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

I hate companies that fetishize how long you work. I love my current job cos I log out when I'm done. one of my previous jobs, they required us to work 45 hours a week (we were salaried), regardless of our work load...stating that 'it has been proven that people who work longer complete more work'. I argued about how stupid this was since I was one of the more productive members of the team (actually got an award for completing the most work one year), and felt that it was silly to ask me to spend an extra hour each day if my work was done early, which it often was. In the end, most folks just continued doing the same amount of work, but just worked more slowly. Or lied on their timecards.

silver lining was the guy in charge of that dept later got laid off, due to the division being dissolved largely because of his poor decision-making.

In a previous job I had people were all about being seen to stay late, regardless of how much actual work they had on. Life's too short.

yeah seriously. one of my favorite managers years back was a hardass but also very supportive and she used to get on me for working too late. she said "I used to work 80 hour weeks for a bank and got divorced because of it - don't do that to yourself!"

I used to work for a tech company in the early 00s and yes, being seen staying late was a key component of success. Also not taking any of your vacation time. I left when my work was done and took vacations so I got let go in the second round of layoffs (the person on my team who took the most vacation time was let go in the first round. She also happened to be the most senior and experienced and the only black woman so make of that what you will).

My job now is pretty great. Flexible hours, I can work from home, the focus is totally all about getting your work done and not putting in hours for the sake of putting in hours. The pay is fine, not great, but I'm eligible for bonuses that are actually tied into how many cases I handle compared to how many hours I bill (the higher the first number and the lower the second, the better my bonus) so doing more in less time is built into the system.

I still have some ideological discomfort with the work I do, and I still haven't quite let go of the image of myself as this badass crusader for justice, but this work/life balance thing is pretty fantastic.

Oh my point was that I was contacted by a recruiter about a more traditional associate position and my eyes turned into dollar signs and I was like sure, submit my resume. When she told me they were looking for someone with more traditional employee benefits experience (drafting pension plans as opposed to claims litigation), I was like OH THANK GOD. As Jeff put it, the money would be nice but the hours would be such that we'd have to hire a nanny, a housekeeper, and a chef to keep any semblance of sanity in our home. And I'd never get to see my daughter, which would more or less ruin my life. So in conclusion I will be paying off my student loans until I'm in my 80s.

does anyone work for a company with "unlimited" vacation time? it's common among startups who like to offer OMG AMAZING benefits, but it seems like it would be terrible in practice. fab offers it, but i can just imagine how well it would go over to tell your supervisor that you have a week vacation planned right after jason goldberg sends you out his fifth "WHY ARE YOU HERE?!" email of the week to every employee.

ya its a total scam

listening to a ten-minute conversation going "I wonder if our organisation has web branding guidelines? I don't think it does. What would be in them anyway?", making 3 attempts to say "it does, they're on the intranet, but they don't contain the thing you're looking for" (I looked at them yesterday), but not being able to get more than a couple of words out without being talked over with another stream of "ooh I don't know. I wonder? ooooh"

too tired for this. gave up.

prolix boss is prolix

I am in work politics hell. if I was interested in and/or better at this stuff I might be paid at the level of the stuff I'm doing, as opposed to constantly training, explaining and subsequently online complaining about the wittering mediocrities of professional professionals hopping ahead of me.

braying ass man is prob running a fuckin dept by now, idk idk

i'm pretty sure that the boss cadre recognises its own and naturally sucks them into the fold

oh I'm just fine with that, it keeps them away from the raw data and the front line. just fuckin pay me and ensure that my guaranteed blithe dismissal of their wishes is enshrined in the working conditions

i think they have this misguided yen to be liked

I will sign a contract to like them a good deal more when my conditions are met

shhh, you mustn't mention money, they think we're here for the sheer love of it

at civil service wages I'd surmise the same fucking thing bytimes

well the good news is that as a civil servant I can tell them to go fuck themselves without any retribution more serious than them moving me to a different team.

so I did.

DA-RRAGH
DA-RRAGH
DA-RRAGH

(joins in chant)

my post upthread was confusingly poorly written btw but the short version is that I work with people with one variety of poor social skills and I have the other variety of poor social skills and both groups prob despise each other.

or everyone just despises everyone. that works too.

soz my comment was about my work not yours, don't think i was clear

slightly awed by darragh, also tell me if you have any vacancies come up

he's not 'stupid' and I like the guy, but annoyed when exchanges like these happen:

Leader: Hey Neanderthal, is your team implementing <thing>?
Me: Hmm, not sure as I didn't lead that discussion but I will ask the folks that did.

*asks*

Tech person: No, you all opted not to implement <thing> back in Dec but I'm not sure why, let's ask Person in Charge.
Person in Charge: Wait, what? We're not implementing <thing>? I didn't know that! Neanderthal, can you talk to <people> about whether we can get this done?

sooo....now I'm in charge of this simply cos I asked you a question and you don't keep good notes?

NV I assumed you were but it was true in my case too!

my boss is an OK guy but does talk over people and often cuts me off abruptly with the assumption that I've missing a totally obvious point (sometimes it's true, but sometimes I have thought about things for more than 3 seconds and would like to explain further)

my other coworker is OK in small doses but taaaalks and never listens. also stands right beside/behind my chair, even leans on the back (I hate that!), to tell me something and does not take the hint from the fact that I am continuing to write an email that maybe I would rather not be talked at right now. yes, I said she, in case anyone is chalking this one up for any clusterfucks

when the two of them talk to each other, especially when they throw in the pretence of wanting my input while not actually letting me give it, I go mad

still I have a new boss starting next week (though not becoming my boss for another month or so when she's settled in) so someone new to complain about soon eh

they've found their way to offering me a more relevant role in re my college course and for developing my CV, the fuckwits. only reacting to an explosive reaction, such lazy management.

gonna call the CEO a cunt on Monday, that should be worth at least a company car?

this co-worker of mine scraping her bowl of muesli defiantly, o u made a joek, here let me reward you with stony silence

dude who evidently drinks like six cups of coffee a day and somehow compelled to vocalize every thought that occurs to him, all of which are either horribly boring or so disjointed that they go on long after everyone totally gets it already

i feel bad because i don't think he's (exactly) an attention-mongering dramatist -- he's just a dork. but damn

because my line manager doesn't really believe i'm ill - because i took a lot of sick leave being all depressed and stuff - and because i've got lots that needs doing this week i'm sat in work with vertigo trying to have sensible communications with people while the room carousels round my head

:(

ach, grim reality of work innit?

That's awful.

the trick is nobody verbalizes what they're thinking

Our offices will close at 1:00 pm Thursday for the July 4th holiday weekend. Should your work load allow, please feel free to get an early start to your weekend.

i didn't really mind the fact that i'll be working full days both thursday and friday until this came out

Feeling you there.

Should your work load allow,

More like "should the load that's management allows..."

I'm still kind of really upset abt the idea of salaried workers being expected to work OT like mad and never take vacation and being penalized for taking vacation

Vacation time is the thing I am most excited about earning in life like having just started FT work!!! And getting to travel and go on trips!!

I genuinely like my co-workers. I've never had this experience before. It's . . . odd.

I consider it pretty unprofessional to have paid vacation time that you do not take.

I have been working as a consultant at another company for the past few months and even though they offered me a job with a much better package than I'm on (and bearing in mind I'm looking for a new job) but I couldn't in all conscience take it because it would mean sharing an office with... let's call her Heather. Because that's her name.

Heather comes in late every day, saying she hasn't woken up yet, despite the fact she gets up earlier than any of the rest of us and just spends 2-3 hours faffing around in the house.
Because she comes in late she has to leave late. Because she is leaving late, she has a late lunch at home which is dry Ryvita. She has dry Ryvita because she has a fat-free yoghurt at about 12 and she has to watch the calories. She has a yoghurt at about 12 because she couldn't possibly wait until when she goes home for lunch to have something to eat.
She clears her throat (ah-hem) every 90 seconds or so and talks through what she's doing as she types. She laughs at the end of every sentence but she never actually finishes sentences, just lets them tail of into the ether and usually with a preposition (normally 'so...').
Social phone calls usually start about half an hour after she gets into work (her mother at least twice a day) and she just blatantly makes gossip up. (e.g. a guy was leaving to start his own bike parts business, we all sort of knew about it but no big deal. Heather started telling everybody he'd been headhunted for another company, then when speaking to him told him we'd all been saying that, then told her friend he'd become a millionaire through his website.)

But all of these are just things which should have been stopped by a boss, unlike:

Every banana contains 8 tablespoons of refined sugar. (She confirmed she really does mean refined sugar yesterday.)
Lufthansa decide whether they land at Terminal 1 or 2 of Heathrow in the air on their way.
Bees put the sap on trees whose pollen doesn't make nice tasting honey.
Her car insurance has reduced this year because she cleans her house regularly.
And today's epic, which made me realize I had to type this - she thinks Yahoo and Google are ENTIRELY DIFFERENT INTERNETS.

Those examples are just from yesterday and today btw

And she's only been in for an hour today

dot com yahoo is the secret German internet apparently.

I'm almost tempted to liveblog everything she says but I'd never stop typing.

How has this person been allowed to steal oxygen for this long without someone more intelligent intervening to make the blethering stop?

She's just seen Paul with a tan (he's been on holiday). She didn't think it was possible for him to get a tan, because his skin's not made for the sun. Because he's from Manchester, so genetics or something so...

She doesn't understand why Lufthansa aren't fixing their internet because she needs to book a flight. She is now typing random words into the search bar to see whether their internets are up, even though she doesn't need them.

you'd srsly turn down a job because of amazing free entertainment

A bird has crapped on her car (which she cleaned before it went in for a valeting so the garage didn't think she was dirty) and "there was blackcurrant in it. That's just stupid. Who puts Ribena in a bird's drinking bowl?"

She is using someone else's computer because of the internet problems. It's a different keyboard (actually it isn't, it's just not hers) so she is mistyping because all the keys are in different places. And it's got a slow mouse, which stops her from clicking through.

She's trying to book flights. "There's a 1:30 that gets in at 1520. 12 hours is an awful long time to go to Holland, I suppose the flight must be via somewhere so..."

im scared to ask how she knew the birdcrap has blackcurrant in it...

either you're making this up or she's faking it, aldo, because nobody could be this stupid and have figured out how to breathe