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

ah our friends with wealthy parents are always telling us about how traveling makes one a better person. How does anyone know about anyone else's means for travel?

And even if you're sure they have the disposable income they may have other unavoidable demands on their free time, anxiety issues, etc

(or in my case chronic disorganisation)

Like, I could probably afford to go away (though it is goddamned expensive to spend a week in hotels and eating in restaurants or w/e, I took my first holiday abroad in years last autumn and was p. shocked by the dent it left in my bank balance) but I'd need to hatch a plan and ask for time off and think about transport and research hotels and make bookings, all preferably months in advance, and it just never happens

better to take a vacation from I M Losted

I go abroad at least once a year and its a fuckload of work to plan and budget for even without kids and with two incomes between us, and if it was my preference alone a few out of those times I'd havd preferred to sit at home in the house I pay for and dont get to enjoy and maybe at 2pm every day I'd go out for lunch in the town I pay to live in and never get to enjoy and as I say I travel abroad as much as Ryanair allows but srsly wtf at the attitude espoused above.

otm. 4 days is my max for travelling, bored after that.

And if you want to work in a creative field like publishing, but won't leave your city, it's a narrow-minded and provincial thing to do. It smacks of entitlement if you expect a job in academia or publishing, but won't travel.

What is this assholish reasoning? Everyone I know in creative fields has exactly two tenths of fuck all money, for starters.

the bigger question is what r u running from with all this endless travel

hmmmmm?

pretty jealous of anyone who has all the PTO to do all this overseas travelling

guilty as charged there tbh yr eyes would pop I'm on about half if what sic gets in terms of leave.

i have plenty of leave because i don't take it but how do people with jobs have the energy to travel? feels like a cruel joke. i'd choose stay home and get some sleep and be dull.

I heard u were afraid of international outrage

Americans are on half what I get, I just saved it up for years

Going to have endless time off from mid-year though!

Friend of mine obsessively travels but she's a bit of a lone wolf (no partner or fam) working out in the desert as an airforce cook, I think that kind of job leaves one with insane amts of spare money given they pay for your accoms and whatnot.

I could go for a bit of that

certainly there's entire weeks I could go for the no partner bit

I meant especially bcz redundant sometime in May, homeless sometime between April and July, and you could get a lot of reading done

sure but I'd go for a drink with you once a week on these desert sojourns

I was gonna say - redundant!? Boh :(

:(

:/

:\

it's alright guys I'm gonna join the air force and live in the desert iirc

how does traveling 'make one a better person' anyway? i believe chonging on ecigs and listening to danny baker podcasts makes for a better person but im not shouting that from the rooftops

actually scratch that, i really do

Tryn 2 think if u know said airforce cook lady sic, as she is good m8s with me and miss Ol1via.

The bitching here is directed at whoever allows this to happen, mostly, but there's a woman in my office who seems to have some quite bad mental problems, and has just been jettisoned entirely by any boss or team. We move from desk to desk (as does everyone) and she keeps annexing desks in different parts of the office, but she sits and talks to herself in a strained argumentative tone all day - and not like "oh I must email Steven" or whatever, it's like this bizarre rambling. She's sitting behind me now and I just heard "but he was holding a child!" - a lot of it is kind of mumbling. She looks at Google Maps with a map of Daventry, all day.

My boss has emailed to try and see what's happening or why she has no team whatsoever - makes me wonder how many people are working in civil service buildings just drifting along having been cut loose from any responsibility or structure, or contact.

What the hell. She needs to be on some sort of disability leave, surely?

As for your last question, as a former employee of a US state government, more than the taxpayers wish, that's for sure. Although IME most people who are ill in some form or another are out on extended disability leave and the people who still come to work and drift along without responsibility are politically connected patronage hires with no ambitions beyond hanging out in an office, looking at the internet, taking long lunches, and leaving early every day.

YES I am still very bitter, yes.

makes me wonder how many people are working in civil service buildings just drifting along having been cut loose from any responsibility or structure, or contact

At my civil service job in London we had a guy who loudly masturbated every day at lunch time in the men's toilets, two people who talked to themselves, someone who just took a shit right in the middle of the men's room, and someone who openly watched porn.

god, I miss that place

Man that all sounds very familiar...

I disavow all knowledge we're a new reformed institution over here

no ambitions beyond hanging out in an office, looking at the internet, taking long lunches, and leaving early every day.

if you can think of a worthwhile work aspiration beyond these I'm all ears poindexter

i actually love my job - most of what i do is trying to modernise how civil servants write and communicate - so we are this fly in the ointment with a really well backed mandate for changing people's behaviour. we get a barrage of abuse and insults but that's part of the fun - the work is interesting and challenging too, good money also as we are freelance.

on the plus side - it is the civil service so nobody in my team works in the office on mondays or fridays. our work is closely monitored, we have tough enough targets to reach etc, so it's all very open and honest - has made me realise the only bad thing about being hungover on a work day is having to be in work, i can do a good day's work at home regardless of what i did the night before.

hey lg we do the same thing! are you roving gds or with a department? (I'm at an moj agency, moving to gds on monday).

if you can think of a worthwhile work aspiration beyond these I'm all ears poindexter

lol okay good point.

"so we are this fly in the ointment with a really well backed mandate for changing people's behaviour. we get a barrage of abuse and insults but that's part of the fun"

I'm in vaguely aligned field is this an ILX thing, civil service reform

sounds totally convincing imo, 'challenging opinions: the ilx framework for civil service reform'

someone who just took a shit right in the middle of the men's room

Someone at my wife's work took a huge shit by the photocopier, and my wife was told by her supervisor not to talk about it because "it might make the person who did it ashamed".

I don't think it would!

Wheres said photocopier? I'm just imagining someone sqattin' down beside it in a room in full view of everyone :/

Or are we talking "whoops I soiled my pants cos I have a bad grog bog hangover" situ?

Photocopier has a room by itself, I believe. but it was a big pile on the floor, not a spattering of pants-escapees

Long after I left my last job I heard a story about someone who went out drinking with colleagues after work and, instead of making it home, passed out on his office floor and next to a pile of his own feces, apparently also unable to make it to the men's room.

Amazingly, he was not only not fired, but continued to be well regarded afaik and the incident was hushed up to protect his reputation. It must be nice to be a high level executive, is all I can say.

Yeah that shit happens (er no pun intended). Once the COO at my company came back from office drinks pissed as a newt and proceeded to drop trou and change pants in front of a female colleague in the lobby. No one ever did anything about it.

pants-escapees

hey lg we do the same thing! are you roving gds or with a department? (I'm at an moj agency, moving to gds on monday).

ah wow - interesting! i'm in environment food/rural affairs on a project since last june, ending by july (so they say, we'll see) - i may stay on after or else try to get a day rate somewhere else.

quite new to this work but i think i like it more than most of what i've done. gds seems like a v vibrant and fun place to work. are you going there to do content design? i never knew this kind of work existed but i feel like i've thrived since joining. it was meant to be a bit of a stopgap as i do acting and comedy and other writing, but i find myself enjoying it hugely.

I'm pretty much the same - I was freelancer who'd been scrubbing around doing about enough writing, subbing, this-and-that to stay head-above-water – had no idea that this world of work existed (and often pays well), but then was picked up by a good agency a couple of years ago. I really like it – it's suited my odd mix of skills and I feel like I've done some genuinely worthwhile things. I might go 77 so we can be a bit more concrete - I'd be interested to hear more - I know defra have some good people, and we were admiring the environment agency style guide late last year.

maybe drop me a mail actually - ronanf i t z g e r a l d without those spaces at gmail dot com

definitely would be good to talk!

hah, that's a better idea - I've got a busy day, but I'll drop you a line later.

I don't even know if I'm on 77 - is 77 still private? I dunno...