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

It'd be tacky to mention the guy's race, but it's a legitimate question though, right?

http://www.theonion.com/article/totally-unknown-guy-strolling-around-your-part-of--38335

haha - i guess i'm in a less corporate environment than that - the majority of the building services staff are black here - this feels like an inane to unpleasant question based on that (and the fact the guy was clearly measuring desks)

it reminds me of working in bbc in tunbridge wells about 8 years ago - there was this loudmouth but fairly well-meaning producer and another researcher had just started and was a bit confused about who was who - and i think she had got say, a victoria, and a vicky mixed up. and the producer was like all matter of fact "oh well don't worry, victoria is the secretary who works in the second room on the left by the editor's office, and vicky is the producer who is black"

*echo*

we send out welcome/introduction e-mails when a new employee is hired. Head of HR just sent out one for this new German dude we hired incl this juicy little tidbit: "His friends in Germany claim he has an American accent; his wife claims he sounds British – stop by his desk, introduce yourself, and feel free to weigh in on the matter!"

ya thx hr person for the great suggestion of "let's accost the foreignner and make him feel weird abt his silly accent!!", wtg

Don't mention the war

But do mention 'dinner for one'

Someone sent out a mass email this week about ordering supplies and to see him if we needed anything, the Director wrote back 'We are terribly low on gin' but replied-all, even the Executive Directors.. no bitching, just bragging, I kind of love her.

^^^rare example of extremely appropriate use of "Reply All"

boss: here are jan-may sales reports, lets think about cutting the bottom sellers
me: *spends several hours going over reports and making a spreadsheet* here are the ones we should cut
boss: (tl;dl) NO*

boss: what do you think we should do about the windows
me: get rid of all the clutter and dust, stop putting boring old stuff on display
boss: (tl;dl) NO

boss: what do you think we should do to make the store look better?
me: get rid of all the clutter and streamline
boss: (tl;dl) NO

wtf she keeps asking me all the time for my opinion, i have no idea. she shoots down 99% of my (tbh perfectly great) ideas, with long rambly nonsensical explanations.

*i show her we've only sold 16 of this particular garment in 6 months (a good amount would be around a min. of 80) and her response is "well i sold two pairs the other day so we should keep them" !?!?!?!?

"well i sold two pairs the other day so we should keep them" this really tells the story. ugh.

It reminds me of a restaurant where I worked in NC that took a popular shrimp dish off the menu because it was popular. Managers thought customers should try something different.

Was that our restaurant?

Yes. That fucking place.

lol

'you guys always order the same thing, as the people selling it to you we are not totally comfortable with that'

at least uncle julio's perimeter wouldn't pull any of that shit

i respect the shrimp decision

i work on a db of org data. one of our attribs is a normalized legal name of the org. we call it a "canonical name". someone pinged me saying their search was throwing an error.

the search string:

cononical_name:capital records*

i think i understood that

conanical_name:Conaco*

i think they owe you some kind of free sandwich for that waste of your time

they were chipper enough when i sent them an email with two iterations of the phrase "i think it's spelled..."

was it shrimp & grits?

Yup.

smdh

so this week, the project lead goes on vacation, which was fine. But on Thursday I stumble across this transition plan which has several assignments for me and other people to do that she'd never shared or discussed with us.

Fortunately, the tasks were very small so we got them done quickly, but I gave the lead the head's up to explain why they were done late. She apologized, but said she thought I knew about it since she'd sent an email saying I was her backup.

The email was sent to a whopping two people telling them to come to me with any urgent questions. No mention of the plan/tasks at all.

was it shrimp & grits?

No! They kept the shrimp 'n grits! It was coconut curry shrimp.

a whopping two people telling them to come to me with any urgent questions.

this is a thing. people have it in their minds that one item is part of a package of connected stuff, because that's how it appears to them, so if they communicate that one bit all the rest of it comes attached in your mind, too. of course, it never occurs to them that you were never let in on the whole package at any time. my wife does this constantly.

I have this problem at work too. Recently, a couple of weeks before a big corporate event, people were told 'if you need anything related to <EVENT>, speak to <name of department snoball works for> well ahead of time'. Practically every request came in the day before.

yea. but to be clear I was aware that people were being directed to me as backup for THAT purpose and was ready to serve in that capacity (it just turned out nobody needed anything). but there were other tasks like updating reports and such, and usually what we do is have a 15 minute discussion to talk through it with the backup to make sure they are on board/know what to do. in this case she was so focused on going to Hawaii that she forgot is what I'm guessing, which I would have preferred as her response as opposed to "I thought you knew".

but w/e, it turned out to be minor this time at least.

Officemate has read out the first 3 sentences of a document that was sent round in an indignant voice with lots of sighing and "gah!"-ing and tutting at the grammar, punctuation, entire concept of document

the document is 57 pages long so today is going to be a very long day if every sentence has to be read out and commented on

People who read anything aloud, especially if it's from the Internet and especially if it's from The Onion.

office guy who walks back and forward to the fridge 100 times a day just walked past with a tub of butter in his hand, stopped and said "oh shit I thought this was the mustard" then went back to the fridge

^me irl

The importance of properly labeling one's tubs.

Mustard doesn't come in tubs.

Not in God's own United States of America, at least.

I figured that onimo's workplace refrigerator must be crammed full of nearly identical industrial-size condiment containers with generic labeling. It's the only scenario I could imagine that didn't involve his coworker suffering from some sort of brain event.

obviously just trying to find excuses to show off his condiment tubs.

Skipping 6864 messages? This'll be a good thread for the flight.

Tired of hauling a nine-pound tub of condiments back to your desk, only to find that you've grabbed the wrong tub of condiments?

"I can't believe this isn't mustard!"

Couple days ago, at the work kitchen, there were 100 knives, and al I needed was a knife.

That was ironic.

I could literally contribute a few quality stories to this thread every week but I do most of my ILXoring at work and I'm always paranoid that someone is going to creep up on me while I'm writing about the incredibly stupid thing they did that day.

Couple days ago, at the work kitchen, there were 100 knives, and al I needed was a fork

That was ironic. Dammit!

I figured that was like a koan or something.

he only needed one knife

I can confirm that fridge guy keeps his butter in a standard tub that things like butter and can't believe it's utterly butterly come in and keeps his mustard in a standard little mustard jar.

I've probably posted in this thread dozens of times and almost every post is about this same guy.
He's the same guy who clips his fingernails at his desk. You can hear them hitting things.
He's the same guy who once started flossing his teeth(!) while I was speaking to him.
He's the same guy who thinks he's singing but is actually repeating lyrics in a style that can only be described as "William Shatner if he was from Edinburgh".
He sometimes gives a commentary on what he's doing and what he's planning.
He talks to the fridge, and not just about fridge stuff - like last week a colleague overheard him telling the fridge he was going for a sauna later in the afternoon.
He picks up his phone, presses lots of random numbers really loudly, waits five seconds, then slams the phone down and says "aw for fuck's sake!" like there was some urgent and key business conversation he was prevented from having.
He opens filing cabinets and browses across the files with the tips of his fingers like a vinyl record shopper then closes the cabinets again without ever taking a file out.
He once tried to get me to feel how thick his socks were ("best ay gear by the way!").

He sounds amazing. Like I don't think I could hate him. I'd just be grateful to have someone so ridiculous and absurd in my life.

(Assuming I didn't have to work directly with him or count on him in any way.)

Yeah, same here, but with the same caveat that I have more likely a chance of meeting a man who walked on the moon than ever having a "William Shatner if he was from Edinburgh" sitting at the desk next to me.

man this thread. i just want to thank you all for keeping my head on straight every time i get a little bored and fidgety working for myself (mostly) from home.

He talks to the fridge, and not just about fridge stuff - like last week a colleague overheard him telling the fridge he was going for a sauna later in the afternoon.

this is killing me