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

You have to make your own fun round here.

That doesn't sound terrible. I couldn't stand a workplace with a dog unless it was a junkyard or something outdoors.

I think one of the few things worse than being a person made to go an office every day is being a dog made to go to an office every day.

^^

this is a bare-bones summary of a broken-record convo I heard the other day. I was laughing for probably five straight minutes.

Doofus: i wanna talk to you about <platform>. you told our client we might have <platform> go live 7/1 despite delaying <other platform> to 8/1. we can't do that.

Leader: I don't think I said we were considering having <other platform> delayed to 8/1. We were just talking about sending specific files later.

Doofus: Ok because <platform> can't go live if <other platform> doesn't go live.

Leader: Understandable. I don't think we're talking about that, though. We are just talking about possibly changing the date certain files are sent.

Doofus: Ok - just so we're clear that we can't have <platform> go live, if <other platform> doesn't also go live. That isn't even an option, we need to not offer that.

Leader: I don't think we're going to. So - assuming that, could you create an order to have your team start working on <assignment>?

Doofus: That's going to depend on you all. As long as <other platform> goes live at the same time, we can do that - but we can't have <platform> go live before <other platform>.

Leader: Ok, ok, ok. Assume <other platform> going live 8/1 is off the table. Assume it's going live 7/1, like <platform>. Can you guys create the order to get the ball rolling on <assignment>.

Doofus: Well, it depends. I just want to make clear to you that <platforms> have to both go live at the same time.

......

I hung up after, I was giggling so hard and yet at the same time I knew if I listened to another second I might ping said person and say "OMG STFU ALREADY".

I'm really tempted to run a practical course on the fine art of how to eat an apple or bag of crisps without being overheard from a distance of 6 rows of desks.

cube neighbor SHOUTS HIS PHONE CONVERSATIONS IN A BOOMING VOICE ALL DAY

For a long time I thought he had a middle ear issue bc he is a loudtalker in general

the other day he placed an apologetic phonecall to a customer in a low normal speaking voice & i wanted to run over & shout J'ACCUSE! So you CAN talk in a normal volume motherfucker WTF

Cube neighbor SHOUTS ALL OF HIS CONVERSATIONS IN A BOOMING VOICE ALL DAY. Like, all day. Every day. I don't know how he gets work done. Or why no one has acted on the many complaints they've received about him.

There are about 8 million things about this dude that irritate me on an almost cellular level but I think the top two at the moment are 1) his "laugh", which is uniformly this completely fake and weirdly forced wheezy exhalation that would seem to indicate that he's never actually heard a human laugh before (and I'm certain that I have yet to hear an actual laugh come out of his face) and 2) his apparent wish to slowly kill me by using 'yadda yadda' in every third sentence.

But seriously. I could absolutely swamp this thread with an array of fascinating details about Blabbermouth.

I genuinely think Kutcher is gonna jump out any minute and tell me I've been punked, such is the voluminous and unceasing stream of stupidity hitting my inbox this morning. Like, deep and profound, 'I have suddenly forgotten the most basic functions of my job' stupidity. I'd suspect a gas leak or some other freak incident that was impairing cognitive function en masse but this is coming from multiple offices so I'll just blame Obama.

I had to test our phone lines this week on a specific platform (one I'm new to). I read the SOP - they have three platforms (including mine) in the same SOP, but this platform uses an entirely different system than the other two. SOP is full of info that's completely irrelevant, and missing instructions that I need because of this.

Asked around for a solid week to fill in the gaps - some of the answers I got in bits and pieces, some of them nobody could answer after going to five people. Just finished testing and I have no earthly fucking idea if it's done correctly.

*throws hands up*

SHOUTS HIS PHONE CONVERSATIONS IN A BOOMING VOICE ALL DAY

Yes - there's someone in my office space who does this - and she's says 'know what I mean' every 10 seconds. The whole purpose of these conversations as far as I can tell is to communicate to the office "Look! I'm doing all this!".

Even worse is she likes to get up and do a self-satisfied lap of honour around the office after a round of calls, obviously energised by calls that have achieved absolutely nothing in practical terms.

if you can be heard more than like a row behind your desk, stfu, is how i see it

Everyone one phones and in browsers watching football
Send mail to the team leads pointing out we're not blind
Mail was just forwarded on to team
Pandemonium and outrage

Im not displeased tbh

I've had three loudtalkers

Two of them were in one place where, because of the nature of the phone calls they were getting, you couldn't really blame them

The other one was a monster though ... the voice used to rise up, up and up ... this from two long desks away ... it always consisted of 'I think ... I think ...' and it was either about football or work related that they 'thought ...'

@ darragh I hate football at work tbh, the way you get pressed for an opinion on it and there is no right answer

xpost i can almost guarantee my office loudtalker has everyone beat

he's like a cross between morning zoo radio dj and a monster truck rally announcer

permaloud, always. no indoor voice at all. ONLY THE OUTSIDE VOICE, ALWAYS

the loud talker in our office is the Skype speaker they use for meetings - every morning the people phoning into scrums blast out of the thing like some kind of tannoy announcement.

what chaps me is when people loud-talk while having very personal calls.

there was this co-worker once who was going through a divorce and decided to have his arguments with his soon to be ex-spouse at max volume a row behind me.

working from home has been so nice

^
otm

i'm thinking we should hold some kind of loud-talker world cup.

"he's in the final third, and.....ouch, he was talking about the time he got wasted at the local Red Lobster, and he lost a little volume there. he's got to watch his breathing, judges deduct two points for a 10 decibel drop so that's going to hurt his final score"

often at work people do blog posts and are like "tell us what you think!". it's a very collaborative open organisation, or . so this week i saw one of the pieces i work and i decided to "tell them what i think!" - and basically it had loads and loads of problems. i was pretty polite but made a big list of them, and there have been two reactions. the person that does my job who was involved has got mega-defensive and fu about it. i then sent a mail being as ultra-nice as i could "just my opinion, i apologise if it came across over-zealous etc etc", which didn't really change her tone.

just after this, her boss (i think it's her boss) is like "interesting ideas, let's you and me catch up about this, local garda".

feel like in trying to help i've just utterly utterly undermined someone and their boss is like "yes let's undermine them". this post is less bitching about co-workers and more office politics.

feel free to point out the errors in my post - i'd love to hear your feedback!

jesus that is the worst post ever.

just after this, her boss (i think it's her boss) is like "interesting ideas, let's you and me catch up about this, local garda".

lol, did her boss copy her in to this? cold bruv

yeah she was copied in. i had apologised and everything, she didn't really accept the apology, like replied brusquely, and then he replied in the same chain: "no need to apologise, feedback helps us to make things better. are you free to discuss this?"

terrible bossing on his part tbh. i've mailed my boss to extricate myself. POLITICS.

Go gard or go home

turned out fine really. my boss was fine with it, pretty much. just said to find out exactly who receives the feedback email in future, based on her own experiences.

i wasn't offering my opinion to boost favour with this team or get one over on the person, i just had genuine opinions about the piece of work that i felt most people in the organisation would agree with.

our 'practices' team decided to roll out this new procedure to the entire firm while simultaneously forgetting to notify 33% of the people who would be affected by it *and* without piloting it to ensure it was set up to work correctly on all systems first (*it isn't*) or giving anybody ample time to train people on it.

so now there are hundreds of employees all mondo confused about how to adhere to the new protocol.

three live dates in a two week period = just ugh

had a rough month with three live dates in a span of two weeks and had to travel to San Juan (ok that part was fun, not gonna lie) for one of em. was looking forward to this week, having a day or two of a lighter workload.

got three hours of peace and then they give me a special complicated project due in two weeks. welp fun while it lasted

i just realized I already mentioned the 3 lives in my last post. lord last week was a blur.

I decided to move a guy but he wouldnt move this morning now the guy i was replacing him with has no seat

What, he just straight up refused to move desks when told to? Who does that?

just make new guy sit on old guy's lap

tbf i refused to move desks once, because I was supposed to use a different computer with none of the software I rely on to do my job available to me

movers broke my monitor during a routine move once, and then left pieces of it on my desk. then just left it sitting there broken and were all like "oh yeah I guess that happened" when I called them pissed off about it.

working virtually came at the right time

they also, for years, used to issue the laptops for us virtual folk with outdated drivers installed and nobody except an admin level or higher could download newer ones and the outdated driver caused the VPN connection to disconnect and reconnect something like 400 times a day and it'd take you a 45 minute convo to explain to the people that this same thing happened to you two years earlier when you got a new laptop only for them to go "nope nope I'm p sure it's your home internet connection" only for them to reluctantly install the up to date driver and well what do you know it stopped like you said it would.

there is a strange little old man crawling round on our floor tagging all the electrical equipment. he has an accent so thick you can't work out what he's saying, and he smells very strongly of ash and urine, as though someone has been electrocuted on the toilet.

I get mad when someone asks me "have time to touchbase" and I say sure thinking they mean via instant message but no, they insist on calling, and take fifteen minutes to say something they could have said in an instant message

Today she brought in the bulldog she's dogsitting.

Dog panted like hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah for four hours and snored like a wailing Harvey Keitel for the other four hours.

I would demand it went elswwhere, I just couldnt put up with that shit.

..I dont really like dogs tho :/

One of those things where it doesn't seem to bother anyone else in the office, so it's either me making everything awkward and weird or me just putting up with it.

Trust me, I'm all teetering on the verge of putting MY GODAMM FOOT DOWN or risk being a MILQUETOAST CHICKENSHIT, but really. It's all about how I react to this that defines the vibe more than anything.

There's probably a message board for each co-worker in which they're making the same complaint.

OK guys I need advice on how to outflank the worst co-worker I've ever had

Preamble: I work for a small company, about 17 employees. The nemesis in question is a relatively recent hire but an old friend of the boss'. In between them seniority-wise is a manager I mostly like and respect.

This guy writes terrible "reports" we spend more time fixing than we would have writing *and* editing if we'd been assigned them, gets wounded and defensive at the slightest criticism, and - most insidiously of all - if he senses that you don't like or disagree with him but probably aren't at risk of getting the sack anytime soon, he pulls you aside and is almost creepily nice to you. (He did this to me today. It involved unprompted, hyperbolic personal compliments. And similarly unasked-for hugging.) At the same time, at least a half-dozen co-workers have expressed outright antipathy and/or had open verbal scuffles with him over his thickheadedness and lack of respect for others' skillsets.

Anyway yesterday I finally spoke to my manager a little about my misgivings w/r/t this guy, workflow, attitude, etc. Today I got the creepy compliments and the hug. I earnestly do not believe the manager said anything to him, I just think he has a keen sense of when forces are aligning against him.

What do you do in the face of such a weirdly shrewd (yet also incredibly thick), well-positioned adversary?

The hugging alone would have my hackles up immediately.