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

Yeah, def on the mend, thanks. I just couldn't stay the whole day. I think I'll feel a lot better tomorrow.

Next time she asks for your pass, pull it out of your underwear.

Oh! Wait, I just realises she's doing the offensive "ew germs" thing because you're *ill*, of course. I was thinking she was just being neortic and rude generally, a la the whapping you in the toilets for not covering yr hand debacle.

NEUrotic.

Well, yeah. I mean that's why she was doing it but there are 5 other ppl she could easily ask for their swipey cards. If it bugs her so much that I'm not feeling well then go ask one of them instead of making a big show of it.

Yeah exactly, its pretty wtf (and rude of her)

Even if they are roiling kettles of mental turmoil on the inside, because aren't we all, I feel like high level HR people should at least project a sense of emotional stability in the workplace.

"I have an open door policy! Please come in with any issues you have, so that I can tell you about how one of your coworkers called me fat and hurt my feelings."

I guess it's my turn to dominate this thread. As though it hasn't been my turn since I found it...

ANYWAY. My first name is Jennifer. There is one other attorney in my department whose first name is Jenifer. Our last names are wildly different. We are both white ladies who wear glasses but our style, demeanor, height, build, hair color, eye color, outlook on the world, reading habits, lunch preferences, work style, work friendships, and homelives are nothing alike. For some reason, people constantly confuse us. We have received confidential HR communications for the other Jen(n)ifer. IT has come to my desk to fix her computer (even though IT tickets have our room numbers on them, and our cubicles have our full names posted on them). Yesterday in the elevator, another judge-level coworker struck up a conversation with me about how long I've worked here (he was acting like it was a long time, so I guess this should have been my first clue) and then said, "You're in (judge that Jenifer works for)'s office, right?" No, you bozo! I'm in the office where you just were two days ago asking about a case!!! I ANSWERED YOUR QUESTION. Just now, a coworker who was standing right in front of me discussing an email that I sent to her said, "What the hell was Jenifer doing sending an email about this?" I threw a pencil at her and said, "I sent you the email! That's why I'm standing here talking to you about it!" She said she wondered how I knew so much about the situation.

It's like nobody has ever worked somewhere with two people who have the same first name. Or maybe they used lead paint on this floor.

I started to make a long list of the many specific differences between me and this lady but it sounded like straight bragging so just suffice it to say that she's about ten years older than me and a very Catholic mother of three who lives in the suburbs, and embodies all of those qualities in all of the presentation choices that she makes.

I'm eating a fish curry with coconut milk, which I microwaved in our kitchen and am now eating at my desk. Yeah, I'm that person today.

i have to fill out this stupid employee survey. and after that we have an all day employee retreat. don't make me go!

MS Exchange Online (cloud email) went down today, so nobody could use email for a little while. It came back up quickly, but when I told the associate atty, he said (whined) that it still wasn't working for him, even though it was working for every other person in our two buildings.

I asked him test it and make sure, and he reported, "Nope. Still down, just like it always is" (it's not). So I stepped into his office and sent him an email from my iPhone, and his computer and iPhone said "Boing!" when he received it. He said, "Well, it's working now, but it wasn't a second ago." He couldn't grasp that he had simply not received any emails in the 20 minutes between the outage and my message.

Then my boss called in a panicked that he would miss a critical client email he was expecting. He too had gotten seen an error message and then received no emails in the following 20 minutes, but didn't bother to send a test email.

I could not work with people that belligerent and hold my tounge, and I'd probably get fired for it haha. There's a reason why IT staff are so surly, and those guys are that fucking reason!!

Its like that scene in the IT Crowd when Roy fixes the girl who hates him's PC by... plugging it into the powerpoint. And she comes back, sees it is now "working" and sarcastically goes "FINALLY" (which wasnt even the joke but it always made me go "nrrrghhh you bitch" )

The associate is the big PITA, with the nasal whining and catastrophizing. He's not really *belligerent*, just whiner. If he would just deepen his voice complain from his diaphragm!

I am surrounded by sick assholes who think they are too important to stay home. I want a bubble to walk around in. :(

He couldn't grasp that he had simply not received any emails in the 20 minutes between the outage and my message.

hahahaha, I love this.

Is there any way to disable a phone's speakerphone function? My annoying coworker has always shouted into her speakerphone, but a switch flipped in me this week and I really want to kill her over this now.

I don't know if you can disable the speakerphone, but I bet it would be pretty easy to disable the speakerphone button.

I share a small office with my boss, which is attached to a slightly larger office. He is a violent Enter key striker, speakerphone offender, jargonistic abuser, and among other things, has a habit of sigh-exhaling in short whistle-shaped bursts. I've lost count of the number of times he's said "irregardless", and he plays in a 'muso' cover band (he previously referred to one of his blues-roots bands as being "like Jack Johnson before Jack Johnson"), a video of which he has played several times in the office, reliving the glory days when they took to the big stage covering 'Dark S1de of the Moon'. He's tried to impress me by kicking back in his chair while playing 'Dub Side of the Moon', and I've heard him listening to fretless bass fusion solos on his earphones. It's impossible not to cringe when he tries to relate about music (often), as we have almost nothing in common, and I've heard him enthusiastically discuss the merits of Nickelback with two colleagues (one of whom easily meets the criteria for being a stupid, annoying co-worker, and is the proud owner of every single Nickelback album - apparently there are 9? I've taken to emailing some of her declarations to my gmail e.g. "I like rock and metal - if it doesn’t feel like it’s going to break the foundations of the house with the bass, it’s not music I want to listen to"). He's fond of using terms like "going forward", "pro-active", "buy-in" and "heads-up". Him and another colleague (also a Nickelback fan) think that the Joey from Friends catchphrase "how you doin'?" is the height of hilarity, and will splice it into conversation for my benefit whenever possible. It's bleak.

kate, would you really sabotage her phone? I approve, honestly. Maybe start by very carefully putting a dab of super glue under speakerphone button or on the mic. The idea is to disable the speakerphone, but not so badly that the company will have to replace it.

Yam, it sounds bleak.

could just sabotage the speaker part... yank the wires out from behind it. all you need to do is work late and bring a screwdriver!

I've considered the superglue trick. I think I'll wait til she leaves town for a few days.

How about just saying "yo, you always use speakerphone in an open office and it is extremely distracting and disturbing others, can you keep it down?"

my boss and i share an office, suddenly. i've never found it too hot or too cold. she says she's been sick since moving to the office, a week ago. she messed around with the thermostat a lot. there are two icons on the thermostat: a flame and a snowflake. one day, she called me over and asked what they meant. i explained that the snowflake means cold air and the flame means hot air. she disagreed and explained that the reason it was so hot in there must be because i had it backwards-- the snowflake is what you choose when it's winter (it snows in winter), and the flame is what you choose in summer. after a few days with the a/c off, she compromised and decided both the flame and the snowflake should be selected.

eventually, she called a heating company and had them come to look at our cooling system. the technician confided in me that nothing was wrong but said he was going to install a new thermostat. we have a new touchscreen thermostat. the instant the new thermostat was on the wall, she exclaimed: "feels cooler in here already!"

:(

Hahaha holy fuck.

it's a nightmare.

she's been with the company for a long period of time and somehow stumbled into her position at an opportune time, i guess. although i've heard she was once competent and a colleague that worked with her for a while wondered aloud if she'd possibly had a stroke. she ran her department at a massive loss for a year or so before somebody noticed and she was transferred to work with me instead of being fired.

shortly after taking up residence in the office with me, she accidentally cc'd everyone in the company in on an email vowing to fire everyone on our team and hiring all new staff. there was some resentment. after that, she often lamented, "nobody here seems to like me."

i assured her that it's simply because she's a new face and the team will start firing on all cylinders soon.

I work in a residential facility for people with mental illness. The clients' money all comes from Social Security, and when someone new arrives we generally take them to the SS office soon afterwards, so that they can arrange to have checks sent to the main office, which takes for rent money all but a $60 monthly stipend (we provide meals, case management, etc). Recently a co-worker, who was quite nice, intelligent, reasonable, but totally shameless about not really doing much work and calling out all the time, left for another job after working here for 7 or 8 months. I inherited one of her clients, and discovered that my former co-worker had never bothered to take her to the SS office when she arrived in December, a process which takes a couple hours at most. Due to this, her benefits had been terminated, she has to re-apply, and her benefits cannot be made retroactive. So my client is out maybe $400 that were rightfully hers (and has had NO SPENDING MONEY AT ALL since December, and the company I work for is out maybe $4000.

How about just saying "yo, you always use speakerphone in an open office and it is extremely distracting and disturbing others, can you keep it down?"

― frances boredom coconut (Trayce), Wednesday, August 22, 2012 1:34 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's not even an open office! She's in the office next to mine. Other coworkers further away have already bitched to her and mgmt and yet it continues...

Joe, that's terrible. I hope that person's mess catches up with them.

i explained that the snowflake means cold air and the flame means hot air. she disagreed and explained that the reason it was so hot in there must be because i had it backwards-- the snowflake is what you choose when it's winter (it snows in winter), and the flame is what you choose in summer.

Amazing.

But couldn't she figure it out by the temp of the air coming out of the vents?

she ran her department at a massive loss for a year or so before somebody noticed and she was transferred to work with me instead of being fired.

smdh

xpost Yikes JoeStork isn't there some sort of vulnerable adults law that violates?

I'm hoping to get two people fired soon..two spoiled girls from my alma mater and that is the only reason they got the job. Becase Ikm sick of rude comments and inquiries about my family.

It was like "let's get so and so for you, I know she's your friend from college.". And Ikm like she's a nasty class bigot and phony and my dad is not her business."

T/F: it is appropriate to mention how much your son's circumcision cost during a staff meeting.

"staff" meeting.

staff "meat"ing

how much does a circumcision cost?

And what do you leave for a tip?

Why do people feel the need to heavily re-apply deodorant, at their desks, at least twice a day? You really really dont smell, but that stuff you are spraying stinks like shit. It smells like a cheap men's cologne! Why would a woman put on such a horrible smell? GAH STOP IT.

I mean it makes me feel genuinely sick.

Was thinking about coming to post here about that very thing. One of my co-workers (a woman) keeps a can at the ready and sprays liberally around other co-workers. They've never complained, but it's just a no-no afaic. If you must, deodorise in the damn bathroom!

T/F: it is appropriate to mention how much your son's circumcision cost during a staff meeting.

I heard this in NPR this morning and thought of cwkiii's coworker.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Convention has estimated circumcision costs range from about $200 to $600 nationwide. Coverage varies among insurers and several states have stopped Medicaid funding for circumcisions.

This kid's was only $100!

I need to let this woman know she got a steal of a deal.

That's incredibly cheap! Hers and the whole range. My ENT billed almost $600 to shove a scope up my N and tell me I have a deviated septum but no polyps. I guess if you're looking for bargains in elective surgery, it's hard to beat circumcision.

it'll be a great ice breaker for the next meeting!
"Hey Deb, regarding last week's conversation about your son's circumcision, you got a HELL of a deal for $100, let me tell you, I never"

Something tells me that if you have to have that done as an adult it costs a few bucks more

Bargains in Elective Surgery sounds like a Brian Eno album or something.