. I slumped further into my chair, practically melting into my seat. Lunch couldn’t come fast enough.

A series of soft taps outside the team room caught my attention, and then I heard Caleb’s voice. “Hey hey! How’s my second favorite team in Onyxion?”

Heads turned immediately—Caleb had that effect on people. He exudes effortless cool, his suit jacket slung over his shoulder and his collared shirt had a few buttons open with his tie hanging loose, a casual, almost lazy smile on his face.  He definitely wasn’t the type of person to mistakenly call their director an intern on his first day of work.

“Caleb!” “Oh, hey, Caleb!” “What’s up, dude?”

The chorus of greetings followed, with a few of them getting up from their desks to greet him like some kind of office VIP.

“Came to drop by?” someone asked, clearly curious why he was here.

Caleb grinned, glancing around the room. “Actually, I’m here to grab lunch with a special someone~!”  A few people paused mid-greeting, confused.  “My sister~!”

“Sister?” one of them asked, eyes darting around the room. “Who?”

Caleb looked around the cubicle openings before landing on mine with a wide grin.  He nodded in my direction, grin never leaving his face. “Right there!  That’s my Pipsqueak!”

All eyes snapped to me. I froze, feeling the weight of everyone’s gaze.  Had I not had the most mortifying experience of my life with Xavier, I would have been embarrassed by Caleb’s declaration of his nickname for me in front of all my peers.

“You guys didn’t know? She’s my baby sister,” Caleb clarified with a wink, clearly enjoying the reveal a little too much.

Tara blinked, processing the information before offering a warm laugh. “Well, that explains the VIP treatment!  It’s super hard to get Caleb out to lunch!  Why didn’t you say anything?”

I tried to smile and shrug, despite my burning cheeks.  Caleb chuckled and nudged me playfully. “Ready to go?”

I nodded quickly, eager to escape.

Once we hit the elevator, I let out a breath. “You couldn’t resist, could you?”  I punched him in the arm for ousting me as his sibling in front of all my coworkers.

Caleb grinned, completely unapologetic. “What? It’s more fun that way. Besides, now they know who’s watching out for you.”

I punched his arm, though there was no real force behind it. “You’re such a show-off.”

“Always,” he said, laughing as the elevator doors closed behind us.

We exited the elevator and made our way to the cafeteria. It was bustling with employees, the sound of chatter and clinking dishes filling the air. Caleb, of course, navigated through the crowd effortlessly, giving nods and smiles to people as we passed. It was like watching a politician on a campaign trail—everyone knew him, and more importantly, everyone liked him.

“Why do I feel like I’m walking next to a celebrity?” I muttered as we got in line for food.

Caleb smirked. “Because I am one.  Consider yourself lucky, pipsqueak.  You get to dine in the presence of an office celeb!”

I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help smiling. “Of course you are.”

We grabbed our trays, and Caleb, true to form, picked up more food than anyone could possibly eat in one sitting. “You’re going to regret not grabbing a second sandwich,” he teased, nudging me with his elbow as we made our way to a table.

Just as we sat down, I spotted Xavier entering the cafeteria. I sank lower into my seat, hoping he wouldn’t see me. The embarrassment of earlier was still fresh in my mind.

“You okay?” Caleb asked, noticing my sudden change in posture.

I waved him off. “Yeah, just... avoiding someone.”

Caleb raised an eyebrow, leaning in with a grin. “Who? Someone I need to beat up for you?”

I snorted. “No, it’s just... Xavier.  Director Xavier…”

“The director?” Caleb’s eyes widened with mock surprise. “What did you do, pipsqueak? Spill it.”

I sighed. “I may or may not have called him an intern… and then asked him to be my friend… and to hang out with me…”

Caleb burst out laughing, causing a few heads to turn. “You... you called Xavier an intern?” he wheezed, wiping a tear from his eye. “Oh, that’s priceless!  OH MY GOD, AHAHAHAHA!!!”

“Caleb, shhh!” I hissed, glancing around to make sure Xavier wasn’t within earshot. “I didn’t know he was the director!  My boss reports to him!  He’s like my big boss!!”

Caleb was still chuckling, clearly enjoying my misfortune far too much. “Well, at least you made an impression.”

I groaned, burying my face in my hands. “He’s going to think I’m a complete idiot.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it,” Caleb said, taking a big bite of his sandwich. “He’s a good guy. He won’t hold it against you. And besides, if he does, just let me know. I think I can take him in a fight.”

I shot him a look. “Don’t you dare.” Memories of Caleb getting into full-blown brawls all throughout school popped into my mind. He had a knack for turning a mild disagreement into a fistfight, and no one was ever quite sure what triggered him. A lot of people learned to steer clear of him after that, especially when they saw how quickly he could go from bright and happy to throwing punches in unbridled rage.

“Caleb...” I warned, but he just shrugged with that lazy grin.

“What? I’ve mellowed out. Mostly.” He winked.  “I wouldn’t punch a fellow co-worker unless they really deserved it ok?  And I’ll happily skip a paycheck to punch someone that made you mad at work.”

As Caleb and I sat there, still bantering back and forth, I saw Xavier heading our way with a tray of food. I froze for a second, but Caleb didn’t miss a beat.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Director Xavier!” Caleb called out, loud enough for nearby tables to turn and look.  “You got a dining buddy yet?  We got a seat open!”

Xavier raised an eyebrow but smiled as he approached. “I know that you get to know people fast, Caleb, but how do you know the new intern already?  I just met her today.”

Caleb chuckled, leaning back in his chair. “What can I say? You gotta network when you’re in sales.” He winked in my direction.

Xavier smiled at me as he sat down, setting his tray on the table. “Well, you’re a lucky intern. Caleb is a hard guy to get lunch with.  He told me the other day that I had to book a few weeks in advance.”

I had a feeling that it was sarcasm on Caleb’s end, but Xavier took it seriously.  I bit my lip to maintain a straight face.

Caleb grinned, not missing a beat.  “What can I say? I’m in high demand.” He took a sip of his drink, then leaned forward with a smirk. “But I can always make an exception for my sister.”

Xavier raised an eyebrow, clearly intrigued. “Sister? I didn’t know you had family.”

“Not by blood,” Caleb clarified, casting a glance at me. “But close enough. Grew up together, so she’s practically my pipsqueak now.”

I smiled awkwardly, feeling a bit exposed.  I let out an awkward chuckle.

Xavier gave me a kind smile and glanced at us. “You know, I’ve worked with Caleb on a few projects before, and I can tell you—if he’s got your back, you’re in good hands.” His tone had sincerity behind it.

“See?” Caleb chimed in, pointing a thumb at Xavier. “Even he gets it.”

My initial discomfort with Xavier’s presence at the table quickly dissipated as the conversation flowed between the three of us smoothly.  He had a very laid-back personality that was very approachable once you got to know him.  Had I not been in a line of direct reports to him, I’m sure we would have been good work friends already.

The lighthearted banter continued for a moment until Xavier’s smile faded, and he turned to Caleb. His voice dropped in volume as he didn’t want others to overhear.  “Have you heard about what happened in the finance department? Sylus wasn’t happy.”

Caleb’s expression darkened slightly. “Yeah, I heard.  He’s pissed.  Which isn’t good.”

Xavier nodded, his usual easygoing demeanor slipping as he glanced around the cafeteria, lowering his voice. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this means restructuring.  With what happened in that department, I’m not sure if there’s going to be something worse.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, the playful mood from earlier now replaced with a sense of unease.

“You really think it’ll be that bad?” Caleb whispered to him, voice barely audible as he tried to keep the conversation discreet.

Xavier sighed. “The repercussions are company-wide.  You know how Sylus is.  He’ll trim the fat and parts of the actual cut.  He’s find with those losses as long as he can made a point.”

“I-Is something happening in the company?”  Xavier and Caleb looked over at me in surprise, not realizing that I was able to sense that something was awry and was a cause for concern.  Caleb’s gaze softened, noticing the worry growing on my face, and he gave me a reassuring smile. “We’ll be fine, Pipsqueak. Don’t worry, this is more of the director and above level stuff.  You got nothing to worry about.”

Xavier nodded, though his expression remained serious. “Caleb’s right.  This kind of thing doesn’t affect you or your role.”

The lunch wrapped up shortly after, but the unspoken tension of what Caleb and Xavier spoke of hung heavy in the air.

As we wrapped up lunch, Caleb nudged me playfully. “Back to work, Pipsqueak. Don’t want to keep your fancy new team waiting.” He shot a glance at Xavier. “And don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on her.”

Xavier chuckled, standing up with his tray. “I have no doubt about that. Good luck with the rest of your day, and don’t be afraid to swing by if you need anything.” He gave me a reassuring nod before heading off, leaving Caleb and me alone at the table.

As we walked back toward the elevators, I couldn’t shake the weight of the conversation between Caleb and Xavier.

Once we reached the elevator, Caleb pressed the button and leaned against the wall, studying my expression. “You okay?”

I took a deep breath, “Sylus…is the CEO, right?  Why’s he upset?  What happened with the finance department?”

Caleb ruffled my hair like he used to when we were kids. “Hey, hey, I told you that it’s just the big boss stuff.  You know CEOs and the boss people, finance guys always make them mad.  The usual stuff.  It’s really nothing that an intern needs to worry about.”  He locked eyes with me, and I knew he was hiding something.  But the smile on his face betrayed the slightest bit of tension that I was able to tell from years of growing up with him.  Yet I knew not to press him further on it.  He was more stubborn than me when it came to these things.

I swatted his hand away with a laugh. “Ok, ok.  Anyways, thanks, Caleb.”

The elevator doors opened, and I stepped inside, glancing back at him. “See you later?”

“Of course. Don’t get too comfortable. I’m picking you up at the end of the day,” Caleb replied with a wink.

The doors slid shut, leaving me alone in the quiet elevator. As the floor numbers ticked by, I recalled my first day so far.  How eventful.

As I settled back into my desk, a soft ping from my laptop caught my attention. An email notification from the company’s internal communications system appeared in the corner of my screen: Onyxion Announces New Acquisition of EverTech Biomedical Solutions .

Curiosity piqued, I clicked on the link, which led to a sleek press release page with an embedded video at the top. There he was—Sylus. He stood tall and confident, answering questions from a group of reporters with ease, every word meticulously measured yet effortlessly charismatic.

I leaned in, watching as Sylus spoke about the strategic acquisition, how EverTech would integrate seamlessly into Onyxion’s existing infrastructure, boosting their innovation pipeline and expanding their product portfolio. His tone was smooth and authoritative, but it was more than that. He had a way of speaking that made everything seem possible, like every challenge was just another stepping stone.. The way he fielded tough questions with calm precision was impressive, and I couldn’t help but feel a surge of admiration. This was the kind of CEO that made waves in the industry—someone who commanded respect and attention without even trying.

Whatever the finance department did to make him upset, must have messed up majorly.  The conversation that worried me before disappeared from my mind completely as I continued to watch Sylus on my screen.

Watching him, it was hard not to feel a mix of awe and... maybe a little envy. He seemed to have everything figured out—the vision, the confidence, the power to turn ideas into reality. Everything I wasn’t sure I had. The kind of person who could get things done, while I still felt stuck, unsure of how to make my own ideas matter.

He’s the kind of person I’ve always wanted to be.

I shifted in my chair, a flicker of self-doubt creeping in. Sure, I had ideas. Sometimes I’d think about what I could do if I had the chance, if I had the kind of authority someone like Sylus did. But that was just it—I didn’t have any of those things. I was just an intern, watching from the sidelines, wondering if I’d ever be capable of contributing on that level.

Still, as the video played on, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something about Onyxion—about Sylus—that resonated with me. He wasn’t just another CEO. He was shaping the future, and part of me, deep down, wanted to be part of that. Even if I wasn’t sure how, or if I was good enough.

The video ended, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. There was something undeniably magnetic about Sylus, and I couldn’t help but feel a spark of admiration. Not that I’d ever have the chance to interact with him directly. People like him existed in a different world, one I wasn’t sure I could ever step into.

Another chime from my laptop reminded me to get back to work. I sighed, turning back to my training videos, but my mind was still lingering on the thought of what it would be like to be part of something bigger. He has the kind of vision I want to support... if I could even figure out how.

[pancakeke]

A bit of additional context:

These instructions are more for other people (backups, management, etc) than myself. I have all this stuff memorized.

SharePoint auto saves every fucking edit anyone makes to anything which causes a lot of problems. I don't give anyone edit access to Word files, but everyone basically has edit access to Excel files. Due to this, people may accidentally alter or delete instructions in Excel. I can revert changes but the level of tech literacy around here is balls and I cannot reasonably expect it to improve.

Sometimes two or more Excel files are required to update one report, and for this reason instructions may reference multiple files.

Since Word files are separate from the reports in Excel, when file names or processes change I have to make sure I'm keeping multiple docs in sync.

[exmcloud]

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[whentherewerebicycles]

okay i am feeling a little overwhelmed by the volume of stuff i have to do and learn and read!! i think that what’s making it more challenging is that i don’t have a good mental schema yet to hold all these disparate tasks & pieces of advice & bits of information that are flooding in, so it’s hard to know where to put stuff or how to prioritize certain tasks over others.

here are my big urgent priorities, which i am defining to mean ���stuff that needs to happen in the next 2-3 work days”:

i need to closely read & take notes on these two position descriptions we’re hiring for so i can have an informed conversation with the other hiring manager early next week. however, I don’t have that meeting until wednesday, so i am shifting this task to tuesday after the holiday.

i need to read my student worker’s job description and do some thinking about how i want to approach our first expectations-setting meeting together. i’m sensing there is going to be a tricky balance here - it seems like the student role has been treated very casually as there hasn’t really been one direct supervisor in place... but also people have made some offhanded comments about the student that make it seem like there are some reliability/followthrough/communication issues that probably need to be addressed. i need to read the job description closely, gather some more information from the coworker who was informally supervising her, and then figure out how i want to structure our first meeting next tues. i think i can save some of this for tues morning, but might want to take advantage of my coworker being in the office today to have an information-gathering conversation with her where i ask some more specific questions about the issues people have mentioned & get her thoughts on how/when to address them with the student. so today’s task: have that conversation and take some notes for myself so i can let the question simmer in the back of my mind over the long weekend. tuesday morning’s task: read the job description & think about whether i want that first meeting to incorporate an expectations-setting thing of some kind (maybe using some of alison green’s AMA stuff).

i need to create some way to track & map the names of people i’ve met so far or been told i should connect with. i think this will tentatively take the form of a freeform board (for now), since the post-it option will let me easily record & cluster names in a mind-map board. that said, i don’t want to get sidetracked into putting a lot of information into the board right now, as i think i could easily lose a whole day or more on that. so today i will limit myself to JUST adding the names, a one-sentence description, and a note about whether i’ve scheduled a meeting with them yet. i think i would like to set a timer and spend 30 min max on this.

i need to read the long onboarding document they created for me so i can figure out whether there are additional things i should be thinking about or doing. this also has a more detailed description of my primary responsibilities, which will be helpful for building that mental schema. some tasks on the list will be little practical to-dos, like register for benefits or get my ID card photo taken. others will be more substantive, like sit down and do some journaling to consolidate my understanding of my role & what my first 3-6 months will look like. i think that to keep myself from getting sucked into the journaling work (which could also easily swallow an entire day), i want to skim through the document first and pull out ONLY the concrete to-dos (trainings i have to complete, benefits enrollment stuff i have to do, practical tasks). THEN i want to read through 

we have this gigantic messy sharepoint folder that has tons and tons of info relevant to my job, but is not organized in a way that i find especially intuitive. i do NOT want to get sucked into reading stuff today because there are so many files in there and not all of that info is immediately relevant. i think that what i’d like to do today is just a VERY deliberately surface-level skim of the folders, where i don’t let myself actually read any documents in-depth but just look at first pages of stuff and make a list of folders or files that seem like they’ll be useful to read in greater depth. once i’ve created that list, i want to figure out how to organize it (maybe ordering the entire thing in order of priority or relevance, so i have a list of stuff to steadily work through during my downtime, or maybe loosely grouping stuff by theme/category so i have a better sense of where information is when i need to access it later on.

at the end of the day, i want to take about 15-30 minutes to check on my list, jot down possible priorities for monday (though i don’t have to set my agenda just yet), and record any priorities that are not immediate (next 2-3 work days) but should be shorter-term (next couple weeks).

i think that these tasks will easily take up the entire day! my number one obstacle is: i know that as i work through this list i will feel a VERY strong impulse to delve more deeply into individual items and lose myself in the highly enjoyable work of reading, researching, reflective journaling, etc. however, i want to remind myself that i will have lots of time for that later, and at this stage it’s much more important for me to build out the skeleton infrastructure of this job in my mind so i can start fitting pieces of information into it. to combat that tendency, i will keep a catch-all notebook page or document to the side where i can write down threads i want to follow later or questions as they come up. that way i can feel sure that i’ll remember those things i want to explore later, but i don’t have to actually dive into them right now. 

[mariacallous]

One of the projects I’ve been asked to look into and eventually take on is setting up an office-wide sharepoint repository/library for documents and based on what I’ve been seeing it sounds like it’ll be a huge pain in the ass to set up and organize.

There’s also a particular report that gets done that involves comments and feedback from others that we’re apparently looking to house in sharepoint and make it so that it’s able to be updated directly and that also sounds like a big pain in the ass to organize and manage ongoing. This report is a huge part of the tracking and reporting we do which adds to the pressure.

[savitaxfiles]

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[sharepointdesig]

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