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

Oh god, something that happened at my last job still sticks in my craw.
Even though I am not a music librarian I was asked to take over the world music aspect of building a music library. The music department asked us to do this. So, that meant buying material that best represented the culture, not watered-down Euro tourist "your tropical vacation" type shit. It's music they use in language and culture and film classes too, so it has to be good. So this faculty member asked me to buy a rare Japanese film soundtrack...and I was told that if a faculty member wanted something, as long as it was $30 or under, to go ahead and buy it. And I did and this co-worker who's not a librarian chewed me out...when frankly, even the music librarian told me she was out of her depth there and could I please do it. I was so humiliated to be talked down to by this guy. What's more, I was asked to order it by the faculty member. Ich. And then the director said I was buying too much music WHEN THE MUSIC LIBRARIAN ASKED ME TO BUY ALL OF THAT STUFF because the stuff our CD vendor was sending us was weak and inadequate. I mean, and then she turns around and says we should all be developing our skills and I thought this would be a good career building, buying all of that music. I mean, sometimes they pull this "bait and switch" stuff with me. We're not all on the same page - one person will say "develop your skills and think about your next job" then will say "you're getting too ambitious and hint hint think about moving on, we need someone less knowledgeable here." I'm still bitter about it. I've moved on, but the director apparently still bitched after I left about all of the music I bought. Like, get over it, lady.

Manager: hey are you busy, can I ask you a question?
Me: sure, what's up?

- 10 minutes elapse

she did this to me again just now. it's 1pm and I'm just about to take lunch, she messages me "are you free for a quick call now?" I think well I'm about to get something to eat but let's get it out the way, so I say "sure yes"

- 10 minutes elapse

... are you new to the workforce?

feel like this is close kin to "how busy are you right now?" i.e. the most tooth-grinding question ever conceived by the mind of humanity. it is so beyond the pale for me. anyone asking it i lose 100% respect for instantly.

I just saw your email appeared in my inbox so why have you walked over to where I'm sitting to say "I've just sent you an email."

Was reflecting on the drive-by email today - “hey we really should get together to discuss this massive project just putting it out there get back to me with your available times and I will undertake to not reply to you for approx 2 weeks”. I have a few of those meetings somewhere in the bardo waiting to manifest.

If one more, just one more, person of whom I've requested something is like 'yeah, we're all good bruh' only for me to discover that we are not actually all good, bruh, and that the requestee never even bothered to confirm that we were all good before consulting whatever goddamn faulty oracle he's using to sense whether a request might or might not be legitimate, I'm going to aim my head directly at that person's midsection so as to assail them with skull shrapnel when my brain finally and inevitably explodes.

Seriously: what the fuck is this tendency and how the fuck do these people remain employed.

Does your company operate like mine where "managers" can't actually fire anybody without a lengthy HR arbitration first, after which they always say "give them another chance"?

That's usually how.

I mean shit I didn't even get a wrist slap for the major code of conduct violation i accidentally committed on a hot mic

The response to basically every infraction or display of incompetence is 'WELL...(*shrug*)...WHATTAYAGONNADO?'. Which is to say that management doesn't, y'know, 'manage' per se. It's a lot of fun!

And the individual in this instance actually is a 'manager' who just sent an email revealing his profound ignorance to me and another employee (basically: I requested that a thing be updated per our current standards and he responded saying 'But everything looks correct to me! Look! (types out the settings which reflect our standards from...three? maybe four years ago? I guess he's been in a fucking coma all that time and wasn't alerted to the multitude of changes that have taken place since then?) Me no understand what is problem! Duhhhhhhh!'

I mean shit I didn't even get a wrist slap for the major code of conduct violation i accidentally committed on a hot mic

you just gonna leave us hanging like that?!

Just went for a piss while still wearing my microphone and the whole conference heard me call the urinal a "thirsty boy"

— Bea_ker (@bea_ker) February 18, 2016

Does your company operate like mine where "managers" can't actually fire anybody without a lengthy HR arbitration first, after which they always say "give them another chance"?

That's usually how.

― When I am afraid, I put my toast in you (Neanderthal), Friday, 1 November 2019 17:44 (fifty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol

sorry for rights

We had a meeting. We’re just three employees plus the manager. The whole meeting was to correct a colleague’s behavior. (One of the things she does is organise promotions w/o the manager’s knowledge. Wtf.) The whole fucking time she just didn’t take responsibility. It was infuriating. I have stood up for her when others complained. No more.
She also reprimands me for being “too easy.” Well, next time she’ll know that sometimes I am not always easy. F her.
Urgh.

Does your company operate like mine where "managers" can't actually fire anybody without a lengthy HR arbitration first, after which they always say "give them another chance"?

That's usually how.

― When I am afraid, I put my toast in you (Neanderthal), Friday, 1 November 2019 17:44 (fifty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol

sorry for rights

― deems of internment (darraghmac), Friday, November 1, 2019 11:37 AM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes, lol at this. best thing about being a unionized employee in the public sector is that my ass is basically unfireable

Unfortunately a 'firing people? what's that?' workplace is also the best thing for people who have been reduced to little more than twitching brainstems and whose sole purpose is to burden everyone else with their inability to function.

yeah i have dipshit coworkers too. i just am very direct when they fuck up and that keeps most people from being too much of a nuisance

FWIW I don't advocate firing people willy nilly but like...there's always a toilet that could use a bit of extra scrubbing, manager who probably couldn't manage the intricacies of a three-ring binder.

i feel like this site is falling in on itself tbh

ILX is work now?

:(

since 2014 imma say

It feels that way because you're not ranking metal subgenres on ILM.

idk, deems is perhaps disappointed in the lack of nuance itt dedicated to the art of hyperbolic work-related steam expulsion

oh im too woke now huh

I've been saying, tone it down my dude

Between Facebook, Twitter, reddit and a few other massifs hovering up the time and attention of most potential ILX newcomers, and ILX's heavy reliance on text-based interaction and the generally high level of verbal acuity required to participate, ILX has been slowly sagging and shrinking for a while now. When it finally becomes a ghost town, I'll be one of the last to leave, but I'm thankful the necrosis is not too far advanced, yet. I like the company here.

I've been steadily gnawing at the load-bearing support struts for some time, myself, sorry about that.

lol

sorry for rights

― deems of internment (darraghmac), Friday, November 1, 2019 11:37 AM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes, lol at this. best thing about being a unionized employee in the public sector is that my ass is basically unfireable

― ت (jim in vancouver), Friday, November 1, 2019 3:01 PM bookmarkflaglink

Has nothing to do with rights deems/jim. Obviously I don't want managers firing motherfuckers for bullshit reasons. That is the good function of our HR.

But they don't let manager terminate people who are legitimately terrible. I had someone on my team who missed every deadline for three years, even after extensions. Who me and others had to finish the massive work they couldn't finish while doing their own job. Who frequently lied and was caught lying. Never got through one project where they completed more than 60% of what was assigned.

The only person on the team who had this problem. Left me working 70 hour weeks doing her job and mine.

But no, we weren't allowed to terminate her.

Keep on taking bad faith reads tho guys it's a gl for ya

I mean shit I didn't even get a wrist slap for the major code of conduct violation i accidentally committed on a hot mic

you just gonna leave us hanging like that?!

― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Friday, November 1, 2019 2:24 PM bookmarkflaglink

I was given five minutes notice that the class I was supposed to be relieved from was mine all day while having to simultaneously do another 8 hour assignment. And then I found out my partner hadn't done the favor he had promised to do to help me just take a breath.

My anxiety was going nuts. So I vent to myself, but loudly, "Oh my FUCKING GOD, all I fucking asked you was to do one motherfucking favor but of FUCKING COURSE NOT!"

Surprised to hear rustling over the phone from the learners, who are doing an assignment yet all seemed to start muttering right at the same time I....

Oh shit, I look at the WebEx to check that I muted it, which of course I did, stop being paran...

Oh fuck. Not muted. One angry learner types "Mute your phone, sir!"

Self-reported it to my boss, issued lengthy apology to the class. Waited for the formal discipline that never came.

Boss seemed to think it was nbd. I shoulda at least been written up tho.

I feel like i got lucky due to how busy it was more than intentionally being let off.

yeah i have dipshit coworkers too. i just am very direct when they fuck up and that keeps most people from being too much of a nuisance

― ت (jim in vancouver), Friday, November 1, 2019 3:09 PM bookmarkflaglink

Lol last time i did that i got a talking to, nice that youre allowed to do it

I can only laugh today

so I was worried I’d have dumb questions or a derail from my manager’s peer, who works elsewhere, during this meeting. but instead this happens:

three of us in the room, the person doing the work remote, and her manager remote. we speak for a while, then I ask a question that one of the remote people need to answer. dead air! so I check, and the person who would do it had dropped from the conference call. happens due to connection issues, nbd. her manager isn’t responding but is listed as present so maybe he’s dropped but it hasn’t timed out?

about ten minutes later, I hear breathing on the speaker. he’s there! he says something about “had to step away”
and mumbles something jumbled including “bathroom.” she appears back on a moment later, and we find out.. she had technical issues and he had silently absconded to the toilet! whatever, but pretty funny because he’s a constant interjector and micromanager and actually assumed she could handle it but only because his bowels were messed up

so the funniest part is later. someone who was in the room messaged me to confirm he definitely had disappeared for a while. apparently there was an after-meeting conversation and he played it off like he’d been on the call the entire time

Lol last time i did that i got a talking to, nice that youre allowed to do it

― When I am afraid, I put my toast in you (Neanderthal), Friday, November 1, 2019 4:34 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

didn't get fired though so that's nice

We found out at work that a former tech employee had been spying on people's e-mails and stuff. She had been stalking a well-liked media studies professor. She apparently had people's e-mails and stuff, which included me, because I had exchanged e-mail with him. I guess she had been spreading a lot of bullshit about people having affairs and stuff. How a fantasist like this ever got hired in the first place is beyond me.

Also it got back to me that she thought I was having an affair with the professor, who was old enough to be my dad.

well, that only seems incredibly fireable and somewhat criminal

Of course it's criminal...I guess we have to wait and see whether charges will be filed. Certainly a crazy erotomanic stalker like that ought to be off the streets.

there‘s this woman in my region who has been covered by local news multiple times for getting a job under false premises, telling an elaborate story about her life that‘s and stealing a bunch of cash from employers

she’s obviously intelligent and sympathetic enough to sell it but it blows my mind that she’s dodged out with a requirement for mental health treatment, ordered to pay restitution, only for some employer who hasn’t recognized her to hire her again and she’s back in the news cycle in six months

so uh, best of luck with the work stalker

story that’s tragic, I meant to say

Shared an office with a guy who exhaled a satisfied 'aaaahhhhhhh...' after every loud gulp of coffee or water for one year.

i work with a sicilian

its been intense but we're both taking learnings from it

Where I work is full of Italians fwiw.

I'm part sicilian, is there something I should be concerned about?

If one more, just one more, person of whom I've requested something is like 'yeah, we're all good bruh' only for me to discover that we are not actually all good, bruh, and that the requestee never even bothered to confirm that we were all good before consulting whatever goddamn faulty oracle he's using to sense whether a request might or might not be legitimate, I'm going to aim my head directly at that person's midsection so as to assail them with skull shrapnel when my brain finally and inevitably explodes.

― Feed Me Wheat Thins (Old Lunch), Friday, November 1, 2019 12:37 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Elapsed time between this morning's request (to a different manager altogether) and the offhand and completely incorrect dismissal it received: < 1 minute. BRB, scheduling a brain explosion rn.

xp i dunno, its kinda hard to say without knowing whether you have any idea of the volume of your voice, the ideal level of personal space other people would appreciate, whether or not they like to finish their sentences before you begin to tell an unrelated anecdote because you were bored etc etc

i mean i think it may be just him, but ive raised it at increasing levels of fraughtness and he just thinks its a cultural thing so....?

Where I work is full of Italians fwiw.

― Michael Oliver of Penge Wins £5 (Tom D.)

ITALIANS ARE NOT THE SAME AS SICILIANS, as Sicilians will tell you when you meet them and about every five minutes thereafter.

I do a lot of the stuff people on this thread complain about.

*meaningful hand gesture*

Imagine how confusing it is for those of us who are part Italian and part Sicilian. My identity is a mess!

please stop shouting, please

The entire department just behind me (in our garbage open-plan office where there is no privacy and certainly no barriers against sound) is comprised of individuals who have seemingly never been exposed to the concept of an 'inside voice'. Or the concept of 'working instead of pretending you're on your third glass of wine at a raucous dinner party'. I assume these were qualities that management actively sought out? At any rate, it's...it's just such an absolute delight.