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...

bg, no one is going to judge you harshly for refusing to fully experience the richness and texture of life. Pity? Sure. But no judgment.

*shits*

some top content on this in the latest LRB:

In the first decade of the 17th century, the English traveller Fynes Moryson noted with wonder that, in the presence chamber at Dublin Castle, ‘the wives of great men … make water as they stood talking with men … and … do openly the most secret necessities of the body.’ The transition to bodily inhibition took place quite slowly, however: Anthony Wood complained that when Charles II’s courtiers left Oxford, they also left ‘their excrements in every corner, in chimneys, studies, coal-houses, cellars’.

perhaps if you can sense that an impending turd is going to be truly remarkable you could curl it where people will stumble across it and marvel. *stomach rumbles auspiciously* "this'll be one for the fireplace"

oh man feels like i've got a real chimney-buster brewing, fire up facebook live and let's get the show started

i hate this thread and what it's done to me btw

Look, when you enter a discussion on annoying coworkers, you know what you're in for.

presents chamber more like

While we smallmindedly write off our coworkers as disgusting animals unfit for cohabitation with other humans, those very coworkers are in fact sustaining age-old cultural traditions of pooping just wherever you feel like. Boy, do I ever feel like a grade-a boob.

the noblest traditions, versailles is not to be sniffed at

the pissing and shitting habits of several centuries ago were completely fucked up

one of the reason the noble class would rotate through their palatial homes was because they'd just do their business in the corner or on the stairs and they'd have to leave for a couple weeks while some unfortunate servants would wash the place down. the smell was about what you'd expect

Back to annoying coworker anecdotes: I will never understand why it's preferable to compose an email asking someone else to search for something on your behalf rather than to just enter a simple search term into a field and click the 'Search' button.

xp - citation needed

xxxxp - "in the hotel room" important because it's not like I had to go and find her to show her or for her to go more than 10ft

I should probably shut up about this

I was imagining that it was so impressive you had booked a hotel room & transported the mighty item there for best presentation

That sounds like something Mr Welshman this morning would have done to preserve it.

I would've thought that the "coworker clipping their nails thing in the office" bit had been around long enough for everyone to know not to do this but APPARENTLY NOT

Ex-office mate routinely went to town on his ear canal with a Q-Tip. The 'not okay but imma do it anyway' jewel is comprised of innumerable facets.

I have decided my coworkers deserve it, so I clip my nails at my desk now

the one coworker within earshot who has an opinion I value said it's cool, so

2 people in a class of 22 seem to think this class is just for them and interrupt every 2 minutes with obscure, non-sequitur questions.

No amount of trying to direct them on topic, asking them to take it to a side discussion with us has ever done much more than temporarily dissuade them, and discussing an interruption is in itself an interruption.

Want to learn to bicycle kick before they know what a soccer ball is.

That reminds me of our team meetings, which are uniformly pointless and painful affairs for 95% of the team, but there's always that 5% who sit back and wait until people are half out of their seats at the meeting's putative end to ask a series of questions which a) pertain to them specifically but rarely to anyone else in the group and b) could have easily been asked and answered in an email rather than in the midst of a group of people who want to strangle them.

are they waiting until the end when people are leaving because it's like an optional query that not-interested people can carry on leaving during, or just because they're annoying and strangleable?

I mean, maybe they think they're doing that, but it doesn't work unless everyone knows that's the format and it's definitely OK to leave, which sounds like is not the case, so still annoying

oh god, I was in a training session that was like that earlier this year

eventually there was partial success with changing the policy from "questions at any time" to "we're running behind, we'll catch up with questions when we take a break" which only partially worked because after lunch the questions resumed

Ex-office mate routinely went to town on his ear canal with a Q-Tip. The 'not okay but imma do it anyway' jewel is comprised of innumerable facets.

may he one day find his own ear drum dangling from a strand of cotton.

Me: Please set up this thing you should have already set up so I can do my job.
Douchenozzle: That should already be set up.
Me: ..........................YES, I KNOW IT SHOULD, WHY THE FUCK ELSE DO YOU THINK I'M REQUESTING IT OF YOU, DOUCHENOZZLE?

I am not a screamer and particularly not a screamer in the faces of others but this job is prompting me to rethink things.

Workmate: I might not be in tomorrow
Me: how come?
Workmate: Migraine.

While sitting there looking perfectly fine. You plan your migraines now do you feller? Ugh.

I don't know, I have migraines and sometimes when I have a mild one it means I'll have a worse one the next day. Also the thing about migraines is that when you call in sick for them, people get annoyed with you for not giving them more warning. So the pressure is on to try to predict when you're going to have one, even though you can't really.

Hm I guess thats fair.

i see people misuse the term "migraine" all the time too. from mild headache to "clearly i do not feel like doing anything so lets go with migraine". i think you're right to be a little suspicious (not that i disagree with the other points, could still be legit).

Yesterday someone in my office had a slightly frustrating phone call with an outside agency and hung up and announced dramatically, “Please just kill me. Kill me now” and went on for a while. I mean it’s not possible that she hasn’t seen the news in a week so I’m gonna have to go with 100% tone deaf for this one.

did you... kill her

I’m new here, I’m just trying to keep a low profile.

yeah probably for the best!

Okay so this one guy who I know I've complained about numerous times who is a thorn in everyone's side and among whose lesser crimes is a basic lack of understanding re: email...his new trick as of yesterday is re-forwarding emails he's just sent. As in: he sends me an email and then five minutes later goes into his 'sent' box and...forwards the email he just sent to me. Just...what? His mind is such an ever-crumbling garbage pit that it's difficult to clearly describe the inscrutable things that he does.

You should open an IT ticket for him since his computer is forwarding emails that have just been sent.

"oh, I forgot to copy Old Lunch on this email I just sent to Old Lunch!"

that's a special kind of brain pickling

that sounds annoying af. but i would probably just tell him to stop it.

*thread stops, horrified*

I had a coworker who needed some temporary help with fielding political contribution and gifts and entertainment requests so he gave me access to a SHARED DRIVE and SHARED FOLDER that held the database. He would constantly email me to look up something in the shared drive and then walk over to our office to stand by my desk to ask about it. It was so confusing I had no clue if he was just fucking around. Like my brain would break trying to figure out what was going on.

Re: the e-mail and second e-mail, used to have a co-worker who would send e-mails, then if you were showing online, IM, then if you responded, call. His priority was obviously your #1 priority.

I think he thinks email works like tennis. Someone sends you something and you send it right back to them. Because it's every day. Multiple times a day. I'm noticing that even the management here is getting a little more loose-lipped about their displeasure. But will anything be done? Ever? Even if this continues for several more years? I very much doubt it!

This dude works from home, so I have to just assume that his pants and seat are absolutely drenched in the urine he hasn't figured out how to dispose of properly.

Between 10 and 11, you're allowed a break in my work and I always go to the staff canteen for a cup of tea and some toast - some people have massive breakfasts. Anyway, every time I'm there, it seems, there's a couple sitting having breakfast after which the man sits sucking his teeth in the loudest, most revolting, way imaginable, while carrying on a conversation with the woman he's always with. It's nauseating.

Ewww

I am leading training preparation sessions and monitoring the classes when they start. There are three locations in one country - I am responsible for only two.

They assigned separate people to schedule the trainers for each location. Each person stupidly scheduled trainers without bothering to look to see if another location was using them. Three double bookings.

I tell them, they shrug and say "ok we'll just remove these people from your sessions", which now leaves a class with no trainer, and one with one too few.

(loud whistling of a jaunty tune suddenly pokes its head above the relative silence from several rows back)

WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE RIGHT NOW? AND HOW DO I SEND YOU TO THAT PLACE, NEVER TO RETURN?

I am and have been the only person who handles this particular task for years, largely because everyone else has steadfastly avoided learning the particulars of the task in question. So when I tell you that we cannot undertake this particular instance of the task for the reasons I've patiently detailed for you, that is pretty much the final word on the subject, no matter how much of my day you choose to eat up with your uninformed protests. The only thing that is likely to change as a result of your persistence is how many dozens of pizzas I'm going to have delivered to your residence this evening.

And then when I thought he finally took the hint, the dude for some reason forwarded our exchange to someone in another department (a department which, by all rights, I should never ever have any reason to interact with, so who even is this second guy) who has been calling and emailing me for the remainder of the day attempting to debate some shit that isn't up for fucking debate. Trying to decide whether I should or should not set my workstation on fire when I abruptly get up to leave for the weekend (or forever).

(FTR, the basic request is 'hey let's make a material change to a client's account without getting their consent or otherwise informing them in any way' to which my response has been a firm 'no, we pretty clearly should not be doing that, generally speaking, and to the extent that you want me personally to make the change for you, it straight-up isn't goddamn happening, you gaggle of absolute knobs'.

Coming onto this thread to vent into the void, because don't want to burden my wife with yet more complaints.

I work in a seasonal business where most of the year is preparing for the summer - I am nominally in charge of everything, but the recurring temporary summer ops manager* has the owner's favour and can do no wrong, whereas everything I do is assumed to be a failure even before it's been tried. This year this manager has fucked up loads and I haven't really put a foot wrong as far as I can see, yet the owner still talks to me in this contemptuous tone or berates me in public for any vague worries she has, while letting anything he does wrong slide just because he's her mate, and he'll just say "oops" and be instantly forgiven. For example, many of the best staff are very stressed and tired because of a decision he made, and they don't want to come back, she has even tried to pin this on me somehow, though actually it happened because I wasn't listened to. It is becoming dangerous to my mental and physical health, I need to quit but need stable work for my wife's visa, and yeah, pretty unhappy about all of this obviously.

*overlapping job roles is not good yeah?