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

Its not just sales. The support TL blankly informed me a while ago that something SHE wanted to find out she "doesnt have time to read up on, thats your job to do and tell me".

What. The. Fuck.

Its not just sales.

Also lawyers.

All but one of our lawyers enter their time directly on the billing system. The one who won't doesn't b/c he truly can not figure it out. All he has to do is log in, look up the client, and enter the work description, but he fucks it up.

Instead he hand writes his work,descriptions, then later and transcribes the work to an Excel file (one for each day), which he emails to a secretary, who transfers them into the billing system - after she has sent a dozen emails w/ questions.

Yesterday one of the other partners, who is that guy's friend, bitched to me about this absurd waste of resources (with extra opportunities for errors). He said he'd personally given him a tutorial, but it was an unequivocal failure.

if you asked him why he won't learn he'd say 'biil'n time's bogus je55e'

Not about co-workers, but sometimes clients come in and go, "how come you don't talk to so-and-so anymore", or "do you want so-and-so's e-mail / Facebook / phone number"....and it's not someone I want to hear from ever again! Moreover, my family and co-workers aren't any of that person's business! I didn't like her and I'm kind of busy these days...I just don't want that person's social disease in my workplace or at home and I don't feel like explaining it to a near stranger.

My stupid annoying co-workers are currently rehashing their almost daily "lazy benefit cheats have giant TVs and private jets while I work my arse off and pay taxes and struggle to make ends meet" rants.

They never mention struggling to make ends meet when they're talking about paying over £200 for a fucking golf club.

at my previous job, when i expressed frustration at a coworker who refused to read emails or how-to docs and instead just asked me the same question over and over again, he unironically told me that he was in sales, and as a result that his time was more important than having to dig through his email to find the answer to a question.

― eh mec, elle est ou ma caisse? (ytth), Thursday, 3 January 2013 03:26 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Coming from a sales background, I can empathise, but all too often emails from management or marketing take the form of densely-worded prose that go on for multiple paragraphs including a long preamble and loads of other bumph that's superfluous to the essential details. When you're being targeted on performance (i.e. how many clients you speak to in a day, how many of these you sell to) receiving these things is such a pain in the arse. Bulletpoints exist for a reason!

Depends on how good a golfer you are - if it wasn't for golf my late father wouldn't be able to pay bills, it's how he made business friends.

True story - he started out working parks and country clubs as a poor kid, mastered golf and tennis and some of those other games, used his sports ability to get jobs and contacts. He won a national amateur tournamnent and was good enough to be a pro! Not a typical experience, tho.

Not arguing with you - a lot of office dorks are SHIT at golf and then spend all that money on it. And I sit there listening to their golf stories and get steamed...I picture their ass getting beat by some nobody kid.

This guy's an engineer in his 50s playing golf as a hobby with a 3 handicap. He and his wife are earning around £40k each. He has no children. He aint struggling to make ends meet.

Ask them if they've ever had to accept out of work benefits? Pretty sure half of the British workforce has never graced a Jobcentre for any reason. Most scrounger rhetoric is due to ignorance (wait, you'll probably also have to explain what 'rhetoric' is).

Britain has engineers? Just kidding...my dad worked in engineering where there are stereotypes.

I think he's been in work since his apprenticeship started 30-odd years ago so no, I don't think he's ever needed or sought benefits.

Neither have I, though my parents very much did, but it doesn't mean I have to buy into the "how dare they have FLAT SCREEN TELEVISIONS!" pish.

xp

Why are FLAT SCREEN TELEVISIONS still used as a luxury signifier - is it even possible to buy a CRT telly these day?

Right? Or smart phones, which not only are not that expensive with a minutes plan, are also becoming vital since they allow people to connect to the internet. Also fuck anybody who believes that people in economic straights should never have any fun or do anything enjoyable. Like the price for receiving food stamps should be that you spend all your free time sitting quietly in the dark in your apartment, contemplating what a burden you are on society. Fuck that.

See also: "Don't give that panhandler any money! I saw him in the liquor store last week!"

I know plenty of people who've never claimed benefits who don't go around calling out scroungers, because they're not Daily Mail readers and/or not so completely solipsistic that they can't imagine someone needing help from the state. Most of my friends in the UK think it's appalling to have to be at the mercy of some box-ticking Jobcentre/A4e moron for £71/week - and that person has the power to take away this trifling amount if you aren't a suitably chirpy potential worker bee. Some people are just temperamentally suited to loudly demand that people in need must wear the hairshirt or grab their forelocks in tribute to any passing working person, possibly because it makes them feel superior to SOMEONE for a few seconds and distracts them from how much their public servants believe them to be easily malleable plebs.

Flat screens are de rigeur in the "ghetto" I live near - I see the boxes in the alley all of the time. People are aspirational and how can you imagine yourself employed and respectable if you don't have a decent tv.

Accepting unemployment is hard when you've never lost a job in your life - suddenly you feel like you have no more "status" than anyone else at unemployment, and there are some pretty desperate people at those places. It's like, you'll never be the same after going to some low-income neighborhood to fill out forms. And the guy next to you is just looking for entry-level work.

The seasonal reps they hire here get dumber and dumber each year. I feel like Casey Stengel with the 1962 Mets.

Example - we took over the call center for a company, and we also took over the 1-800 number previously in use. As a result, we had a whole new phone tree and menu. Because of this, we showed it to these reps in training weeks in advance, posted it out there, and told them the old one was no longer valid.

Despite this, on Day 1, some of these morons continued to reference the old one. Here's why that's ridiculous - the old system was a touchtone system, the new one is voice activated. Meaning touching 'numbers' in the system won't work. You'd think that someone would notice when they dialed into a voice activated system that maybe they were looking at the wrong thing, but no, instead they told callers there was a problem with the phones, and insisted this even after I told them they were looking at the wrong document.

So that gets sorted out, and I have the season reps' supervisor physically address them all, tell them they were looking at the wrong document (and to throw out the old one), and passed out physical copies of the new one. She also made them all sign consent that they understood.

One of those idiots today who even signed off insisted she didn't get a paper copy, today. And, the kicker...we removed all postings of the old menu from anywhere it was archived to prevent anybody even having any ability to reference it, and one of the reps ran in panicked minutes after we got rid of it begging us to put it back. She had still been using it days after we said it was no longer in use.

It basically gets to the point where you have to reward them for their awfulness by giving them less to do, which means less to screw up.

which means less pay?

casharito

Nope, no less pay. They don't make it easy for us. I've gone just to request these folks be placed on improvement plans, only to be reassured by the group that handles that "OH NO, THESE ARE GOOD REPS, THEY DON'T NEED THEM", and then a day later, they make a huge mistake and they sheepishly admit "ok, we can put them on".

I'm thankful that my time with this group is temporary (once it's up and running, we move on to the next one), I just feel bad for the person inheriting these folks. One of them sniped at me because she insisted she didn't get the updated information on the phone system, until we pulled out her emailed certification that she received and understood it over a week ago.

*Sigh*, doing LOTS of breathing exercises today. Some days, you gotta just take a few slaps to the face and know that it's only temporary!

Wow, those sound like some a-grade morons. I get mad when I hear about people like that and think, how do they get jobs? HOW?!

Yeah, one more day and then I begin making it someone else's problem. And oh is that going to be awesome :).

How DO they get jobs? And what is the root of their problem? Do they just not give a shit? It seems like the most likely explanation.

Oh that's most certainly it. Some of them don't care about anything other than fulfilling the term of their contract and don't give a shit about getting hired full-time.

It's not entirely their fault by any means, but we used to get better contractors 5-6 years ago before they changed providers. I'm not real sympathetic because in the days I was a CS rep, we had a much more difficult system to use, and more responsibilities.

*shrug*. People are happy with the job I did on the project, but I feel bad about the person who has to handle these guys next.

Is this a call center in the US?

the pentagon?

Yeah, it's the US. thankfully, one of the worst offenders was shitcanned today, another never showed back up after getting negative feedback the other day. We have more than enough, no big loss.

It does start to feel like adult babysitting after a while. My manager said she had to break up not one but two fights in one of her training classes.

I just wondered if it was a typically brutal US call center environment (limited bathroom breaks, quota requirements for hours worked) and if it was, I was going to conjecture that the environment might not be conducive to people putting forth their best effort.

Not to attack your biz or anything. The folks you are talking about probably needed to not work there anymore. I was more responding to Jesse: "what is the root of their problem? Do they just not give a shit?"

No, that's fine -- it's a fair question. I would say when compared to other call centers, ours is a little bit on the cushier side. They can take breaks as needed (as long as it doesn't exceed like, an hour total all day), and they just work standard 8 hour shifts.

Some of it is the onboardin g process which is not the best, but I think the standards for hires have also been "relaxed" over the years since we changed suppliers for our seasonal help.

the only other gripe I have today, outside of the "I CAN'T LOCATE PANGAEA ON THE MAP"-reps, is that sometimes our Director fires shots before he knows what the target is. Felt really bad today as there was this escalation outside of my unit (for a process owned by a specialized group), so I explained to the best of my knowledge how I thought the process should work, and told him I was copying this other person, who had more information.

He then subjects her to this harsh line of questioning and I'm then forced to apologize to her (to be fair, I should have given her a head's up first) for getting thrown under the bus, as all I was trying to do was introduce the right resource into the conversation, not say "Hey, this is her fault".

It worked out though. It also amazes me that the same guy (who I like, don't get me wrong) feels this strongly about the problem but didn't pick up the phone to call either person. Idk about most but if something's urgent and I ain't getting a reply from someone, I usually give 'em a ring.

no longer have to babysit the reps, today was better, but then at the end of the day I had to explain to another department how their own phone system works (even tho I had nothing to do with building it and presumably they should all know this). wouldn't have been so frustrating if by staying late to explain it, I hadn't been late to someplace I needed to be.

however, in a few weeks, I'm done with this puppy and I'm getting mondo positive feedback for the work I've done, it's just kind of a slog getting there. a marathon really.

Is your role an itinerant call center shaper upper? That's kind of cool. Ride in on your horse, clean up the town, ride off into the sunset.

Kinda, but not exactly. I'm the dude that builds new ones, basically, then hand it off to the team that is going to maintain it ongoing. sort of like a theatre director, but with call centers.

I roll off this one at the end of the month and just realized that I already billed more hours this month than I was supposed to, so I basically told everyone they need to start driving the ship yesterday, and took today off. Feels oh so gooood.

"this minor administrative difficulty LITERALLY MAKES ME WANT TO PUKE!!!"

Not strictly-speaking a "co-worker" but someone has left a list of all the big-name thriller authors they want to poach from competitors on a public printer six floors below the office they work in. If i didn't have such faith in human incompetence, i'd assume they wanted it to be leaked.

I JUST WANT A SOUNDPROOF CUBICLE

Ahhhhhhhh, you fuckwit! Why you don't you listen, or if you don't understand, just fucking ask!!!! I am not your fucking mother.

Rant over. Thank you for the space to share my frustrations.

> I JUST WANT A SOUNDPROOF CUBICLE

open plan office here and it's usually fine but i sit next to meeting room. at the start of meeting there's always that time when 10 people are in there yapping with the door open for the stragglers, 6ft from where i'm trying to work.

My own frustrations about co-workers are as much my problem as theirs I think.

I am a senior developer in our small IT team. There are 2 lead developers who we all report to, so I'm not the most senior. I am also the newest member of (IT) staff.

Currently the other members of my team will frequently pester me non-stop with questions about the work we are doing, which is kind of understandable, but also a lot of RTFM/let me google that for you type questions. I'm often working on the more difficult tasks we've got which means I need to be able to concentrate, and every time I get interrupted I lose my concentration and have to figure out where I got to again. This turns me into something like Jack Nicholson's character in the Shining, so I'm sure somewhere on another messageboard my colleagues are complaining about the grumpy bastard who bites their face off if they ask them more than 10 questions in a row.

In a way I think I'm justified in being pissed off that people aren't using their own initiative to solve problems and just rely on me to fix everything for them, but I'm not handling it in a professional manner at all at the moment. I get increasingly stressed out and then just blow up at them. I guess I have to accept that now I'm in a senior role I have to wipe people's arses for them, I dunno maybe I'm not suited for this... I get on better just being left alone to do my own work. Unfortunately that doesn't happen very often.

I had/have that problem too. When I first encountered it (6 years ago, after I'd just received my first promotion), I acted much the same as you. Even swore at a few co-workers now and then. It's frustrating because you feel like you can't get your own work done.

Really though, what I realized (and what I'm sure you'll realize as you get more used to your position) is that it is a sign of respect, that they view you as someone who is knowledgeable and trustworthy. Yes, they do need to be more independent and learn on their own, but one suggestion I have is when you feel stressed and angry, just breathe, and try another approach. Ask them what they've tried already, maybe say "let me show you how to find that for next time". It may mean spending more time with them than you want initially, but over time, it decreases the number of times they come to you. The snapping at them method actually hurts their confidence and might ironically cause them to come to you more.

(This is not meant as a criticism of your method, by any means -- it's just something that takes time to get used to, and this is coming from a dude that struggles from hotheadisms as evidenced by some of my screeds above). Best of luck, but I think it'll get better for you.

and now, ironically, I gripe. lol. one of the managers who's taking over this center from me is fairly new to her position, but she's actually quite good, and I can tell she will be successful. So it bugs me when I see her missing on the little things.

For instance, there's a daily report that is supposed to go out by 9:30 a.m. each day. I handed it off to her last week, we had a meeting the day before (and she has done it before), and assured me she was fine to do it. I gave her some extra materials to help.

I had to remind her 4 times on Day 1, and she assured me the last time that she'd forgotten but was working on it, and yet 5:30 p.m. came and went, and no report went out (and emails came back to me about it), so I had to do it myself. Day 2, I'm out of the office, so I send her a reminder the day before, and she gets it out (an hour late), but it's riddled with errors. Nobody points them out, though, so w/e. Day 3, I send her two reminders when they haven't gone out by noon, and she assures me that she's working on it, but two hours later, no report, and it's quitting time for me, so yet again, I had to do it for her.

Yesterday, I had to remind her two times, and she got it out at like 10:30, but again, lots of formatting/copying errors, despite me giving her an easy to copy template, and written instructions on where to get the new data from.

Today, I'm out of the office, but occasionally I check emails on my phone just to make sure things are ok. Hasn't gone out yet. Despite being out, I sent a reminder.

It just boggles my mind. This is a report our leaders need daily, and they were the ones who asked for it by 9:30 a.m., which I made very clear to her. It also is something I shouldn't be doing as it could result in me getting follow-up questions about things I'm no longer handling (hence why we hand it off), and plus, I'm now been removed from day to day operations, so I don't have the observational data to fill out some of the details anymore (meaning I have to guess).

And it really is just a pre-populated template that you have to update with numbers from a daily report that takes mere minutes to run. If you prep the report the night before, you can literally just plug and send first thing in the morning. How can someone forget so many times to do something when I've given 10-15 reminders, like doesn't that normally set off a bell in your head that it's important?

I'm sure she'll learn this over time, as I wasn't the most organized when I first started, but it's just one of those weird things because she excels at things most newbies don't, yet can't do a simple email each day. Even I didn't have this problem the first time I sent it out, and this was when she was showing me how to use the system to get the daily numbers!

Maybe it's a really boring task and she hates it. Just a thought.

it is a really boring task and most of us hate it. didn't know that meant we didn't have to do it.

Haha no I mean but I can understand the foot-dragging, I have the same impulse.

I have to do about a 10-page report once a week and every time I'm like "REALLY? AGAIN??"

oh lol yeah I mean I get that, it's just like, I wish the switch would go off in her brain that THIS REPORT IS BEING VIEWED BY PEOPLE VERY HIGH UP IN THE COMPANY, and if it has mistakes and doesn't come out...that doesn't look good!

But I also suppose she is probably less used to some of these leaders than my group is, so maybe the magnitude just isn't clear to her. In any case, I'm mostly just annoyed because it's been a 15 minute task that I've had to babysit, whereas everything else has been smooth. It's like watching a really good movie that cuts out with 5 minutes left, I want closure! :)

10-page reports = blech. thankfully this is just an email thingamabobber.

this is why I'm glad I move from projct to project, like a theatre director. very rarely have to deal with that, except for the aforementioned report, which is only a 5-day thing.

She failed to do it again, so even though I wasn't in today, I had to do it (I thought of leaving it alone but knew it wasn't right to spite our leaders due to her own failure). Despite two additional reminders today (overall, I probably delivered 15 reminders over 5 days, and was promised it would be completed on two days where she went home without doing it).

Not an apology once either, or an explanation, so it frustrates me now that I will have to give feedback to this rep's manager over something this silly and avoidable. 4 other colleagues transitioned this report to the ongoing parties without any issues like this, and I had to waste my own time chasing her down over this. Mostly ruined today out of the office cuz I had to keep checking to see if it was done.

Thankfully, it's the last day teh report goes out.