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

Boss:"Ronan could you comb your hair next time you come to work"

Me:"eh in fairness the contract doesn't say anything about me having to comb my hair"

Boss:"yeah but I mean you're a student now yeah? this job isn't so bad. they look after you well, it's a good wage, I'm happy with my lot"

Me:"I don't think there's any chance of me ever working here for a living, long term"

Boss:"Yeah and they pay your health insurance, it's not too difficult a job either"

Me:"Yeah no I'm never going to want to work here, to be honest I was planning on quitting as soon as I start college, or maybe even sooner, you needn't tell the main boss that"

Boss:"Oh don't worry, whatever is discussed here stays here. *long David Brent style lecture* I know what it's like to work WITH people and AROUND people, and I know that this station is not being run as effectively as possible, it's a clique, and I'm sure you can see that too Ronan. But quitting isn't going to change that. You quitting will not make this a smoother operation.

Me:"Eh I don't care about this job, I'm not sure what your point is"

Boss:"All I'm saying is, think about what I've said to you yeah? Just think about it"

Me:"............ok"

CEBCWTJCW: Morning Rachel!!! Oooh! What have you done to your NOSE??

Me: What? Oh yeah, it's a spot.

CEBCWTJCW: No! You've cut yourself or something! It's really RED.

Me: No, really, it's just a big, shiny, noticeable spot.

CEBCWTJCW: It looks really BAD!

At this point I gave up all hope of having a good day.

Woman At Next Desk: Oh, you used to live in London? So did I. I moved back after my daughter started school and, to be honest, I'm really glad I did. The education you get in London is terrible.

Madchen: I've heard inner city schools are, er, challenging.

WAND: Oh yes. I mean, she was one of only three white faces in the class.

Madchen: Oh. (Mutters something under her breath about 1 in 4 Scots).

Office twats who preface statements with 'I'm not being funny' should recognise that everything following the phrase comes with its own virtual kill file.

My other suggestion would be to canvass other coworkers for a pizza delivery one Friday and exclude her blatantly.

I work in a room with two people. Person 1 said to me all the stuff I wrote above. She thought nothing of saying it to a stranger (the assumption, I guess, being that I would think the same). Person 2 laughed along merrily. Also, I have come across numerous people in Glasgow who tell me they get scared in London because there are so many black people around. Again, the way they express themselves implies they feel no sense of shame whatsoever - they just don't see there's anything wrong in expressing obviously prejudiced opinions.

I'm not denying for a second that racism doesn't exist elsewhere (and I'm not forgetting that the survey found 3 in 4 Scots aren't racist) but this is the only place I've encountered bigots who have the expectation that my opinion must be the same as theirs.

reply from me: "actually, on Friday we both determined that we had the wrong CD and would have to special order a new copy. On Monday."

reply from my boss: "There must have been some miscommunication here."

yeah, between your ears and your brain. moron!

What the fuck?

Despite the fact that she's obviously still pregnant.

However, I AM authorized to purchase them, however I want, whenever I want.

What does that even mean?

SUBJECT LINE: I gotta get outta this place
...if it's the last thing I ever do (feel free to hum along.)

After a delightful morning spent discussing why someone:
1. Shouldn't open a printer paperfeed drawer, while the printer is printing;
2. Shouldn't send emails to everyone on their mailing lists about Church-related emails;
3. Should let others know when they need the printer instead of deleting documents in the queue;
4. Shouldn't tell someone "this is urgent" so they work really late to get it finished, when really, it isn't urgent at all and in fact, doesn't need to be done at all; and
5. Shouldn't take someone else's lunch from the refrigerator and leave it on the counter to make room for "extra drinks in case we have visitors,"
I have now experienced the conversation to top them all (and really, you have to laugh at this one. I did. Once I calmed down, imbibed chocolate and nicotine, and thought "well, at least it's not quantum physics?). So....here it is:

A Dialogue between "M" (yours truly) and "S" (Otherwise known as Scarett/Princess/Arch Nemesis/The Scarf Lady/etc.)
S: Hey "M"!
M: Yes?
S: You know how to work that digital camera yet?
M: Yeah, figured it out last week.
S: How long does it take to get those photos developed?
M: What?
S: I need some photos really fast, so I can photocopy them and make notes on the back. And get duplicates too, in case they get messed-up.
M: What? What pictures do you need taken?
S: I need to you take pictures of my computer.
M: Why?
S: I need to know what's on my computer.
M: (sigh) You are looking for a file?
S: No, I need to know what is on my screen thing.
M: (dawning awareness) You need screen captures?
S: No, I need pictures of my computer.
M: For....?
S: I need to know what's on my screen, 'cause these instructions don't make sense and I want to make notes.
M: Okay, then you need a picture of the information on your screen, that you can print and add notes to?
S: Yes.
M: Okay, we don't need the camera for that. We can just do screen captures. It's easy.
(M walks over to other office, taking deep and soothing breathes all the while, and explains how to "CTRL+ALT+PrtScn" - runs into trouble with explanation of holding down all keys at the same time. Eventually resolved and screen is captured.)
M: Now open Word and set the page to ?Landscape.?
S: My computer won't do that.
M: What? Yes it will.
(M goes through brief discussion of "portrait" vs "landscape" and how to perform operation in Word. Discovers part of problem is that S doesn?t know how to open Word because the icon isn?t on her desktop.)
M: Now just hit "Shift+Insert" and your screen shot will be inserted.
M: No, you need to hold down both keys at the same time.
M: I don't know, that's just the way the program is designed.
M: Yeah, it is find of frustrating.
M: Okay, now you have it. Just insert a new page for each of the next screen captures and then print the file.
(M returns to own desk and gets back into rhythm of formatting proposal.)
S: M! It isn't working. I want you to take the pictures for me.
M: I don't have time to take the pictures right now, I have to get this back to _____.
S: Well, I don't have the time to use the camera, so I guess this won't get done and _____ will be mad.
M: Yeah, I guess ___ will be mad, but I'll explain the problem to him.
S: Can't you do these thingys for me?
M: No, not right now. I have to get this done.
S: You know, it's your job to do this.
M: No, actually it isn't. I am sorry, but I really can't do it right now. If I have time later I'll come over and see what we can do. In the meantime, why don't you look under the "Help" menu to see if those instructions are better.
S: Oh, my computer doesn't have any "Help" on it. I keep telling ____ he needs to fix it, but he won't.

(M decides, for sake of sanity, to not try and figure out what that last comment means and returns to her editing, swearing all the while.)
End of original email.

And here are additional interesting tidbits about ?S?:
She claimed on her resume to be ?Microsoft Certified,? but was unable to explain what that meant;
She wrote all of her correspondence in Excel, because she didn?t know how to open Word (the icon wasn?t on her desktop);
When she came into work each morning, she made herself a pot of tea and sat in her cubicle reading household decorating magazines and drinking tea for the first two hours: and, best of all
She was once asked to provide a file that she had finished working on to another co-worker. The file was not on her hard drive for, as she explained, she ?didn?t want to fill it up with things? (and it was a 20 G HD!) File was eventually determined, by her, to be on a floppy. But floppy was blank when co-worker opened it. Eventually ?S? showed supervisor where she stored all of her floppys containing important info. She was attaching them to the metal parts of her cubicle with large magnets, so she ?could always find them.?

~ Laura (who is thankful that she can claim to be a happy rat, that abandoned the sinking ship in time to move to a much cushier and affluent ship, and is now ridiculously happy with things)

I've met a few people who have done basic "computer literacy" courses at colleges and Adult Ed. places who do this. What seems to happen is: the college says "don't store your files on the hard drive [of our lab computers], use a floppy" and the person absorbs this without understanding *why* they're being told it.

These sort of courses always seem to produce people who can't do anything except exactly what was on the course, and then only if their computer is set up exactly like the college ones were. Hence, not being able to start Word if it doesn't have a desktop icon.

(of course, the other stuff shows that this person seems to be a fuckwit regardless of that)

The ex-receptionist at my office once printed out an email so she could type it up in Word.

it's a sappy day.

1. "What does agriculture mean?"

2. "I was so annoyed. Someone threw themselves under my tube yesterday. People that do that must be mad."

3. Me: "Just tell them to put the web address in and it will take them straight into the site."

Her: "What address? Their address?"

Other things he did: worked at his cube standing up (making everyone around him very tense), unbuttoned his shirts halfway down his chest, commented on every phone conversation I had (work related or not), talked to himself, and played horrible CD-Rs of cabaret tunes he wrote and produced. I think the whole experience inoculated me against ever being annoyed by co-workers again.

Unfortunately something this stupid is uttered in my office at least once a day...

solidarity! The thing here is that it was exactly like this before. It's really wild. When I do get some of them to have a chat it isn't bad, but we go right back to zombie mode. I mean hostility would be worse of course but god dam...

Welp I've been here a bit long to think, like, I'm not part of it now. Time to be on my way.

every time someone misses a day of our class, we get asked if we 'recorded' it so they can listen later.

when exactly are they going to find time to listen to an eight hour recording when you have literally every moment of the next two weeks accounted for and aren't approving overtime at the moment? not to mention nobody would ever pay attention ever again if we recorded them ("I can just listen to it later...")

There's a guy from another office currently visiting ours. He's using a guest office next to mine. He's nice enough, but he's very loud. The walls are not particularly thin, and it sounds as though he's sitting next to me.

that was one of the things that really bugged me about office work. tons of loud conversations that are distracting (at best) or things that you shouldn't be privy to hearing.

once sat next to someone who would call her son and basically do nothing but yell at him for fifteen minutes and bang her fists really hard on the desk. she was also hella racist, liked Rick Scott too.

and then this one dude loudly, on speakerphone, would tell his soon to be ex-wife his entire legal strategy and how he was going to destroy her, loud enough for the whole floor to hear.

It's hard to concentrate! I've had my AirPods in most of the day. They help, but not completely.

should blow an airhorn every time he talks

colleague: can you tell me why <name> is on the roster for Pension training?

Me: well, that would be because you signed them up. I don't just randomly send people things.

probably not co-workers but work related. i have to send my laptop back because the battery is bulging more than i can ignore (it's been noticeable for about 3 years but now you can feel it)

anyway, had a note saying that it'll be swapped on Monday and that it should be placed on the original packaging (which i don't have) AND an outer box with 3-6 inches of bubble wrap (which i don't have). but, Saturday today, the shops are open...

just had a text saying they'll be coming between 10:36 and 11:36 this morning, Saturday, and the nearest whsmith is in Westfield which doesn't open until 10 and is 15 minutes away... which is cutting things fine.

it would also help if my packing tape was actually sticky.

(^ my work laptop, hence posting here)

he arrived 5 minutes after 10:36

and the replacement laptop came in really scant packaging, was probably no need for me to be at rymans at 9 this morning buying 10m of plastic coated air for £8.50

I pretty much set my own hours at my job, though usually try to work either 8:30 - 5:00 pm or 9:00 am - 5:30 pm. but on training days, I usually try to be up by 8:30 because of the endless parade of people who aren't registered for a course screaming at me "WHERE'S MY TRAINING INVITE?", because apparently people in 2022 still don't know how to properly sign up for things and think I can read their mind.

holy shit my manager is a nightmare!!!! the awfulness escapes my ability to accurately characterize it. she shows no analytical abilities, i think she has adhd. she seems literally incapable of taking a step back and having perspective. it's just, tree, tree, tree. it would be one thing if she were somewhat aware of all of this and relied on other people... but she wants to be the one who knows everything at all times! and she expects people, even her colleagues who don't report directly to her, to just do what she wants all the time! she shows no ability or inclination to collaborate or work with or 'dialogue' with people. just absolute dogshit all day every day.

is this the missing chair manager or the closeted Mormon star wars one?

holy shit map, that sounds a lot like mine, just mix in a healthy dose of constant conspiracy theorizing and information hoarding on top of that.

is this the missing chair manager or the closeted Mormon star wars one?

― sarahell, Tuesday, June 14, 2022 6:33 PM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

haha the missing chair manager. star wars is actually pretty solid, except she kisses up to missing chair all the time and is her best friend, which i don't understand at all.

i wonder if the "information hoarding" is intentional or accidental if they have adhd?

holy shit map, that sounds a lot like mine, just mix in a healthy dose of constant conspiracy theorizing and information hoarding on top of that.

― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, June 14, 2022 6:42 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

mine is incredibly petty and egotistical but so far she hasn't shown the inclination to "go after" someone if they don't comply. i'm even more sorry if yours does.

xp - that's a good point, sarahell, i haven't been able to tease out the root, but it certainly ties into an overall need to "control" everything

his form of "go after" is more just badmouthing them to anyone within earshot, "not a team player" is his favorite phrase

its always like:

manager: "hey person X, this isn't your job or even in your wheelhouse, but I forgot about it and I need you to expedite it for me so I can look good and my oversight will go unnoticed"

person X: "um no, wtf. I'm in the middle of an incredibly important deadline for what is actually my job, so I might look into this when my workload lightens up in the near future"

manager: "WOW. person X is really not a team player and I'm not sure we can count on them"

sounds like manager is super entitled and arrogant ... I am assuming that manager doesn't "return the favor" for other workers? ... like if they have forgotten something or are overburdened, manager will pick up the orphaned task and do it himself? ... However, if he does actually do this, then it's more an issue of "this job is my life, your job should be your life," when, it sounds like, based on your descriptions of your workplace and duties, that your job should definitely _not_ be your life because it doesn't seem particularly meaningful.

I had a manager once that would schedule meetings, make us wait on hold without showing up for a half hour, then show up 50 minutes late and get angry asking where everyone was and making us rejoin.

oh haha that reminds me 'missing chair' is late to 90% of meetings. 50% of the time she is 10 or more minutes late. oh and her excuse is always "my computer was being weird"

manager: "hey person X, this isn't your job or even in your wheelhouse, but I forgot about it and I need you to expedite it for me so I can look good and my oversight will go unnoticed"

person X: "um no, wtf. I'm in the middle of an incredibly important deadline for what is actually my job, so I might look into this when my workload lightens up in the near future"

she does this all the time too. but doesn't directly badmouth people, she's wayyyy too passive aggressive for that.

of course she never 'returns the favor'! she doesn't have to, she's the manager, that's literally all being a manager entails, not having to do anything she doesn't want to and passively aggressively suggesting that anything that goes wrong is someone else's fault.

i've never worked anywhere that is remotely so passive aggressive, it is astounding. like it is absolutely against the rules for certain people to ever directly communicate with anyone else!!! or like they literally don't know how to do it. total wastes and fuck ups. daresay it isn't a coincidence that those people mormons.

I became very direct and firm in my old job at this firm back in 2017, when I had my back against the wall, and people acted as if I shat on the American flag. I think in the business world now everybody expects passive bullshit like:

"I'm so sorry I forgot to do my assignment and the client is angry and possibly not renewing the contract because of me because I was at Dunkin Donuts"

"aw, no worries - things happen!"

*5 minutes later, to someone else who has no power to do anything*

"WHY DON'T WE GET RID OF THIS PERSON!"

I am assuming that manager doesn't "return the favor" for other workers? ... like if they have forgotten something or are overburdened, manager will pick up the orphaned task and do it himself?

ding ding ding!

you truly work with annoying, stupid people! you deserve better!

my (very likely adhd) co-worker is always perpetually late to meetings ... that he scheduled (and sometimes rescheduled) ... but he doesn't blame others for his mistakes or do the type of pass-agg bullshit described above. He will take on all the work. If I forget something, or flake, he will do it and not throw me under the bus. This makes me feel better about all the times I have to cover for him, like when he double books himself or forgets about a family vacation and then tells me two days prior that he will be gone camping for a week.

that's really what matters is like ,if you're ognna be erratic and goofy but mostly get shit done, it's cool as long as you don't throw me under your bus.

you truly work with annoying, stupid people! you deserve better!

oh, absolutely, i know this. there are certain benefits that i would not find elsewhere, which is what is (for now) keeping me here, along with the hopes of managerial turnover, which seems to be very frequent.

even if you're gonna be erratic and goofy and get very little done, I am way more tolerant if you don't throw me under your bus and are aware of your flaws and are gracious and appreciative that I do not have them (as much).

Innovation for the sake of innovation drives me nuts. so they're doing Phase 2 of the content redesign for the CCR materials (which I think I've talked about in this thread). In doing so, they took content that was in a consistent, structured format across different topics, and turned it into more of a FAQ format, which is much harder to navigate.

but they didn't have time to update all of the content at once, so they did it in waves, meaning half the pages are in the new FAQ format, the other half in the old one. the first wave of pages in the new FAQ format were also written differently from the original pages - all new content.

This time around, the 'redesigned' pages are just the original content structured in the new format - however, they made us re-author it all from scratch anyway. AND worst of all, these redesigned pages are missing things.

Now the Health Care Flexible Spending Account materials don't even include a place that includes the claim submission deadline. Kind of important!

please tell me it includes a "wizard" on top of the FAQ format.

related to the topic of co-workers -- do you know if there is a way to have an employer health plan where the employees are insured by different companies?

(that is an xp to Neando)

I've seen that at large companies but never at medium or small ones. Mr. Jaq works at a state university where there are options for 3 different plan providers.

sarahell - it is possible. my company has a marketplace plan similar to those you find on state/federal marketplaces, with tiers of Bronze/Silver/Gold, and then you choose your carrier. so I could have had this same plan w/ a diff carrier.

but even non-marketplace plans, you can have the same plan with choice of diff carrier. As Jaq says, this is more common at large companies. lots of companies only offer one carrier. or the plan is inextricably tied to the carrier (i.e. "there's an HMO plan, but you can only have Aetna").

that's kinda why I'm kicking myself. I coulda checked what plans utilized CVS before signing up.

btw, not dumb co-workers, but 'venting'.....

re: the growing cost of health care coverage and shrinking employer contributions.

when I started with this company, I paid something like $20-$40 a month to cover just me on an HMO plan that covered 100% of my services with no deductible. amazing plan.

I pay the same amount now for a garbage Bronze $2500 deductible plan that only covers 70% coinsurance and has an HSA attached, with zero employer contributions. they no longer offer plans like the one I had 17 years ago, but even for a plan that covers 90% with a minimal deductible, I'd have to pay hundreds of dollars per month. for just me!

of course I had that mega awesome plan when I was 24 and had no health maladies to speak of.

should have stayed 24 then, shouldn't you. poor planning.

I was 24 for 4 years actually

i'm 24

i legit just felt a weird existential dread thinking about how i’m closer to 42 than 24.

I've got 5 months until 42 :/

though I hate prime numbers so I guess I prefer that

wait a minute, hold on, back up, you hate prime numbers?! what! why!!

lol I keep screwing up my age based on a couple friends’ ages, my brain rolls me over to the next year a month or so before, and then after that I think I’m a year older or younger than I actually am

so yes, I’ve almost said i’m 42 multiple times in the last month. so instead, 24 😊

before my actual birthday that is

I'm 24 x 2 - so I guess I have as much health as two 24-year olds

I resigned from my job this week! (Going to a new one!) Which is good because I've developed severe loathing for anyone in the organisation's technical & product teams, who clearly give more of a shit about internal KPIs rather than uhhhhh our customers.

I am much closer to retirement than I am to the beginning of my career. That gives me anxiety.

not really 'stupid people', but more venting, but the product we've spent almost a year training people on and rolling out, after being fairly smooth technologically for a while, had the login/syncing stop working abruptly out of nowhere today. we were thinking it was a simple 'outage' that would be fixed, now we're being told "welp the entire login process is going to change for good, we'll have a new document for you later today".

which means not only will my partner and I have to retrain every trainer on this new process, but that misguided folk are going to come out of the woodwork asking him and I what to do because many of the users already (falsely) think he and I are product IT and ignore what emails say.

my poor boss's boss is coming back after a week off today to this, and she just dealt yesterday with her mother falling and fracturing her thigh, and also exposing her to COVID as she unknowingly had it prior to admission. (her and I are good buddies due to the ailing parental connection)