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

I really don't know. There's been problems with the office temperature the whole time I've worked there. It seems to be slightly cooler down her end of the office, but it was still too hot. There used to be an issue with a woman who would complain she was too cold all the time but she left last year so I really hoped this summer would be different. She really seems to be labouring under the impression that closing the windows would make it worse.

The situation has not been resolved and likely won't be until this heatwave is over. I didn't do any work today apart from write a couple of trouble tickets and help my colleague find a couple of bugs, I just couldn't think straight. I tried to stir it up a bit and get my colleagues to all say they would work from home until it was resolved but after some initial murmurings nobody would bite.

Eh, this is England, it'll be freezing cold in a day or two, but until then, yuck. I appreciate some people do better than others in hot weather, unfortunately I can't stand it.

I know in some buildings it's beneficial to leave a couple windows open until the A/C has started to cool things due to airflow, but then you're supposed to close all windows.

I did read that somewhere and thought she might have latched onto that but not realised it's only when you first start it up.

Pretty sure A/C works best if you offer the viscera of the office manager to the dark lord of freon.

Just had to listen to a client/colleague reveal they're Birthers, derailing a previously fun evening

so did anyone teach the girl how to make a sandwich???!?

that was a real fishes and loaves type opportunity there!

she was sacked iirc

but for the hangover thing

this isn't about coworkers per se, but... the company i work for has been trying to hire someone for months now, and i'm kind of shocked at the applicants we're getting. it's an entry level job with a pretty high starting salary for the industry, and it includes great benefits. not a bad gig for someone who doesn't have much experience and is trying to break past that "how do i get experience when no one will hire me?!" phase. if that phase even exists anymore. the applicant pool so far has been full of people who half-ass our application process and then complain that the process takes too long. did the economy in san francisco suddenly recover and now everyone good has a job?

My workplace reveals new depths of dysfunction every week. A few days ago we learned that one of the overnight coworkers is reporting to our boss about conversations between swing shift employees that are critical of said boss. Luckily this coworker damaged her credibility recently when she tried to get another coworker fired because they had a dispute over who would pick up an extra shift.

To the co-worker who is loudly complaining at length that they have a sore throat: a) it might be a good idea to STFU and save your voice, alien as that concept might be to you, and b) everyone has a scratchy throat because of the shite air quality caused by this heatwave

This woman is having a long, drawn-out phone conversation with a man about the pants (trousers)he's wearing to the club tonight and somehow I feel terribly, terribly embarrassed. She's gone behind this wall where people have loud personal conversations apparently believing it is a magical sound barrier

Come the fuck on. We have shared Outlook calendars for conference room reservations for a reason. I'm tired of having to scramble last minute for an alternate location because you can't be bothered with the four seconds it would take you to look at the calendar.

Posting this here because, unfortunatly, the person that keeps doing this is so far above my level that I really can't do anything other than give him a gentle reminder every time this happens (which is like every other week, minimum).

Dear coworker,

I would not mind so much being told that I took too long to make a report and you just dug up some old out-of-date data from who-knows-where instead IF you had not sat on the report request for over a month before forwarding it two days ago, or IF you had asked if we were ready to send ASAP before sending crap data instead, because actually the work was finished and waiting for someone else's quick sanity check before we sent it on to you

ho hum.

Boss still unlearning fundamentals of technology. She is working from home where she can't get on the internet, so she called me for help.

First off, she had been trying to access Lexis Nexis, and it never occurred to her try another website in case it was a problem w/ Lexis.

She tried and couldn't get on any websites, so she said she guessed she'd have to go to Best Buy and get another modem (she knew that word).

I suggested she should call her internet provider for help or to see if there was an outage.

"Oh God.... how would I found out who that is?" Well, it's either a phone company or your cable company..... "But wouldn't it be an internet company? Why would I call the phone company about internet?" (I know FOR SURE that as of last winter, she knew who her internet provider was.)

Then the coup de grace: "Anyway, how could there be an outage? I've got electricity!"

Oh god - she's trying to figure out who her internet provider is but she still doesn't get how the internet can be down when her electricity is working.

She should check the kitchen taps and the natural gas, since utilities all get to the house in one conduit.

Stop messing with my chair on my day off! I come in, sit down, chair is about 9 inches too low, hurt my fucking back.

"why did you reject this order, sales are complaining it was for no reason"
*looks it up* "...uh, according to the notes I see right there in the order its because the fax was completely unreadable and I needed the credit card details"
"ok"
"why do you ask us to write clear notes if no one reads them and just asks for explanations?"
*crickets*

FUCKIN. WHY. DO. I. BOTHER.

'next time I'll make up a credit card #'. geez, seriously :/

several years ago, project teams' access to set default case assignments, which they'd had for years, was revoked, and handed over to a single administrative team, which at the time, I was a part of. The explanation was that project teams had been inadvertently screwing up the settings in the system, and by relegating it to a trained administrative team, we could eliminate these kinds of errors. Likewise, it was advertised as being able to 'free up people's days' by taking the mundane out of their hands and doing it for them.

But it was a lie. It was really just a way of manufacturing dependence on a department that didn't need to exist. One that was eventually dissolved. However, despite the dissolution, the project teams never got their access back. Instead, a new department that splintered off of the defunct one, but was much smaller, kept control. To do this work, you had to submit them a request or it couldn't be done.

These case assignments, depending on size, could take anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours, but were generally quick-hitter tasks. However, this administrative team has a default turnaround of FOUR business days. Not one, not two...FOUR. I had to submit a task that I had hoped could get quick turnaround the other day - of just two days. It wasn't a large request. I got basically told "we'll try, but we're slammed and generally our standard turnaround is four days".

So...you've taken a process that used to take 15-120 minutes, and could be easily updated by a project team ad hoc when urgent issues arose...and have now handed it off to a team who is so poorly staffed, that it takes them 4 days to get to it, and cannot adjust prioritizing for more urgent requests.

Fortunately, in my situation I worked it out where they temporarily gave me my access back so I could do it myself, but seriously - how has this improved anything when you've slowed down the process so much and provided little in the way of benefit?

not to pull focus from yrs though, Trayce. that kind of shit is infuriating, where people don't understand procedure, or that you're not 'rejecting' things for your health, but for valid reasons that could be easily mitigated if the transmitter took the time. I feel for you!

We've been explicitly TOLD to reject orders for things like "the order form is an unreadable blurry fax". So I did, with notes to that effect, and the very same TL who told us this asks me why I rejected it!?

how involved in your daily operations is the TL? is it someone who sees the process up close, or someone who makes decisions from a distance?

I find the latter are almost always the type who issue edicts, then forget they issued them.

should be banhammered!

He's directly involved! He's currently auditing our workflows and everything. He knows the rules, reminds us of em, then asks for explanations on shit thats right in front of him?? Weird. Hes a nice guy, not strict, but not as competent as he could be.

yo.

look man.

if you're not gonna do your job, i feel you. working sucks. sometimes you don't wanna work.

but you know sometimes not working is gonna put you under the gun, right? you get that your incomplete data is gonna cause problems?

and you know that when you're causing problems, that the man-up move is to say "yo, i'm sorry, i'm behind, let me fix this," right?

so you understand that it's inappropriate to try to go all watergate and cover up your slippage by asking *me* to stop my report so nobody notices your missing data? and you get that it's problematic to lie to me and act like the missing data in my report is a consequence of bad report structure on *my* part?

and you get that it's beyond the FUCKING pale to straight up *lie* to your boss and say that we're slipping on this deadline because *my* reporting is fucked up? and you get that it's bullshit to try to duct-tape-and-string a solution together and then tell your boss you *have to* because ~i~ fucked up?

motherfucker i have been on the phone with you for hours a day holding your hand while you sight-type into your fisher price front end, and then you're gonna try to throw me under the bus?

this shit nearly got me fired, because they thought *i* had fucked up. change your game or move on, dogg. and don't call me again.

did you reverse the attempted judo throw and get the blame placed where it oughta?

fuck dude.

yeah i think i'd try to get the truth out on that guy.

i only even found out about this bullshit in a meeting where i got called on the carpet and had to correct the misapprehension, at which point it got real clear that i was not the fuckup

holy fuck. glad you at least got a chance to give your side. did the other guy get terminated?

so, the first two days my project was live went great, overall. very happy about it. but one gripe, and it's unfortunately a big one.

There is a process that needed to be completed prior to the live date. It's not one that I'm responsible for, own, or even have jurisdiction over, but it's one that directly impacts my workgroup, and is often missed or late on projects, which causes lots of negative things.

6 weeks prior to live, I notice that the ticket for the request isn't moving, so I approach the person who is responsible, who is newish, and I basically ask him, typically your role is responsible, are you ok doing this? Let us know if you need help along the way, yadda yadda. He replies almost immediately to say "Yes, we'll definitely do this". Within a week or two, he starts adding his sub-team to the ticket, and the team that started the ticket starts funneling the assignments out.

A few weeks pass, and I see next to nothing happen, and finally, as I'm about to say "what's the deal here?", the subteam member reaches out to ask how to do the task. the ticket creator and I gave answers, and I again said "if you need assistance while you're working on any, reach out to me or <name>".

The process starts moving, so I'm happy, but after they complete like the first 3 of many tasks, it just stops dead. I'm doing all day training , but I basically reach out and say "Where are we at here? I want to make sure this is set for live date - otherwise, the team that processes forms won't be in place, and they'll have to be done manually".

She asks "which ones are still outstanding?", a stupid question since she can see in the ticket which ones she's attached and which ones she hasn't in the attachments page. Nonetheless, I told her which ones still needed to be finished. AGAIN, I say "if you need help while completing this, reach out to me or <name>".

Another week passes, they get a few more done, but now we're a week out and they're only a little over halfway done. I ask again where they're at, and get told they're working on them. Still no request for help to me or <name>.

Three days to live date, STILL not done. At this point, I went back to the initial person I approached six weeks earlier, whom I had told about the importance of this. I also approached his mentor. I said basically, "I'm very concerned about this not being done by go-live. If it is not done, we will not have a team in place to process forms, and you'll have to do them all manually. This is not a desired result. Can you let me know if any help is needed.". Dude's mentor replies and assures me they're working 'feverishly' on them and that they'll be done by live date (generally, you're supposed to finish a week or two before, but w/e).

FINALLY, one of them reaches out for help for the first time. At this point, knowing we need to get this done, I ghostwrite the assignments for the person and just tell them to stamp their name to it (and it only took 30 freaking minutes). So now, only three assignments were left. We get to the day before live, at 10 pm...nothing. The person reaches out to me then and says "oh we finished the last few, but we wanted <name> to review them and she's traveling. Should we wait?". Ugh. Ok, fine. So we don't get around to adding those two until the following morning, and the final one the day after live.

And guess what? THE EXACT THING I WARNED ABOUT IS HAPPENING. Forms are coming in, no team in place to process. So I had to ask the dude, who I told of the importance of this exact task six weeks ago, that his team now needs to manually do these until the team is set up.

This isn't even something I was supposed to own. I got involved simply because I saw nothing was moving and wanted to make sure it was set up, as it screws my team over if its not. I kept saying "ask us for help", and got radio silence. Nobody took it seriously, and now here we are. I don't care how new you are, if somebody tells you "THIS IS UBER-IMPORTANT, PLEASE MAKE SURE IT GETS DONE", you own it, and if you have trouble along the way, or see a challenge to meeting the deadline, YOU FUCKING SAY SO. esp when about 1,800 reminders go out to you along the way.

*vent over*.

overuse of jargon/focus on processes is ruining the flow of this thread imo, let's keep it snappy ppl

ok. a co-worker farted and I'm pissed about it.

neanderthal i've been watching u lately and you really seem to have gotten on board with the messages we're sending out there, good work

It's because you keep saying 'reach out' imo

http://units.sla.org/chapter/cwcn/wwest/v7n4/FourTops.jpg

No joke, that song has been in my head the whole time that thread's been at the top of SNA. Along w 'what I am'.
It's been a difficult time.

Glad I'm not the only one on ILX who's been thinking about The Four Tops.

the other guy hasn't been fired yet. He's a contractor & the ongoing implication is "his contract will not be renewed," but we'll see.

re: reach out thread, I've been thinking about Depeche Mode - "Reach out and touch base." I think somebody mentioned that in the thread already.

dammit carl now thats all im gonna hear.

loool carl

lmao

there are all of these martyrs in my office who will constantly work while sick and then talk about how they're sick the entire day and how they are so busy and can't take a day off, then everyone else gets sick and feels implicit pressure to work through it because these other people do. fuck all y'all if i catch whatever you have.

Sysadmin organised a whiskey tasting, the invitation for which went to the IT managers list and not to the IT staff list, bcz Important People. And then he invited some low-level admin woman who doesn't even work in IT but is quite pretty, as well as being half his age. (He's not single either.)

Anyway he just crashed in at quarter past 10 and we all thought he'd been at a 9am meeting, but no, he told us proudly it was just the after-effects of his whiskey-tasting night which he's going to spend all day talking loudly about.

Everyone else finds this guy enormously charming btw.

He sounds like a dick.

what a stupid, annoying coworker

pee in his coffee

Two co-workers are arguing about David Miranda's detention. Co-worker #1 is against what happened, but is also massively homophobic. Co-worker #2 isn't homophobic, but thinks the police were justified in detaining Miranda, and is more or less calling him a terrorist.
http://31.media.tumblr.com/68a730798ab92bc8534ee582da6e59f1/tumblr_mnbzr17o9C1qedb29o1_500.gif

amazing gif