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

how involved in your daily operations is the TL? is it someone who sees the process up close, or someone who makes decisions from a distance?

I find the latter are almost always the type who issue edicts, then forget they issued them.

should be banhammered!

He's directly involved! He's currently auditing our workflows and everything. He knows the rules, reminds us of em, then asks for explanations on shit thats right in front of him?? Weird. Hes a nice guy, not strict, but not as competent as he could be.

yo.

look man.

if you're not gonna do your job, i feel you. working sucks. sometimes you don't wanna work.

but you know sometimes not working is gonna put you under the gun, right? you get that your incomplete data is gonna cause problems?

and you know that when you're causing problems, that the man-up move is to say "yo, i'm sorry, i'm behind, let me fix this," right?

so you understand that it's inappropriate to try to go all watergate and cover up your slippage by asking *me* to stop my report so nobody notices your missing data? and you get that it's problematic to lie to me and act like the missing data in my report is a consequence of bad report structure on *my* part?

and you get that it's beyond the FUCKING pale to straight up *lie* to your boss and say that we're slipping on this deadline because *my* reporting is fucked up? and you get that it's bullshit to try to duct-tape-and-string a solution together and then tell your boss you *have to* because ~i~ fucked up?

motherfucker i have been on the phone with you for hours a day holding your hand while you sight-type into your fisher price front end, and then you're gonna try to throw me under the bus?

this shit nearly got me fired, because they thought *i* had fucked up. change your game or move on, dogg. and don't call me again.

did you reverse the attempted judo throw and get the blame placed where it oughta?

fuck dude.

yeah i think i'd try to get the truth out on that guy.

i only even found out about this bullshit in a meeting where i got called on the carpet and had to correct the misapprehension, at which point it got real clear that i was not the fuckup

holy fuck. glad you at least got a chance to give your side. did the other guy get terminated?

so, the first two days my project was live went great, overall. very happy about it. but one gripe, and it's unfortunately a big one.

There is a process that needed to be completed prior to the live date. It's not one that I'm responsible for, own, or even have jurisdiction over, but it's one that directly impacts my workgroup, and is often missed or late on projects, which causes lots of negative things.

6 weeks prior to live, I notice that the ticket for the request isn't moving, so I approach the person who is responsible, who is newish, and I basically ask him, typically your role is responsible, are you ok doing this? Let us know if you need help along the way, yadda yadda. He replies almost immediately to say "Yes, we'll definitely do this". Within a week or two, he starts adding his sub-team to the ticket, and the team that started the ticket starts funneling the assignments out.

A few weeks pass, and I see next to nothing happen, and finally, as I'm about to say "what's the deal here?", the subteam member reaches out to ask how to do the task. the ticket creator and I gave answers, and I again said "if you need assistance while you're working on any, reach out to me or <name>".

The process starts moving, so I'm happy, but after they complete like the first 3 of many tasks, it just stops dead. I'm doing all day training , but I basically reach out and say "Where are we at here? I want to make sure this is set for live date - otherwise, the team that processes forms won't be in place, and they'll have to be done manually".

She asks "which ones are still outstanding?", a stupid question since she can see in the ticket which ones she's attached and which ones she hasn't in the attachments page. Nonetheless, I told her which ones still needed to be finished. AGAIN, I say "if you need help while completing this, reach out to me or <name>".

Another week passes, they get a few more done, but now we're a week out and they're only a little over halfway done. I ask again where they're at, and get told they're working on them. Still no request for help to me or <name>.

Three days to live date, STILL not done. At this point, I went back to the initial person I approached six weeks earlier, whom I had told about the importance of this. I also approached his mentor. I said basically, "I'm very concerned about this not being done by go-live. If it is not done, we will not have a team in place to process forms, and you'll have to do them all manually. This is not a desired result. Can you let me know if any help is needed.". Dude's mentor replies and assures me they're working 'feverishly' on them and that they'll be done by live date (generally, you're supposed to finish a week or two before, but w/e).

FINALLY, one of them reaches out for help for the first time. At this point, knowing we need to get this done, I ghostwrite the assignments for the person and just tell them to stamp their name to it (and it only took 30 freaking minutes). So now, only three assignments were left. We get to the day before live, at 10 pm...nothing. The person reaches out to me then and says "oh we finished the last few, but we wanted <name> to review them and she's traveling. Should we wait?". Ugh. Ok, fine. So we don't get around to adding those two until the following morning, and the final one the day after live.

And guess what? THE EXACT THING I WARNED ABOUT IS HAPPENING. Forms are coming in, no team in place to process. So I had to ask the dude, who I told of the importance of this exact task six weeks ago, that his team now needs to manually do these until the team is set up.

This isn't even something I was supposed to own. I got involved simply because I saw nothing was moving and wanted to make sure it was set up, as it screws my team over if its not. I kept saying "ask us for help", and got radio silence. Nobody took it seriously, and now here we are. I don't care how new you are, if somebody tells you "THIS IS UBER-IMPORTANT, PLEASE MAKE SURE IT GETS DONE", you own it, and if you have trouble along the way, or see a challenge to meeting the deadline, YOU FUCKING SAY SO. esp when about 1,800 reminders go out to you along the way.

*vent over*.

overuse of jargon/focus on processes is ruining the flow of this thread imo, let's keep it snappy ppl

ok. a co-worker farted and I'm pissed about it.

neanderthal i've been watching u lately and you really seem to have gotten on board with the messages we're sending out there, good work

It's because you keep saying 'reach out' imo

http://units.sla.org/chapter/cwcn/wwest/v7n4/FourTops.jpg

No joke, that song has been in my head the whole time that thread's been at the top of SNA. Along w 'what I am'.
It's been a difficult time.

Glad I'm not the only one on ILX who's been thinking about The Four Tops.

the other guy hasn't been fired yet. He's a contractor & the ongoing implication is "his contract will not be renewed," but we'll see.

re: reach out thread, I've been thinking about Depeche Mode - "Reach out and touch base." I think somebody mentioned that in the thread already.

dammit carl now thats all im gonna hear.

loool carl

lmao

there are all of these martyrs in my office who will constantly work while sick and then talk about how they're sick the entire day and how they are so busy and can't take a day off, then everyone else gets sick and feels implicit pressure to work through it because these other people do. fuck all y'all if i catch whatever you have.

Sysadmin organised a whiskey tasting, the invitation for which went to the IT managers list and not to the IT staff list, bcz Important People. And then he invited some low-level admin woman who doesn't even work in IT but is quite pretty, as well as being half his age. (He's not single either.)

Anyway he just crashed in at quarter past 10 and we all thought he'd been at a 9am meeting, but no, he told us proudly it was just the after-effects of his whiskey-tasting night which he's going to spend all day talking loudly about.

Everyone else finds this guy enormously charming btw.

He sounds like a dick.

what a stupid, annoying coworker

pee in his coffee

Two co-workers are arguing about David Miranda's detention. Co-worker #1 is against what happened, but is also massively homophobic. Co-worker #2 isn't homophobic, but thinks the police were justified in detaining Miranda, and is more or less calling him a terrorist.
http://31.media.tumblr.com/68a730798ab92bc8534ee582da6e59f1/tumblr_mnbzr17o9C1qedb29o1_500.gif

amazing gif

Is she beating up a rabbi?

The Blues Brothers.

If you're writing an email requesting a big project from me, and you've copied approximately half the office and the head of the department for reasons ranging from the tangential to the completely irrelevant, maybe don't ask me how my other major project for you is "coming along", as though you've been patiently waiting for it but are now starting to tap your feet, when you only requested it earlier this week with a due date two weeks from now and I GAVE YOU A FUCKING UPDATE HALF AN HOUR AGO OVER THE PHONE.

goddamn it, this fool has been fucking up my friday.

- advertisers who attempt their own layouts in Word
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well, if he copies half the office and you respond all, pointing out not much has changed in the 30 minutes since you spoke and you are currently on time to meet the deadline (i'm assuming you are); should be much of a problem.

*shouldn't

That was my initial impulse, but I cooled myself down and responded politely and privately.

You are a better person than I. I would have totally gone the petty route and done what TT said. I hate that shit so much it just brings out the worse in me.

I probably should have. I might be too polite for my own good.

xpost
i don't think it's that petty. he added all those people for some reason, and you don't need to be snarky or anything in the response. personally, i'd rather everyone in the email chain knew I had things under control if I was concerned he was making it seem like things had fallen behind.

some reason,

She has a longstanding habit of copying people who would be negligibly interested in the topic of discussion. I've been included before on dozens of such emails where I really couldn't determine why I was being copied.

I'm also pissed at her because she's been bugging me all day about a problem she's having with some work my supervisor did for her. He's out on personal leave today, and I did my best to help her but ultimately had to tell her "when [supervisor] gets back, we can meet to talk about it because I don't know how he did what he did". Still getting emails about it.

She also works from home on Fridays and isn't big on picking up the phone on that day either, so the whole onslaught has been a bit of a shock on what I had expected to be a quiet day putting the nose to the grindstone on something completely different.

I hate days like that. "Oh, I don't have any major deadlines and three people are out so I can do XYZ" but nooooooooooo that's always when ten people want me to take care of one thing real quick before I go home for the day.

Fridays just as you're thinking of going, right? They *know*.

my boss just called me. she's literally 5 feet away, but she sits in an enclosed office while i'm out here in the cuberhood just outside.

boss: "I'm writing up a description of the MOUs. Can I say that these MOUs will serve as guidance for how the partnerships will be implemented?"

me: "Hmmm...I would say that the MOUs establish the expectations, roles and responsibilities of both parties in the partnership."

boss: "Hmmm, ok, so I can say that these MOUs will serve as guidance for how the partnerships will be implemented?"

me: "...yes. That sounds good."

every day is like this. every interaction is like this. why am i here

elevator comedian coworker i discussed upthread is a combination of "golly gee aw shucks" fake-friendly goofball and simmering psychopath. the guy who always follows people to their cars asking career advice (as described upthread as well.) i think he's todd from breaking bad.

also, about an hour ago i came back from the restroom and my mouse was missing. i assumed that it was one of my friends playing a prank on me, but the usual suspects had left for the day. about 20 minutes later a sheepish tech dude came by with my mouse, saying that he needed one and thought i was gone for the day.

not a big deal, just kinda weird

I have a coworker who does the same thing - will just keep repeating herself bc I won't give get the answer she wants, so now I just hang up on her

WTF who steals someone else's mouse!?

I always assume that IT has a drawer full of stuff like that.

WTF who steals someone else's mouse!?

I've twice come in to work to find the cable connecting my monitor to my PC missing

Someone swapped my a and v keys round once but im p sure that was actually a prank