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

why is it the squeaky dork who's on the phone all day has a voice that carries all over the office?

Like this is the second person to make comments expressing oblique discomfort with black people. The other one actually came up to me and said, "I can tell you don't like black people either." His / her evidence was my disdain for barbecued ribs. I don't like ribs, okay!! I said, "where I come from barbecued ribs is not "black people food." It's not like a told a watermelon joke.

I went to the supervisor about this kind of shit and there are social pressures against it but I couldn't be the only one because they were both fired.

I love a story with a happy ending.

Not even close to being the same, but I took umbrage at one of my managers who would not shut the fuck up about that "stuff white people like" website a year ago. I go over to her desk and she's all "have you heard of this web page?" I say yes, I've heard about it, but I don't think I've delved into it as much as she had.

And she says, "I think you'd like it. I can say that because [en soto whisper] we're both white."

I once went to an all-black college for a summer camp where everyone called me "Mr. Bentley", but that doesn't even compare to how offended I was at her stereotyping me as a potential fan of really shitty web humor just because of the color of my skin.

Wait..."stuff white people like" is for white people? I'm not sure. I was so turned off by stuff like "only white people go camping or drink Starbucks" that I never visited it again.

Again, I don't live or work in a heavily white area. Maybe it's received differently depending on where you're from.

I'm pretty sure it's meant to be "self-effacing", like that Martin Mull book in the 80s or Jim Belushi rapping on Saturday Night Live.

Also "black people love us" is major hilarity where I work, but I understand that in some places it's "offensive" and "racial".

But there's black people in the photographs, playing along!

Gonna start a blog called white co-workers I hate.

Would leave race out of it, but I've got no beef with the three persons of color who work here.

Yes, it's probably a regional thing. My brother works in a super corporate "type A" ("black belt" accounting) place but they are urban, have AA, etc.. They were passing that page around whether they were black, white, hispanic...but he told me the e-mails went out to some more rural offices where the staff were more "sensitive" of that being used on work time.

looks like a coworker may be updating HOOS' FB statuses right now

just conducted a few...interesting...job interviews

"i love editing! i make sure that everything is grammatic!"

"i helped out with the budget...but nothing with money. i hate working with money."

also, she puts masking tape over all of her light switches at home because she prefers lamps.

"time. I budget time, mainly. and cookies."

xpost wow

what a treat!

when asked about her computer skills, she said that just last week she wanted to order a subscription to the Weekender (local newspaper) and found out she had to order online. she wasn't going anywhere NEAR that, not alone at least, so she called up her top "technical friend". they spent over 2 hours online and could not locate the Weekender. they ended up looking it up in the yellow pages and a nice young man told her it would be at her house the next day. stupid computers, what are they good for?!

actually, this is probably the wrong thread for this. i'm not bitching at all, she was hilarious! if she was actually my co-worker though i guess i'd get annoyed with her really quickly. that's why she's not getting the position.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/002/686/Deal_with_it_dog_gif.gif

O_oh my Christ.....

also, she puts masking tape over all of her light switches at home because she prefers lamps.

How did this come up??

TBH I'm 100% behind her on preferring lamps over overhead lights, but I also prefer not having ugly ass tape stuck to my light switches.

There were many uncomfortable moments so it was definitely an opportunity for me to agree that I, too, prefer lamps.

I have no idea how it came up. It was non sequitur city from the second she walked in.

oh she just gets more and more hilarious and awesome. the Weekender thing sounds like mother-in-law.
how old is this woman?

I don't know...65 or so probably

ah. not to be ageist but say no more, lol

but please, if you have more, say it. I find her fascinating!

when i walked in she was sitting down. she stood up to shake my hand but fell back down when our hands met.

"wooooooooo! ooops!"

^^^all-time great opening line for a short story right there

"i love editing! i make sure that everything is grammatic!"

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/12/09/images/large/C_1_gramatica_174762_1209.jpg

xpost lolol

wish i could remember what else she said. for 30 minutes straight, she just said ridiculous things.

one strange thing was that she was originally scheduled to interview yesterday and requested that it be rescheduled - because she accepted a job elsewhere in our Agency and yesterday was her first day! (?!?!?!?)

omg

maybe she was like well i just accepted this other job, so i might as well go to the interview and be weird because fuck it yolo

ha

yeah, i mean i sorta get the reasoning, maybe she wanted to accept the other one just to make sure she had it, but was more excited about this one or something. it might fly in the private sector or something, but when you all work as part of the same organization it would be kind of weird. like, i can't imagine if we hired someone and then two days later found out that another part of the Agency had hired her away!

btw as i was typing that my boss came up and as i'm talking to her i realize the words "Let's bitch about our stupid, annoying co-workers" are behind my head

uhhh...i'm talking about my cow..workers...it's a WoW thing...uh

that's an awesome reverse of a lol-facepalm incident I witnessed

years ago in my old publishing job, my airheaded coworker and I were riding home on the train together.
She says quietly, 'I had to give my notice today.' She'd been looking for another job, so I asked her if she had found a job.
And she says tearfully, "No! That's what's so confusing! I just went into Jane (our boss), and I said can I have Friday off, because I have a job interview.'

facepalm

hahahaha

it would be difficult to keep the palm from connecting to the face at that moment

it was beautiful. AND I had to explain to her, in great detail, exactly why this was the stupidest thing in the world to announce to your boss.

That's great -- did the light bulb ever go off over her head?

Once I laid out the math for her. Then her eyes got all big and she put her hand over her mouth and was like 'Ohhhhh!'

xpost

sounds like she put the masking tape over the figurative light switch a long, long time ago

Final footnote to airheaded coworker:

She used to crack me up because always nod at you wide-eyed like a puppy when you were giving instructions and you just knew that nothing was sinking in. And she'd say yes she understood and tell you she'd get right on it and it would almost always be a mess. Her working life was pretty tough, so it was no wonder that she was looking elsewhere.

So the piece de resistance to this whole thing was toward the end of that same train ride, after the whole she's lost her job revelation went down, she told me in passing that she has always had trouble with verbal instructions. She said just can't seem to understand things when they're spoken half as well as when they're written down, she wasn't sure if it was a learning disability but it made things really hard.

...

why didn't you TELL ANYONE?

double facepalm.

Oh, well that part I can understand a little more. It's nothing to be ashamed of, but I'm sure some people might be a little embarrassed about it and maybe hesitate to bring it up.

yeah but if it's literally the key to your work life being awful vs bearable, it makes all the difference

people are much more understanding if it helps them AND you and gets shit done

She said just can't seem to understand things when they're spoken half as well as when they're written down...

why didn't you TELL ANYONE?

Or wrote a note to somebody.

eh, aren't you guys forgetting that she couldn't have read your precious written instructions when her lightbulb didn't work?

"Hey Erica,

Is that your large print job at Printer 3? Do you mind printing jobs that size in the copy room? Thanks much, I'm pretty noise sensitive."

Everything about this email is pissing me off. Maybe irrationally so but c'mon we don't work in a library and also SHE IS WEARING HEADPHONES AND LISTENING TO MUSIC IT'S NOT THAT LOUD.

she EMAILED that to you?