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

Following up, I was informed that Depeche Mode "doesn't represent us". I listen to Depeche Mode as a consumer, I have Depeche posters in my cubicle and stuff - I don't use that music in events catering unless the occasion calls for alternative or dance music.

Just seems like someone upstairs has a bad temperament.

'oh, you've moved my files'

'yep. i was told to get the file room organised. moving files was an implicit part if the instruction tbh'
'but now my files aren't on my shelf'
'nope, they'll be somewhere else, alright'
'but how can i find them'
'well, we decided on a complex and intricate system known as the alphabet, motherfucker, you may have see it advertised on sesame st once or twice'

please note- i am standing beside a huge poster stating 'ALL FILES ARE NOW IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER BY NAME' and have been lugging files and answering stupid questions all fucking week. And i didn't rly give that last answer, more's the pity.

Someone from my high school whom I couldn't stand is applying for a job at my employer. More bad attitude on my part, but he was a bully in high school. Really right-wing and religious and judgmental. He may have changed but if he gets hired things will be uncomfortable.

Again, my problem, I guess. Fifty people are applying so it's a good chance he won't get hired.

Ouch, I just accidentally slammed a door on my index finger. There was blood all over the place and bejeebus it hurts! I missed a meeting and got a mini-lecture about that. Help I can barely type, my finger is somewhat numb and bandaged. How long before I quit or am fired.

I can't believe you got a mini-lecture for missing a meeting because you injured yourself. Sheesh.

I'm trying really hard not to turn into Obnoxious Workers Comp Attorney. It's hard!

One of Ytth's bosses wrote ” good rittance, jerk” on his last payslip - he was ” joking” but I think the joke is on him.

good remittance

is the blood in the nail bed or elsewhere? if it's gathering under the nail, you should get it drained. much better than waiting for your nail to fall off for months. (speaking from experience)

No the door slammed shut with my index finger on the jamb...it sliced open the underside of my finger. I use my middle finger as a substitute today - not as difficult as I'd thought.

ruh-roh, i enjoy several perks that my temp colleagues don't, including a flexi-rota system where i come in when i want, pretty much, as long as i work so many hours in a month.

As i'm the only person in the building with this option, it's defeating my immediate supervisor, who keeps, essentially, asking me not to do this.

I've explained it several times, referred her to management etc, to no avail. Next time i saunter in (and i have started to saunter out of spite tbh) at 9.30 she'll be over rolling her eyes at me like i'm a moron. I smile and nod, like that moron.

I mean, i'm enjoying it but...

Co-Worker - "I just HAD to leave the staffroom. Everyone in there is talking ASIAN!"
Me - "Asian?"
Co-Worker - "Yeah, it's really annoying."
Me- "No, Asian??"
Co-Worker - "God, whatever it is they talk over there"
Me- "In Asia."
Co-Worker - "The point is it was really loud."
Me- "Louder than English?"
Co-Worker- "Look just forget it!"

thatsa bingo

Love pwning idjits like that.

workmate one: "I tried to play the moog on the google logo but it didnt do anything, it just went to some search results about some guy who invented it"
Me: "oh no, it totally does work, its a functional synth! You can tweak all the perams and eerything"
smartass workmate two [really snidely]: "nice to know you've got nothing better to do today, then".

Dude what in the fucking fuck is your problem. It takes 3 seconds to click on the logo and see that it works. I coldly pointed out that I'd done said testing BEFORE I CAME TO WORK which shut him up, but he is a total asshole brat, and is starting to get on my nerves in the way only 20 year old nerdboys who think they know everything can.

And who gives a shit if I click on a logo that makes noise for five seconds at work anyway? Jesus christ on a pogo stick.

kick him in the nuts imo

If only. I also lolled at the other guy saying "some guy who invented it", to which I said "that guy would be Robert MOOG the inventor of the MOOG". But that guy is fogiven cos he's only like 19, and he is a black metal fan, so he's ok.

are you posting from work btw :)

shhhh!

I'm so glad that my colleague replied to all when responding to an email from the mail room regarding the availability of envelopes. If he hadn't, how would I know that he needs envelopes and printer ink? And I'm grateful to the woman in fiscal who responded to all to inform the colleague that he would have to buy his own printer ink and submit the expense for reimbursement. Mostly, though, I'm happy to have been able to read the heartfelt, "ok thanks" that the colleague sent in return.

The maternity leave replacement wants to CHANGE EVERYTHING!! YAY!!

>:|

solution is to have a babby really quick and go on your own maternity leave, that'll show 'em.

I have considered that. But the one who is on mat leave was a bit of a hardass, so I'm gonna feel out the next few months before I use my uterus for revenge.

How hard would it be to fake a pregnancy in order to get maternity leave? Sometimes seems it would be worth the effort.

I would imagine once you didnt uh... produce a child at some point, you might be a little bit fired.

Plus in the US, maternity leave is three months unpaid (assuming your employer is large enough, you work at least part time, and you haven't had to take any medical leave in the year prior to the birth). You might as well just quit.

And you have to have been with the current employer for 12 months. And they don't have to hold "your" job for you, just an "equivalent" job.

Mat leave in Canada, at least everywhere I've been (working FT since I was 20) is a year but a certain fraction of your pay. Pretty decent.. But I probably won't fake one. Unless the replacement proves insufferable.

(The government might pay for some of the year; having never been pregnant I've not paid *that* much attention..)

Geez in australia mat leave isnt paid! You get a year but its unpaid. I think some workplaces might choose to pay or part pay a few months, but its not a govt level thing. Yet, anyway.

US maternity leave isn't even maternity leave. It's just three months of general medical leave that you can use for a serious health condition for you or your family, assuming you meet all the criteria listed above. A friend of mine had to be on bed rest for the last six weeks of her pregnancy, so she only got six weeks of leave after the baby was born since she had to use up half of it while she was still pregnant. And employers can make you use your accrued vacation and sick time contemporaneously so when you get back, you have no time off for vacations of illness. And like quincie said, they can replace you as long as they hold an equivalent job open for you. The US is so far behind on this shit it's not even funny. We're number 1, etc.

(This is a thing that makes me v. angry, obv.)

Good God this is one issue that I get so fucking angry about. We get 6 weeks paid but can take up to three months (FML) which is unpaid beyond the 6 weeks. You can do the thing where you use your vacation/sick time but that isn't really a great option either. These laws also mean that most women work right up until literally the day they give birth assuming they're able to and not on bed rest like CA's friend. Shitty mat leave laws are one of the big reasons having a kid seems so daunting to me. I can't imagine putting a three month old in day care never mind a SIX WEEK OLD! >:o My friends in the UK and Canada get about a year much of which is at full or at least partial pay. That just seems so much more realistic and sensible it's not even funny.

UK govt/business is casting envious eyes at those other countries with their shitty maternity leave and non-existent sick pay.

timely chart
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/05/24/489973/paid-maternity-leave-us/

I just checked in with my pregnant coworker and she says our company does not pay any mat leave ;_; I was mistaken. However the government pays about 55% of your wage. We also have parental leave instead of just maternity leave, so Dads can stay home too.

"Out of 178 nations, the U.S. is one of three that does not offer paid maternity leave benefits."

Thing about that chart is that those are the paid weeks given. A lot of those countries allow you to take more time unpaid if you so choose whereas 12 weeks is the max total in the US that a company legally has to allow.

I wonder if conservative America thinks having such poor support for pregnant woman presses abortion rates up or down.

Ha. I glanced quickly at the comments section on that link and saw a couple people mention that possibility.

Yeah, we had little choice but to send our little one to daycare at 10 weeks old, because my wife had to go back to work. Thankfully its been a really great place for him and its worked out really well, but, damn does the U.S. approach to maternity leave piss me off. None of this goes to mention the issues with father's getting time off for the birth (not that I'm at all comparing it to the maternity leave issues for mothers themselves, just another annoyance). Like, I got to take a week off when my son was born, but it meant using up the remainder of my vacation for the year.

That should be women, not woman. I'm sure there's more than one of them or this wouldn't be a big deal.

I got two weeks paternity leave on full pay when my kids were born. I also got an extra week off for getting married!

I'm glad it worked out well for your son, Jon. That just sounds so young to me.

I got to take a week off when my son was born, but it meant using up the remainder of my vacation for the year.

Yeah, see that's messed up.

Attitudes towards vacation and sick time are so weird in the US in general. I don't think I talked about it here but I recently got called into a meeting (WITH HR) to discuss my abuse of our sick time. I had used 6 of the 11 days we accrue each year and that's considered abuse. WHY DO WE GET 11 THEN?! Also, I was actually fucking sick. I've also been told that while we get vacation time it's sort of an "unwritten rule" that people don't use it very often.

It is so young! It was a really, really hard decision to make, but, in the end, we just couldn't figure out a way to make it work financially any other way. I've always found it weird that so-called "family values" conservatives don't go to more lengths to protect family leave or time off for stuff like this.

Unionise! Educate, agitate, organise!

I'm in a union and we still have the same shitty maternity leave. I'm allowed to use sick time but that doesn't change my deadline driven workload. Staying home sick means working late to make up time later.

As for conservative America, they only care about children insofar as they can be used to punish sluts who have sex. They don't actually care about the children themselves. (See also: use of children with disabilities for anti abortion rhetoric while cutting programs for children and adults with disabilities.)

I recently got called into a meeting (WITH HR) to discuss my abuse of our sick time. I had used 6 of the 11 days we accrue each year and that's considered abuse.

holy shit - i would have been fuming! so they basically accused you of feigning illness? i don't think i would have been able to control my temper if an employer pulled this bs.

In my new job people get four months full pay mat leave plus five
Months at something like 90 percent. And can take a whole year in total. People ask me why I wanted to leave the USA; I can't say this is the only reason but it's part of the culture I just don't understand how people live with it (excise shitty phone typing)

UUUUUUGH

I'm in round 433240978 of revising this document. Here's the latest suggested edit:

The version I wrote starts like this: "Among other efforts, the ___ Program has focused..."
That has been scratched that out, and instead the suggested edit is "Amongst other efforts , the ___ Program has focused..."

In google, if you type "among other efforts" in quotations, you get 4 million results. if you type "amongst other efforts", you get 192,000 results.

And it's not even about whether or not it's grammatically correct, it's more like this is the billionth time we've revised this, and THESE are the kinds of edits that are still taking place?
ugh

and yes, the two words are completely interchangeable, although amongst is more old-fashioned. but god this endless wordsmithing is just fucking nauseating