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

that's an awesome reverse of a lol-facepalm incident I witnessed

years ago in my old publishing job, my airheaded coworker and I were riding home on the train together.
She says quietly, 'I had to give my notice today.' She'd been looking for another job, so I asked her if she had found a job.
And she says tearfully, "No! That's what's so confusing! I just went into Jane (our boss), and I said can I have Friday off, because I have a job interview.'

facepalm

hahahaha

it would be difficult to keep the palm from connecting to the face at that moment

it was beautiful. AND I had to explain to her, in great detail, exactly why this was the stupidest thing in the world to announce to your boss.

That's great -- did the light bulb ever go off over her head?

Once I laid out the math for her. Then her eyes got all big and she put her hand over her mouth and was like 'Ohhhhh!'

xpost

sounds like she put the masking tape over the figurative light switch a long, long time ago

Final footnote to airheaded coworker:

She used to crack me up because always nod at you wide-eyed like a puppy when you were giving instructions and you just knew that nothing was sinking in. And she'd say yes she understood and tell you she'd get right on it and it would almost always be a mess. Her working life was pretty tough, so it was no wonder that she was looking elsewhere.

So the piece de resistance to this whole thing was toward the end of that same train ride, after the whole she's lost her job revelation went down, she told me in passing that she has always had trouble with verbal instructions. She said just can't seem to understand things when they're spoken half as well as when they're written down, she wasn't sure if it was a learning disability but it made things really hard.

...

why didn't you TELL ANYONE?

double facepalm.

Oh, well that part I can understand a little more. It's nothing to be ashamed of, but I'm sure some people might be a little embarrassed about it and maybe hesitate to bring it up.

yeah but if it's literally the key to your work life being awful vs bearable, it makes all the difference

people are much more understanding if it helps them AND you and gets shit done

She said just can't seem to understand things when they're spoken half as well as when they're written down...

why didn't you TELL ANYONE?

Or wrote a note to somebody.

eh, aren't you guys forgetting that she couldn't have read your precious written instructions when her lightbulb didn't work?

"Hey Erica,

Is that your large print job at Printer 3? Do you mind printing jobs that size in the copy room? Thanks much, I'm pretty noise sensitive."

Everything about this email is pissing me off. Maybe irrationally so but c'mon we don't work in a library and also SHE IS WEARING HEADPHONES AND LISTENING TO MUSIC IT'S NOT THAT LOUD.

she EMAILED that to you?

YES

She sits like two feet away from me too.

definitely file under "if you would feel ridiculous requesting this to someone's face, don't send an email about it"

I would start sending emails after every print job saying "omg I'm so sorry I forgot! I should write this down lol"

Also people are giving out holiday stuff and one of the men I work with just gave me a bag of granola. I know we do health research and stuff and I like granola as much as the next person but that's just sorta weird?

djp otm

you should send back an embedded autoplay youtube of like gangam style or skrillex and just annoy her further

lol bag of granola

some people are so practical/bland as to kill the spirit of the festive season imo

super-positive Mr Nice Guy manager has all these behaviours he learned from business self-help books - the worst of which is TOUCHING MY FUCKING ARM WHENEVER HE TALKS TO ME.

if you touch me again i will kill you

maybe he likes u

http://teamfrancis.emrydesign.com/francis.jpg

I've heard through another co-worker that he's terrified of me lol. So I think this is him trying to win me over.

Pro tip: don't. fucking. touch. me. and we'll be golden.

lol phil

Does he also say your name a lot for no apparent reason, other than he's talking to you? Ooooh, look at Mr Dominant Manager, tryna dominate!

yes

I'm sure if he shook hands with me he would clasp mine within both his hands

He's THAT guy

just a PUA manager, workin on a little kino

i hate u elmo

He's been on a course and he's trying to pass himself off as an alpha. BURN HIM.

he's been that guy for a good 10 years

the only pleasure I can take is him not knowing that I know and continue to remain a cypher to him

eventually he'll short-circuit

ENBB, ignore it and if she asks you about it, act shocked and tell her you'll check your spam for her important mail. GRRRR hate people trying to assert control of their surroundings when it's also everyone else's surroundings, and they really have no business telling you what to do in that setting.

My office is undergoing major renovations. For the past months, there's been plastic on the floor, unplugged refridgerators, weird dudes walking around and general disorder.

Remember that scene in 2001 when the monkeys woke up at dawn to find the monolith outside their cave? This is what we were met with when we came in on Monday.

http://i.imgur.com/p0MA3.jpg

That wasn't there before.

On the other side of that plywood box, their drilling holes scooting big heavy objects around on the floor, talking politics and using something that must be a forklift that goes beeeeeep-beeeeep-beeeeeep every few minutes.

It's starting to get to me.

Since we're all playing musical chairs after the Christmas break, the office held a contest with the winners in five categories getting $100 a piece. My group was spotless, I tell you this as truth. But some of the categories we weren't even in the running, like "Best Before Cleanup" and "Most Improved".

My boss handed hundred-dollar bills out like candy. Must've been 25-30 individuals overall.

When it came my group's turn, she gave us a consolation prized and handed us boxes of candy like they were hundred-dollar bills.

God, I try not to be a jealous person. I revel in the successes of others. But my ass was fucking burned on this deal. Especially the most-improved guys - their desks were still stacked with crap while ours were clean and sparse.

I told them that I was going to take a big shit on my desk and just leave it there for the next 11 months. That way, I'll be a shoo-in for "most improved".

They say I'm going to get a window office after all is said and done. That sad little fact is my carrot right now.

Habit 1: Be Proactive
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habit 4: Think Win-Win
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
Habit 6: Synergize
Habit 7: Touch Their Arms

Habit 8: Be Killed By VG

That's not really a habit as it can only happen once. Maybe make it one of his 'stretch goals'?

the other day I printed out a large set of large spreadsheets a3 without checking the page ratio first. Cue endless reams of A3 pages with five lol HUEG orange cells on like I'm doing a presentation to toddlers, while I try to figure out how to stop this incredibly noisy printer I've never used before in an office I don't usually work in.

oh that was in response to ENBB upthread. I'm not just pointlessly bitching about myself out of the tedium of it all.

Here's what you do with the granola.

Open the bag.
Walk over to your passive aggressive coworker's desk.
Grab a handful of granola.
Throw it in the air like confetti so that it lands on her head and desk and yell HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Grab more granola.
Eat it.
Walk back to your desk.
Send a huge job to the printer next to her.

I like the way you think, lady.

btw - I didn't respond, kept printing, and gave her the stink eye.

Until September we had a line manager who would ask us before doing anything (ok, only because he had no idea what was going on), so the new line manager is a bit of a shock.

One of our team is leaving and the line manager was all like "sure, we'll advertise for a replacement". The "replacement" is actually going to earn more than us and manage some unspecified people, possibly us or possibly people brought in from outside to do our jobs with less experience (it's a pretty niche field) for more money. We find this out not because our manager said but because someone happened to read the job ad on the puffy promo blog for a completely different part of our department.

PS there is no chance that any of us could go for the jobs because we don't have "modern" skills, but if we'd ever wanted to modernise skills we'd have been told to shut up and do our jobs because there's no time to learn new things and no money for training and what would we ever want with new skills anyway, everything works just fine, etc.

I mean I get that this is how the real world works, but, y'know

xp What a total clungie. I'd be tempted to minimise every single one of her concerns for a month, just because I could.

also, GAHHHHHH on behalf of spacecadet.

carl I need you in my office

wait

lol that sounded like a weird managerial come on. I just meant, carl would be greatly appreciated by me as a coworker

better.

*puts hand on VG's arm*

Hi, VG, what I can do for you, VG?

[miss piggy karate chop action sequence here]