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

the only correct response to that is murder

Getting pretty pissed off at coworker who responds to questions like "is there a way to do (function x which I am familiar with in our old software package) in our new software package" with "yes" and then doesn't tell you the answer

When I told my bf about this he said it was my fault for phrasing it as a y/n question, like she was not being rude or unhelpful, just entirely unsure what I meant due to my deficient English skills

so today this woman asked someone else "is there a way to" and I was willing them to answer "yes" to see what she did, but sadly they did not

(I have had not enough sleep and am in danger of extreme crankiness)

can't say I agree with your b/f. Like yea it's phrased as a yes/no question, but it's a leading yes/no question. Obviously nobody is going to ask a question like that if they don't want the answer shared, and it's pretty much accepted business nomenclature to say it the way you said it (because everyone does it here).

The respondent might be very literal minded, but man, that is less an excuse than a whole new thing to find obnoxious.

This reminds me of something sort of related. My dad used to get annoyed at what he called "double-barreled questions" such as, "Do you want to drive or should I?" He hated that what could have been a yes/no question required a sentence to answer. And I think he wasn't just being a grouch; he genuinely got thrown off. I can imagine him answering "I'd there a way to do X" with "Yes," now that I think of it.

I credit his being German.

Standard response To double-barreled question began with "Ach!"

or, in fact, "Yes!"

Yes?

was ist los! haben sie die "es tut mir leid!" har har harga!

entshuldigen sie bitte?

I like the German (and apparently many other languages) thing of having a different word for "yes" in reply to a question expecting the answer "no", e.g.
- You don't want that cake, do you?
- Doch! (= yes, actually, I do!)

This seems like a helpful thing to have on occasion, as these questions are sometimes confusing to respond to, though I couldn't think of a really ambiguous example.

Meanwhile, some languages always reply to questions with a restatement of the verb ("Are you watching TV?" "I'm watching" / "I'm not watching"), so I guess they always need a full sentence. iirc - maybe Tuomas will correct me here - Finnish usually does this, though it does also have a word for "yes", and since it doesn't use pronouns the answer is still usually only one word long.

(end pointless linguistic geekery)

Oh, and my spite/triumph at hearing this woman (who is a native English speaker) ask "is there a ..." this morning is because she can't get the benefit of the doubt if she asks the same damn kind of question herself and expects an answer. Or something.

I've had a lot more caffeine now, so I'm less angry, but not making any more sense.

dear person with whom i discussed an issue with over 2 weeks ago: please stop emailing me to ask if i am doing x. i already told you i was doing it. relax, i know how to do my job.

so annoyed i double with-ed!

Deathsche its eine gutten speile fur die kulturemuffels!

All that German was lost on me.
I thought you were saying "Ach!" meant "Yes."

I speak terrible german taht germans laugh at merrily - I didnt study in high school, I just diddled on my notebooks

Ugh. Lawyers can't figure out the simple process of conference calling still. Good thing that one of them copes with failed calls by panicking and whining instead of listening to me or letting me intervene make the call work.

diddled or doodled? If the former, no wonder the germans laughed

If I am asked "Is it possible to do x?" then I reply "Yes. Would you like me to show/tell you how?" This way is the best of all possible worlds. xxxxp

So I have this temp from another department on the desk next to mine today. He's been here a few weeks and we've not really had a conversation beyond "hi" in the mornings. Not a peep out of him all day so far until he comes back from his lunch break, finishes what he was eating at his desk and wipes all his crumbs off the desk and onto mine. Some went into my lap.

I'm sat here mouth agape, totally fucking speechless.

o_O

please stop saying the word "exposure" at me.

ok, you have to say something to him about that or you're a floor mat #perhapsoverstatingitabit

xxpost

ahhhhhh why are you not paying attention to anything ever and then suddenly deciding it's time to micromanage and give me a ton of shit about something that i want NOTHING to do with?

The other night one of the partners here was waiting for me to print out a proposal on our letterhead for him to sign before he left. He was hovering because he was in a hurry, then told me to "not worry too much about formatting, the numbers are the important thing", only to have me reformat it because the top margin was "a little off". It was, literally, .06 inches from where he wanted it. Perfectionists, ugh.

in general everyone tends to annoy each other at work sooner or later - would a gripe session help?

i am on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jK-NcRmVcw
at my job right now, so no. i just want to go away and never see this person again!

The other night one of the partners here was waiting for me to print out a proposal on our letterhead for him to sign before he left. He was hovering because he was in a hurry, then told me to "not worry too much about formatting, the numbers are the important thing", only to have me reformat it because the top margin was "a little off". It was, literally, .06 inches from where he wanted it. Perfectionists, ugh.

― the fey bloggers are onto the zagat tweets (jon /via/ chi 2.0),

The owner at my first printing job had a sign up that said "Why is there never enough time to do it right but always enough time to do it over?"

ha!

awesome

dont get pissy with me becuae you dont understand our system at all

"Why is there never enough time to do it right but always enough time to do it over?"

Fuck, that is my company summed up in one sentence.

i think i am just at my limit with the 'i'm gonna be all hands off and not pay attention to the 300 emails that have been sent about this project in the last 3 weeks but now when you have everything settled/arranged/under control i will suddenly decide i want to be in charge and make your life hell for the remainder of the project's lifespan' thing.

See thats the thing, as far as I knew, I WAS doing it the right way. Its not my fault someone edited the firm-wide letterhead template.

The owner of that print shop is an interesting character. Major workaholic, pushes her people hard, but is careful to check herself constantly and ease off the gas if she's stressing people out. And she's big on taking a few minutes before various points of no return, double checking your work, reducing the error/waste rate. I kinda liked working there, hard as it was.

And she's big on taking a few minutes before various points of no return, double checking your work, reducing the error/waste rate.

Big fan of this idea, tbh.

There were problems with our email service last night, so our brilliant IT dept fixed it...which caused something else in the same program not to work. Idiots.

weird. our email has been really strange lately too.

anyways - if you're so smart, why don't you fix the email yourself then?

lol

You joke, but I don't have enough fingers to count the times that tech support was so bad, I had to fix things on my own...

The real reason I'm mad is that they may have just deleted my mailfile "on accident"

what i hate more than anything is people who say 'on accident'!!!

well, ok, that sounds really annoying if they can't retrieve it.
but one of the best ways to be the stupid/annoying coworker is to assume everyone else's job is easy and if everything doesn't go as expected it's because they're stupid/annoying.

xpost ha ha

The anger may be irrational, but it is pretty frustrating to lose 90 minutes of work due to not being able to access anything at all.

Fortunately, it seems to have resolved itself.
I would cut the dept more slack if I hadn't had major issues with them for the last 5 years and if complaints about them weren't the first thing out of most of our employees' mouths during townhalls.

I'd expect to be criticized if I performed this way in my role.

But anyway...problem solved, moving on w/ my day now.

office communicator message to from our accounts team, y'know that lot on 30-40k+

"in the post room there is a tray for africa and asia and latin america, i have a letter here for egypt where do i put it?"

my response: "you don't know where egypt is?"

accounts: "you didn't answer my question, which tray do i put it in?"

lol

meanwhile they are bitching about you to their friends "so unhelpful! I hate it when someone answers a simple question with a question!"

no actually after providing a link to maps.google.com (i'm an arse but we have a lol relationship, she once asked me what a spreadsheet was)

so, it continues

accounts: "it's not as simple as you think, egypt is in africa and the middle east, so which tray do i put it in?"

is there a mid-east tray?

not pulling your weight even when people say to you point blank "everyone thinks you are not pulling your weight"