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

omg someone fucking shoot me

i am not getting paid nearly enough to deal with my boss' bullshit!!!! i now have to fire someone like one day after they've started.

I'm getting tired of newspeak in my place. Things get used and become more and more popular, right now it is "moving forward" bleugh and "starter for ten" eugh.
Can we not just speak plainly, and jettison the catchphrases! Please folks?

wtf is "starter for ten"?

sounds like a 90's indie band.

sounds like restaurant talk

some shithead in here came up to me and asked if i could mail out a package for her, i told her it needed to go to the post office because it costs too much. she was all "really"? I put it on the scale and it blew the needle off the charts. "DO YOU SEE NOW SHIT HEAD!"

DO U SEE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starter_for_Ten

well that's not very helpful

The phrase Starter for Ten is used when introducing a new strategy, a plan, the beginning of a project. For example "so, as a starter for ten, here are the new audit plans" It doesn't even make sense. It is annoying as fuck.

If it ever catches on here, I'm coming over and shooting everyone who had anything to do with starting it. It's bad enough that I work with a bunch of actual and wanna-be MBAs.

That is exceptionally annoying.

Sounds like the US equivalent would be some variation on "survey SAYS..." But I can't imagine anyone saying that in a semi-serious office setting.

It snowballs in our place, one douche uses it and then slowly it creeps round and becomes a common term. It sits next to "blue sky thinking" and more recently "thinking outside of the box"

Fuck the box, I'll get out of the box, crush the box, then put the box inside me, yeah, how'd you like that now you corporate fucks!

Errrr, rant over.

i like the box.
want to forever be inside it.

The box pays my bills, I have little choice.

Sounds like you all have a bad case of box. Maybe some oatmeal baths will help.

This package sat for a week b/c the shipping dept couldn't deduce the business name from the email.

--
From: Purchase Clerk
Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2011 10:38 AM
To: Shipping Dept.
Cc: Me
Subject: RETURN TO NEW EGG

xxxxx the two boxes you have back there that we talked about need to be sent back on our ups or fedx which ever is cheaper.

I just contacted NEWEGG.

Thanks for the help.
--

The first email of the day Mr. X's admin assistant saying she'll be out. The email is sent to all staff. The day's second all staff email is from our chief, titled "Additional people not in today" (bold mine) and listing a couple of people who had also called out. An hour later, Mr. X replies to the chief's email, stating "My admin will not be in today."

The first email of the day is Mr. X's

Silly rabbit -- executives don't have to read anyone else's emails.

Back when the personal computer was new, there were executives who resisted using them. Why? Because they were worried that they'd lose status if they had a keyboard on their desk.

It was analogous to a CEO having a Dictaphone on his desk. But I have people for that!

I have worked with execs who had their secretaries print out their emails and read them aloud, rather than learn to check their own email as it came in. Not surprised by that stuff anymore, unfortunately.

For the love of all that is good, please stop scraping your plastic bowl with a plastic spoon for an hour and a half every morning. I hate you.

i read somewhere (I thought Gawker but now I can't find it) yesterday about an entertainment executive who had his assistant do google searches and videotape the results so that he could look at them later

okay that is horrible

No printed screen shots?

Actually, I suspect that the real point is to assert your power by making your assistants do extra work. Kind of like the wife of the client I had five years ago who insisted on me putting groceries into the cart in a certain weird way, among other things--it's a constant reminder of your servitude.

Silly rabbit -- executives don't have to read anyone else's emails.

― Back up the lesbian canoe (Laurel), Tuesday, April 26, 2011 10:32 AM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Not an executive.

Christine is kind of OTM but not exactly; sometimes it isn't about reinforcing the servitude role as much as it is an outward expression of anxiety re: giving up some degree of control over a task.

(not always, or maybe even frequently, but often enough that it's worth mentioning)

please stop walking around and talking on your bluetooth headset.

ha we have a guy who does that but he's just the grad student worker and he's talking about the little league coaching he's going to do that afternoon or what sneakers he wants to buy. he has a very loud voice and we have essentially an open campus with nothing to impede the sound, but he seemingly has no shame walking around bellowing about his personal business into his bluetooth headset while ostensibly working.

i can't get too mad though because they're probably paying him peanuts

im about two seconds from ramming that headset into her ear.

One of mine drinks roughly 4l of water/various fluids a day. Which wouldn't be a problem if he wasn't so loud, slurping and gulping to the point I can hear him even when he sits across the room. Suggestions?

a hose. pointed directly in his face.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXc5ltzKq3Y

the guys who bring in candy, but it's all hersheys bars (straight chocolate), tootsie rolls, hard flavored candy, smarties, and old jolly ranchers, it's just like DUDE, get some kit kats or something!!!

BASTARDS!

my coworkers only bring in MORE WORK.

AND THEIR EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE

VERYY LITTLE CHOCOLATE

my coworkers bring in so much food it's embarrassing. I mean, it was nice when we'd have a potluck once in a while but bringing in breakfast every single morning gets a bit crazy-making

this could be a new ILX thread - "people who bring hard candy to work are the most irredeemable scoundrels"

Ugh I ate some Hersheys milk chocolate yesterday because it was the only thing in the office kitchen cupboard (a huge cupboard filled with mainly terrible snacks). Now I get why my fellow britishers say it takes like sick because IT REALLY DOES.

That guy who videoed his asst's search queries was Jeffery Katzenberg who is head of Dreamworks and generally considered to maybe perhaps be a bit of an ass.

Shit like this is all too common; a few years ago our letting agents took ages to respond to our email telling them that we wanted to give notice to leave our rented flat, so we went into the office and the asst was like "Oh, I printed out your email but they probably haven't gotten to it in the pile yet".

oh i thought it was katzenberg! but i also thought i saw it on gawker, which is apparently why i couldn't find it.

Ugh I ate some Hersheys milk chocolate yesterday because it was the only thing in the office kitchen cupboard (a huge cupboard filled with mainly terrible snacks). Now I get why my fellow britishers say it takes like sick because IT REALLY DOES.

Somewhere there is a brilliant ILX thread on which I learnt that Hersheys tastes of sick because iirc it is made with off milk!

(You can't get fresh milk to mix with cocoa powder properly; Nestlé found the way round this by using condensed milk, and Hershey, not wanting to be left out on the new chocolate craze, improvised)

FYI I bought some cakes and biscuits to take into work tomorrow, and if anyone calls me stupid and annoying because none of the 6 varieties I've brought in suit them, they're getting a punch bleak look. Especially if they are the guy in my office who eats whatever's going round but never brings any in, never puts money in leaving cards, etc. He is "saving for a holiday" but fuck that, he's just bought a brand new smartphone for the third time in 18 months.

hersheys is the bomb.

if you bring in donuts, the ratio of glazed to filled should be like 12:1

trust me on this

thats what she said