Let's bitch about our stupid, annoying co-workers

y

thankye kindley

Boss' computer is about 5 years old, and it has been starting to have problems.

Couple of weeks ago IT guy fixed it and recommended buying a new system. Boss says that IT guy just wants to score a commission from Dell (on a computer that would cost barely $1,000) and "this one is working just fine."

Today, more problems. IT guy works for a couple hours and says it's time for a new computer. Boss says, "This one is working just fine."

Boss' diagnosis: computer should not be left on overnight because "It's well-known that that's how hackers get in."

also, elves

I have a temporary co-worker (a new contact person on a biannual sheep breeders directory) who is making me want to drink antifreeze. This is her first time coordinating any sort of project like this, and I've had to talk her off the ledge and let her know the project is going well at least 2x daily for the last 10 days. The upside is that she's directed some of that nervous energy into selling ads, so we have 2 to 3 times the number of advertisers from the previous directory.

One of the advertisers pulled his ad because I pointed out the bad photoshop job he'd done on the picture he wanted to run. (Imagine a digital version of the ruined fresco of Jesus in Spain from last year.)

To the IT guy in response to his saying her computer is old (6 years old, not 5): "Look, the reality is that computers are obsolete the second you pay for them." (so they remain forever at the same level of obsolescence??)

She's probably already wasted $1000 worth of IT's time keeping this one around

Well yeh. Our IT is a consultant, whom we pay hourly.

Wm, I wish I could see the bad photoshop. Imagining a flat-faced sheep. A lamb, like the ruined fresco of the lamb of God.

I would post it, but I don't want to cross the streams of work and ilx life too much. It was a backdrop shot of a winning ram, and they'd painted over it in its two colors (tan body, black face and legs) so that it just looked like a cardboard silhouette. I think they must have cancelled the ad out of embarrassment, but they said they were cancelling it because I had the gall to ask for a higher-resolution version of the photo. (They sent 338 x 224 pixels, roughly postage-stamp size at print resolution.)

training with coworker to learn new tasks that may come up in the coming weeks. as far as I know, I'm just helping pick up some slack. Find myself trapped in this whirling nervous vortex of "uhmmm so here is EVERYTHING i do" that was so unending & tooootally confusing & overwhelming & I was like "Okay, I'm gonna stop you there. My brain only can hold so much the first time round, we can go over things as they come up." and pray that 90% of what he told me I won't have to do for at least a little while. Fuuuuuck me O_O

some people really suck at dispensing *pertinent* information

One of my coworkers has been sick all week. Really felt bad for him. He's wracked with a cough, etc. Friday, during the lunch hour, he's on a personal phone call in his office. "Oh, I'm doing better. Except it's all coming out the other end." "That Mucinex really thins you out, if you know what I mean." Yeah, well you'll be crappin' too in about a week!"

I'm just sitting out here in my cubicle trying to eat a veggie burger. You have an office with a door. Use it.

Our temporary HR lead may be the single worst person I have ever encountered.

She has been brought on to oversee the recruitment of a dozen new staff. In two months we haven't recruited anyone despite hundreds of interviews. Otherwise fine candidates have been vetoed for not being 'spunky' enough, having 'the wrong vibe' or because she 'wasn't really feeling them'.

She'll answer a shared phone line, say "uh, what? I don't know what you're talking about" and hang up. Might be a potential new customer, might not, who knows?

She yelled 'you're not very good at your job, are you" at our IT department (overworked ppl in Bangalore serving a company of tens of thousands) because they couldn't make her computer go faster.

She'll grab handfuls of chocolates given to us by clients to share with the office and bray through a full mouth "isn't it amazing how I never put on weight?"

She encouraged one of my colleagues to have a cupcake by saying 'it's not as though you're "big" big'.

She has gone into interviews with the wrong people's CVs and cover letters.

She's so desperate to show of how fluent she is in Spanish she'll do pre-interview vetting entirely in castellano. Which would be fine if it didn't mean we keep calling people for interview who aren't proficient in English - something she would have realised had she not been showing off.

Ugh.

O_o

Wow! She is terrible.

lol. she sounds like the worst person ever!

I think she might be an actress hired to make the boss look less awful in comparison.

She'll grab handfuls of chocolates given to us by clients to share with the office and bray through a full mouth "isn't it amazing how I never put on weight?"

...she isn't what you would call a people person

I kinda have a crush on her, tbh.

"'it's not as though you're "big" big'."

omg

"bass music is any kind of music where the bass is the main part of the music - drum & bass, dubstep, house... even reggae and blue have elements of bass music in them."

FIRED.

thank you based music

So our building custodian guy, Ken, is really nice, which sometimes crosses over into being officious, and he's a bit child-like in a sort of Edith Massey way.

Today he calls me to tell me one of our lawyers parked improperly and needs to move his car. I asked what the problem was and where he should re-park. Ken says, "Go to the window and see where he's parked."

"Can you just tell me?"

"He's off to the side, over by -- just go to the window, you'll see. I'll wait."

"Ken, can you just tell me??"

"No, you have to see."

So I go to the window and see that the car is parked by the Dumpster.

"Did you see it?"

"Yeh, it's by the Dumpster."

"Yeh, so he needs to move it in case the garbage truck comes."

Why did I *have to* go to the window? Why do I *have to* go look at a trash can to see if some papers were thrown away accidentally? Why do I always have to look at things for him?

maybe he couldn't remember the word for dumpster

He likes to watch you look at trash.

He just likes bossing you around.

There's a parallel board where Ken is moaning about how someone at work wanted him to describe in detail over the phone exactly how a car was wrongly parked instead of just glancing out the window and getting the thing moved.

I was sure that he was going to be out there by the dumpster waving at you, or mooning you, or something prankish like that!

Oh great, I've got an advertiser who wants to create his own ad and wants me to give him free InDesign lessons so he can do it.

"what's today's date?" asks a co-worker. WTF?

At my old job, we had to work at least two weeks ahead, sometimes a couple of months, to meet court deadlines, which required keeping a calendar always turned a month or two ahead, so I never knew what the actual date was.

i work with creatives and half the office has no clue what day it is. 1/5 - no idea the month.

I spent most of the last week thinking it was July.

I think it is 2012 right now and I don't care what anyone else says

do we work together?!

ya I ask "what's today's date" p much every time I need the date

I ask "what day is today?" That always leaves 'em guessing.

even if you don't know the date, which is fine, asking colleagues rather than just having a look at your Outlook calendar or Windows calendar or a news website or a billion other ways made me roll my eyes. But y'know whatevs!

sometimes it is ok to speak to other people

yes it is, probably I'm being grumpy.

i'm with Neil with this. just look at your ^%&$% phone or something. anything.

the company picnic was a couple days ago. it's a big deal since there are 5k+ employees here. it's a big enough event that the local police and fire departments come and give some demos, community goodwill and all that. the cops show off their cop dogs, mainly.

i overheard a woman asking "is canine a breed of dog?" and she kept asking cos her coworkers' blank stares didn't really register correctly with her, i guess. and then a guy was trying to explain the visual pun of k-9 = canine. but she just kept asking.

during some system tests this morning, one item kept failing. I found the source of the prob fairly early, and in researching, found out that the whole setup error was based on a misunderstanding from 4 months ago. That should have been caught in the heat of the instant message conversation (which was documented), but both sides communicated unclearly and didn't reconfirm to make sure they understood each other.

and I wasn't CCed when this was going on, or I could have caught this. Minor issue at the end of the day, but annoying that we had to waste so many folks' mornings for something so silly.

That does sound awful.

I sure love having a main client contact whose response to every question is "What was I supposed to be doing with that?" or "Remind me what you're waiting for?"

u_u

a couple days ago i was caught at the elevator by this really annoying co-worker who is also stupid, and he asked me for work advice, asked me if he was being intentionally left out of some things, etc. i told him not to worry and gave him a half-assed pep talk. we got on the elevator and on the next floor down as a group of people got on, he said "thanks for letting me be frank, by the way." then he paused, realized he had an audience, and said "but you can call me francis! ha ha." i think i replied with a weak, "no problem..."

he added apropos of nothing "surely you can't be serious! don't call me shirley!" he was actually winking at me at this point, i made a quick "cut the mic" motion across my throat but he didn't notice.

anyway there were a couple of more jokes like this, the elevator ride was long as fuck, and as everyone exited into the lobby he shouted after them, "i'll be here all week!"

i'm also beginning to suspect he's trying to torpedo the career of the girl who has the same job title as him by telling me "we don't get along AND I KNOW WHY." but he won't tell me why.

oh weird.

yeesh