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

A few years ago when I still worked in a call center, a customer died meaning they had retirement benefits that were paid out to their children. Instead of just one child, they split it evenly amongst several (4 or 5). Not all of them were aware they were getting this benefit. After the benefits were transferred, all of them were called so that they could call back in and be informed of their benefits and what they could do with them.

Most of them understood, but one of them was very confused as to who we were and why we were calling. One of our elder employees got the call, and she was, shall I say, less than brilliant, and somewhat senile. She basically couldn't handle any call that wasn't linear and predictable, ie, 2% of the calls that came in. So the two of them went back and forth, not getting anywhere.

Eventually, the caller said "I just want to know why I'm supposed to call you!". Our employee then uttered "Well, according to our records, your mom's dead. You might want to check with your father".

...

REPOSTED FROM OTHER COWORKERS THREAD:

I have avoided posting on this thread, but can't stand it anymore.

Dude in my office is a trainwreck of a coworker.

We are attorneys. Ergo, our job includes some petty annoyances which you really just need to get over. These can include demolition of your social plans on a semi-regular basis, lack of regard for your social life by coworkers or superiors, long hours, lack of predictability of schedule.

In other words, you need to be flexible and willing to work to make things work.

All I hear is constant bitching about "I was planning on doing this, and this motherfucker gave me an assignment to do that! Fuck him!" or "Damnit, I had to work this weekend." or "Man, I work too hard."

And its always someone else's fault that these things have happened to him. Its never his fault at all.

All this in an office of 10 total people. Dude. People will hear you, whether they want to or not.

SHUT UP!!!!

Now, if this was his only annoying habit, it would be easier to deal with. Some people deal with things by complaining about them. But it isn't. The other stuff:

- He's an only child, and acts like it around the office by assuming that you want to hear every minute detail about whatever he has done or will be doing. In the course of discussing things at the office, I have heard about the following: his girlfriend's repeated urinary tract infections, his dog's incontinence, his mom's overuse of medical marijuana, and several other strains of conversation which are not worth going into.

- Along those same lines, he always assumes that we're going to eat lunch together. Bro, its not elementary school. Sometimes, I just want to eat in silence and stare at the wall. And not have to hear about any of the above-mentioned items.

- He constantly...CONSTANTLY...fiddles with his crotch. Dude.

- His bad breath is overwhelming. Like, by the end of the day, the hallway outside of his office smells like his halitosis.

- In general, he has this overblown sense of entitlement which I just don't get. He is rude to people, short-tempered, and treats subordinates like shit, which they hold against him. All of this seems to stem from the fact that he's an attorney.

Oh, and he overquotes movies incorrectly. All the time.

^^^^^^douche times 17.63

the coworker, not you!

Right on.

Whining loudly does give an aire of incompetence too, mostly since 85% of the office (at least mine) doesn't.

Out of all of the loudmouth whiners I've known, I haven't met a single one that was actually good at their job. I fell into the category for a little while after my promotion because of the stress but you realize pretty quick nobody wants to hear your bitching and moaning out loud.

as far as entitlement, grrrr......know too many people like that

his girlfriend's repeated urinary tract infections

never eat while reading ILX :(

Why, yes, when you send me your logo for inclusion in a document, please embed it ineptly at low-resolution in a Word document. That would be lovely!

Professionalism is dead in my office. Five years ago, when I started, people paid some attention to the dress code, didn't talk like they were at a frat party in the lunchroom, and showed basic manners. Now people walk around with shirts hanging out, or wearing disallowed shirts with logos on them or no collar, and have wildly inappropriate conversations...and don't even show basic respect.

One thing that set me off the other day, and it was really a minor detail, but it still came across as quite rude...the general accepted unwritten law is that if multiple people enter the elevator, the person closest to the buttons asks "What floor?" to incoming people and presses the button for them, to prevent 17 people leaning over each other to do it.

So I ask her for my floor, and notice the lady (20 years my senior at least) seems to not have heard me, then shrugs at me. No problem, I repeat my floor...only she does it again, and this time points at her ear. I notice she's wearing an IPod. Rather than take out the headphones, and ask me politely what floor I asked for, she left it in there, and didn't press my floor.

Why the hell would you need to be listening to music on the 2-minute commute from the elevator to your desk? And be that rude that you can't be bothered to take it off to do something as menial as press the floor button for me?

i tend to shut up more at work, which is... a sign of maturity, I guess :\ the asshole punk in me doesn't appreciate my silence much, but my pocketbook does

The advice I got when I started this job was "keep your mouth shut for 4 months, just sit and observe, don't tell people too much about yourself". Best advice I ever got.

When it comes to opinions in the workplace, if it is work related, I'm relatively loose and open about what I think, but you even venture near topics like religion or politics and the mouth goes closed because no good ever comes of that in an office environment :/

"keep your mouth shut for 4 months, just sit and observe, don't tell people too much about yourself"
qft for any office gig

wearing disallowed shirts with logos on them or no collar

HORREUR

dress code in non-public facing offices can shove it.

Darn tootin'.

I'm going to politely disagree on this one. I'm hardly a snazzy dresser and often could be mistaken for a bum outside of work. But if you accept a job which makes it clear upon hire that there is a dress code, which is business casual (which means you can wear khakis and even blue jeans on occasion), you are expected to follow it.

These are hardly uniforms in that they give you a lot of freedom in what you can wear within the confines of the code. But you shouldn't be wearing a tee shirt when everybody else is wearing a dress shirt. When clients visit, it reflects badly on us.

At one of my previous workplaces they had to send out an edict imploring people to *wear shoes*, because, well a couple of guys just didnt.

LOL internet nerds etc.

I will flat out admit I was a guilty party today, but not on purpose.

Got to work and remembered the pair of jeans I put on had a noticably large hole in the right asscheek. Fortunately my shirt covered 95% of it - I just made sure to be careful when I picked my times to leave my desk.

> At one of my previous workplaces they had to send out an edict imploring people to *wear shoes*, because, well a couple of guys just didnt.

the boss who *interviewed* me for previous job wasn't wearing shoes (or socks) when he did it.

Shoeless I can tolerate. Sockless is a step too far. A guy who sat next to me used to do it, ugh. But that's not a work thing, I wouldn't appreciate it in e.g. the pub either.

But you shouldn't be wearing a tee shirt when everybody else is wearing a dress shirt. When clients visit, it reflects badly on us.

Perhaps, but why is everyone wearing a dress shirt? If I were to meet clients directly (which I never do) then I could appreciate the value of dressing up, but if not who gives a shit? I suppose I'm just fortunate that I've never had to work anywhere with a dress code so the whole idea is a bit weird to me.

Also 'business casual' = worst of both worlds.

Particularly because you have to buy special clothes that you wouldn't wear at any time other than "casual Friday".

Eh doesn't business cash just mean "somewhere between a suit and a pair of jeans"? It's pretty wide-open for interpretation, khakis and polo shirts notwithstanding.

Shoeless I can tolerate. Sockless is a step too far.

Oh the guy I referred to went barefoot, all the time. Except in extremely cold winter/rain weather when he'd wear this shaggy old pair of ugg boots.

He's actually a really cool - and very very smart - guy, just a major hippy.

OTT religious lady next to me, saying the rosary under your breath at your desk with the full-on bead-clicking is possibly worse than fingernail clipping.

Never thought I would say this, but I think I'm ready for some stupid, annoying co-workers.

Dear ex-boss: if you are going to visit me at my new location and have me set up meetings for you, try not to forget why you asked for them and then blatantly obviously wing it due to lack of preparation, making me look a fule.

dude I really didn't need to hear about the consistency of your vomit

I had one of the worst days I've had in a while yesterday, so I came into the office looking to avoid any conflict. It came looking for me anyway.

I got asked to do some quick testing on Friday - due to another project I was working on that took the full day, I simply forgot about it. Monday comes, I still forget about it. The person who initially asked me to do it, who works in a time zone one hour earlier, sends me an email reminding me, 20 minutes after I left for the day.

She then sends another email before I get in the office. Due to my non-response to two emails I haven't even seen yet, she CCs a few of our managers, concerned that I might not be in the office and asking for someone else to help do the testing.

Ok...yes, it was my fault I forgot, I didn't deny that, I owned up to it. But I'm tired of having to remind this lady that I work in a different time zone than her, so what is 5:15 to her is 6:15 to me. To go and escalate the issue due to my non-response to two emails that were sent while I was out of the office in a compressed timeframe was unnecessary and made me look bad. Within minutes of even seeing the title of the email reminder, I went and did the testing, which took all of five minutes.

And if it was so important to you, why did you wait until that late in the day to remind me? Again, not saying I shouldn't have remembered, but I was only notified of the work via an email early in the morning on Friday while I was entrenched in something major - forgetting does happen on occasion.

Sorry to be a dick, but pretty much your fault dude. If it was asked for on Friday and, if I'm reading you right, you still hadn't done it by the end of the day Monday, I think she had a right to try and seek out someone else to help her.

My fault that I forgot? Yes. Not denying that. But that is not why she escalated and tried to get help elsewhere. She escalated and asked for additional help because of my non-response to two emails I hadn't even seen yet, which implied to the managers who weren't abreast of the situation that I had ignored three emails requesting this.

I should also note that we have made many complaints to this department for the short turnaround time they request for the testing, due to scenarios like the above...and that the only reason I had to do this retesting in the first place is cuz the chick screwed it up the first time.

i should also note that the importance of what she needed done versus the importance of what I was doing was weighted far more in my direction. but, then again, I may have blown my anger at the situation out of proportion due to the bad day I had yesterday.

Well yeah, obviously there's a lot of other influences that I don't know about, really not trying to bag on you. Maybe I'm not following your timeline correctly, perhaps you can clear it up. You say she asked you on Friday, you forgot. Then you said you also forgot on Monday, is that right? So did she send the two unread (by you) e-mails on Friday or Monday? If Friday, then yeah, I see your side a little more. If Monday though, sorry, I think she's totally in the right to handle it like she did. Think of it from her end - she asked you on Friday and as far as she was concerned you still hadn't done it by the end of day Monday. I think that long with no response is a valid frame for he to be a little concerned.

Yeah sorry if I was that lady I might've CCed someone else at that point too. Simply so I could get someone else to help out!

there is something bizarre about her approach here. wouldn't the best thing to do be to contact you in the middle of the day on monday when it's reasonably certain that you're there?

jon: no worries, I respect your opinion.

call all destroyer: that's what I'm getting at. She obviously had the intent to remind me, but she waited until after most people in the office leave for the day.

yeah--hard to say if it's retardedness or passive aggression.

I guess it's also frustrating as my review is coming up. I'm a top performer and always have been, am looked as a leader in the group, but I had a rough patch where I unfortunately let my personal life spill into work. That combined with an unusual series of illnesses led my performance to not be up to my usual standard. Not everybody even noticed, but some people did, and my manager got concerned.

In the last 8 months, I've completely reversed that negative trend and more than compensated for the brief bad blip on my radar, so something like this, even though it probably will not even be remembered in two days time, I took as something that could reinforce some of the negative beliefs to my peers that I unfortunately bestowed upon myself last year.

Just judging by your descriptions, I would die a slow painful death if I were employed where you work..

turns out it was a big misunderstanding due to a technology flaw - she thought I was out of the office because she didn't see me online due to a name change I'd processed which required her to readd me. so I did overreact.

Added to the list of things I've learned about my annoying co-worker:
- his fraternity brother's cat has a tumor the size of a golf ball on its face.
- he like Costco.
- he will be hanging out with his girlfriend this weekend.
- he cannot wait until he has money, so that he can have a place to barbecue.

STFU.

anybody have those coworkers who see you eating lunch, or are on the phone, and start yammering away asking for your help? and don't mind how much of your time they take up, they dont want you to leave until they get what it is they're doing?

currently two ladies beside me are ringing around to see if anybody has a 'child of prague' idol that they can decapitate to ensure good wedding on a wedding date at the end of next month.

wtf? that's appropriate work convo?

well, the wedding is only a month away, obviously this is a looming emergency.

this is way the fuck upthread at this point - but "wildly inappropriate conversations" in the office are my reason d'etre.
especially mid-meeting.
it is the funnest thing ever and i will never stop. ever.

thank you, co-worker, for taking a dump, blocking the toilet, making no attempt to fix the situation OR let anyone else know to come fix it for you (how fucking hard is it to use a plunger???).

currently two ladies beside me are ringing around to see if anybody has a 'child of prague' idol that they can decapitate

Is this some kind of catholic thing? o_0

it's 'some kind' of catholic thing (at least i'm pretty sure a child of prague is an idol of the infant christ) mixed with some kind of hedge witch thing. a mix that's fairly common out where i'm at.

Someone at my last job used to complain about women leaving "menstrual blood" in the toilets. Turned out it was the red Toilet Duck the cleaners used.