― Liz :x (Liz :x), Friday, 29 November 2002 10:57 (twenty-one years ago) link
― robster (robster), Friday, 29 November 2002 10:58 (twenty-one years ago) link
Office twats who preface statements with 'I'm not being funny' should recognise that everything following the phrase comes with its own virtual kill file.
My other suggestion would be to canvass other coworkers for a pizza delivery one Friday and exclude her blatantly.
― suzy (suzy), Friday, 29 November 2002 11:10 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Madeleine (Madeleine), Friday, 29 November 2002 11:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Madeleine (Madeleine), Friday, 29 November 2002 11:32 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Friday, 29 November 2002 11:37 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Miss Laura, Friday, 29 November 2002 11:58 (twenty-one years ago) link
― dwh (dwh), Friday, 29 November 2002 12:39 (twenty-one years ago) link
I work in a room with two people. Person 1 said to me all the stuff I wrote above. She thought nothing of saying it to a stranger (the assumption, I guess, being that I would think the same). Person 2 laughed along merrily. Also, I have come across numerous people in Glasgow who tell me they get scared in London because there are so many black people around. Again, the way they express themselves implies they feel no sense of shame whatsoever - they just don't see there's anything wrong in expressing obviously prejudiced opinions.
I'm not denying for a second that racism doesn't exist elsewhere (and I'm not forgetting that the survey found 3 in 4 Scots aren't racist) but this is the only place I've encountered bigots who have the expectation that my opinion must be the same as theirs.
― Madchen (Madchen), Friday, 29 November 2002 13:17 (twenty-one years ago) link
― alix (alix), Friday, 29 November 2002 17:42 (twenty-one years ago) link
reply from me: "actually, on Friday we both determined that we had the wrong CD and would have to special order a new copy. On Monday."
reply from my boss: "There must have been some miscommunication here."
yeah, between your ears and your brain. moron!
― Dave M. (rotten03), Friday, 29 November 2002 17:56 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 29 November 2002 19:18 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 29 November 2002 19:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
― suzy (suzy), Friday, 29 November 2002 22:55 (twenty-one years ago) link
What the fuck?
― Ally (mlescaut), Saturday, 30 November 2002 06:50 (twenty-one years ago) link
― luna (luna.c), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 19:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
Despite the fact that she's obviously still pregnant.
― Ally (mlescaut), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 02:47 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 02:49 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Nicole (Nicole), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 02:49 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 02:51 (twenty-one years ago) link
― fractal (fractal), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 03:06 (twenty-one years ago) link
However, I AM authorized to purchase them, however I want, whenever I want.
What does that even mean?
― Ally (mlescaut), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 03:13 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 03:16 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Maria (Maria), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 04:23 (twenty-one years ago) link
SUBJECT LINE: I gotta get outta this place...if it's the last thing I ever do (feel free to hum along.)
After a delightful morning spent discussing why someone:1. Shouldn't open a printer paperfeed drawer, while the printer is printing;2. Shouldn't send emails to everyone on their mailing lists about Church-related emails;3. Should let others know when they need the printer instead of deleting documents in the queue;4. Shouldn't tell someone "this is urgent" so they work really late to get it finished, when really, it isn't urgent at all and in fact, doesn't need to be done at all; and5. Shouldn't take someone else's lunch from the refrigerator and leave it on the counter to make room for "extra drinks in case we have visitors,"I have now experienced the conversation to top them all (and really, you have to laugh at this one. I did. Once I calmed down, imbibed chocolate and nicotine, and thought "well, at least it's not quantum physics?). So....here it is:
A Dialogue between "M" (yours truly) and "S" (Otherwise known as Scarett/Princess/Arch Nemesis/The Scarf Lady/etc.)S: Hey "M"!M: Yes?S: You know how to work that digital camera yet?M: Yeah, figured it out last week.S: How long does it take to get those photos developed?M: What?S: I need some photos really fast, so I can photocopy them and make notes on the back. And get duplicates too, in case they get messed-up. M: What? What pictures do you need taken?S: I need to you take pictures of my computer.M: Why?S: I need to know what's on my computer.M: (sigh) You are looking for a file?S: No, I need to know what is on my screen thing.M: (dawning awareness) You need screen captures?S: No, I need pictures of my computer.M: For....?S: I need to know what's on my screen, 'cause these instructions don't make sense and I want to make notes.M: Okay, then you need a picture of the information on your screen, that you can print and add notes to?S: Yes.M: Okay, we don't need the camera for that. We can just do screen captures. It's easy.(M walks over to other office, taking deep and soothing breathes all the while, and explains how to "CTRL+ALT+PrtScn" - runs into trouble with explanation of holding down all keys at the same time. Eventually resolved and screen is captured.)M: Now open Word and set the page to ?Landscape.?S: My computer won't do that.M: What? Yes it will.(M goes through brief discussion of "portrait" vs "landscape" and how to perform operation in Word. Discovers part of problem is that S doesn?t know how to open Word because the icon isn?t on her desktop.)M: Now just hit "Shift+Insert" and your screen shot will be inserted.M: No, you need to hold down both keys at the same time.M: I don't know, that's just the way the program is designed.M: Yeah, it is find of frustrating.M: Okay, now you have it. Just insert a new page for each of the next screen captures and then print the file.(M returns to own desk and gets back into rhythm of formatting proposal.)S: M! It isn't working. I want you to take the pictures for me.M: I don't have time to take the pictures right now, I have to get this back to _____.S: Well, I don't have the time to use the camera, so I guess this won't get done and _____ will be mad.M: Yeah, I guess ___ will be mad, but I'll explain the problem to him.S: Can't you do these thingys for me?M: No, not right now. I have to get this done.S: You know, it's your job to do this.M: No, actually it isn't. I am sorry, but I really can't do it right now. If I have time later I'll come over and see what we can do. In the meantime, why don't you look under the "Help" menu to see if those instructions are better.S: Oh, my computer doesn't have any "Help" on it. I keep telling ____ he needs to fix it, but he won't.
(M decides, for sake of sanity, to not try and figure out what that last comment means and returns to her editing, swearing all the while.) End of original email.
And here are additional interesting tidbits about ?S?:She claimed on her resume to be ?Microsoft Certified,? but was unable to explain what that meant;She wrote all of her correspondence in Excel, because she didn?t know how to open Word (the icon wasn?t on her desktop);When she came into work each morning, she made herself a pot of tea and sat in her cubicle reading household decorating magazines and drinking tea for the first two hours: and, best of allShe was once asked to provide a file that she had finished working on to another co-worker. The file was not on her hard drive for, as she explained, she ?didn?t want to fill it up with things? (and it was a 20 G HD!) File was eventually determined, by her, to be on a floppy. But floppy was blank when co-worker opened it. Eventually ?S? showed supervisor where she stored all of her floppys containing important info. She was attaching them to the metal parts of her cubicle with large magnets, so she ?could always find them.?
~ Laura (who is thankful that she can claim to be a happy rat, that abandoned the sinking ship in time to move to a much cushier and affluent ship, and is now ridiculously happy with things)
― LCD (Ms Laura), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 05:13 (twenty-one years ago) link
I've met a few people who have done basic "computer literacy" courses at colleges and Adult Ed. places who do this. What seems to happen is: the college says "don't store your files on the hard drive [of our lab computers], use a floppy" and the person absorbs this without understanding *why* they're being told it.
These sort of courses always seem to produce people who can't do anything except exactly what was on the course, and then only if their computer is set up exactly like the college ones were. Hence, not being able to start Word if it doesn't have a desktop icon.
(of course, the other stuff shows that this person seems to be a fuckwit regardless of that)
― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 10:49 (twenty-one years ago) link
The ex-receptionist at my office once printed out an email so she could type it up in Word.
― Alfie (Alfie), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 11:02 (twenty-one years ago) link
― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 11:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
it's a sappy day.
― g-kit (g-kit), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 11:42 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Alfie (Alfie), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 11:48 (twenty-one years ago) link
― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 11:54 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Alfie (Alfie), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 12:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
1. "What does agriculture mean?"
2. "I was so annoyed. Someone threw themselves under my tube yesterday. People that do that must be mad."
3. Me: "Just tell them to put the web address in and it will take them straight into the site."
Her: "What address? Their address?"
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 12:06 (twenty-one years ago) link
― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 13:58 (twenty-one years ago) link
― dave q, Wednesday, 15 January 2003 14:21 (twenty-one years ago) link
― g-kit (g-kit), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 14:45 (twenty-one years ago) link
Other things he did: worked at his cube standing up (making everyone around him very tense), unbuttoned his shirts halfway down his chest, commented on every phone conversation I had (work related or not), talked to himself, and played horrible CD-Rs of cabaret tunes he wrote and produced. I think the whole experience inoculated me against ever being annoyed by co-workers again.
― mike a (mike a), Wednesday, 15 January 2003 16:14 (twenty-one years ago) link
Unfortunately something this stupid is uttered in my office at least once a day...
― Nicole (Nicole), Thursday, 16 January 2003 03:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 16 January 2003 03:54 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Nicole (Nicole), Thursday, 16 January 2003 03:56 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 16 January 2003 03:57 (twenty-one years ago) link
― isadora (isadora), Thursday, 16 January 2003 04:15 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ally (mlescaut), Thursday, 16 January 2003 04:54 (twenty-one years ago) link
― j.lu (j.lu), Thursday, 16 January 2003 23:19 (twenty-one years ago) link
― luna (luna.c), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:09 (twenty years ago) link
― Chris V. (Chris V), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:16 (twenty years ago) link
An old japanese woman wearing a baby dress and pigtails jumping and down in front of me at the desk. I just came in. Please, let me wake up a bit first. Or am I still dreaming?
― Erik, Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:30 (twenty years ago) link
― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:37 (twenty years ago) link
― Sarah McLUsky (coco), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:16 (twenty years ago) link
― Sarah MCLUsky (coco), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:16 (twenty years ago) link
The word "tinkle" is one of the best justifications for censorship.
― Enjoy Nuoc Mam With Mr. Qualk (I M Losted), Friday, 23 February 2024 13:03 (one month ago) link
This is a minor one in the scheme of things, BUT.
An otherwise very nice and good to work with newish coworker clears his throat every 20 seconds all day, every day. Cough drops, water and gum have all been offered up. The clearing persists.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, 23 February 2024 16:53 (one month ago) link
we had a guy who would similarly cough all day. claimed it only happened in the office. we figured it was the fibres from the work carpets.
― koogs, Friday, 23 February 2024 18:02 (one month ago) link
I used to have a colleague who would regularly take a deep snort, as though clearing his nose into his throat. Not sure why, I guess it had to do with sinus issues.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 23 February 2024 18:55 (one month ago) link
that's what I do during a bout of sleep apnea
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Friday, 23 February 2024 18:56 (one month ago) link
Yeah, but he was (or at least appeared to be) wide awake.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 23 February 2024 19:04 (one month ago) link
the aforementioned "face 2 face" day where we all go into the office for... reasons coincides tomorrow with the release of some software we've been working on for a while. and because it's potentially disruptive we've been given a change window of 7 to 9am.
tldr: i have to be in the office at 7 tomorrow morning.
― koogs, Monday, 26 February 2024 18:38 (one month ago) link
Received a good reminder in recent weeks to never, ever question direction from middle managers, no matter how mildly, well reasoned and supported by data that gentle push back may be. It will NOT be received well and will backfire, almost always.
Before my new boss these tasks took up maybe 10% of my time. When my new boss entered the picture, it went up to probably 40% of my time, prompting my gentle questioning. Now it sits at about 65% of my time. Lesson learned, don't complain.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 26 February 2024 20:52 (one month ago) link
omg i've never actually needed to post in this thread until today
― Swen, Tuesday, 27 February 2024 15:19 (one month ago) link
the ONLY words i can think of for this person are ANNOYING DUDE
i hate to just barge into a thread that i haven't followed and bark up a storm but i'm trying to put my finger on this guy
― Swen, Tuesday, 27 February 2024 15:20 (one month ago) link
i'm going to have to think about it but i appreciate having a place for this lol <3
― Swen, Tuesday, 27 February 2024 15:24 (one month ago) link
Not a specific co-worker, but a complaint about a specific type of co-worker that I like to call an escalator. You know, the ones that start with a very simple, easy to answer question that gently snowballs until they get to their real ask, which is a big time suck.
co-worker: "Hey can you send over the square footage of this project?"me: "Sure, here you go."co-worker: "Thanks, can you actually break that down by floor."me: "Ok, here it is."co-worker: "Great, do you happen to also have the costs for each floor?"me: "Had to spend some time breaking down the overall costs, but here you go."co-worker: "Oh, actually, all this information was for this 18-page form I've been asked to fill out. Can you just fill it all out for me? That's probably quicker."
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 29 February 2024 15:43 (one month ago) link
i seem to be currently doing someone else's ticket for them using the medium of slack messages so i feel your pain.
― koogs, Thursday, 29 February 2024 15:53 (one month ago) link
jon stuff like that is why i've gotten to where i ghost people now. not saying you should or even know if you can, but there's definitely a personality type that does that and basically if I've done what was originally asked and they're trying to be sneaky, i just 'forget' to respond ever again.
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Thursday, 29 February 2024 16:34 (one month ago) link
Yesterday one of our idiot plans administrators nearly prevented a single mom from adding her newborn child to medical coverage because of a egregiously bad understanding of the plan's rules.
Most companies have rules preventing people from getting duplicate coverage as an employee and a dependent child of another employee (i.e. you can't have your own medical, and also be covered as a child on your parent's plan).
This person was covered under dependent life under their mother and tried to enroll in employee life, and so the system was invalidating the entire transaction where she tried to add the child. A ticket was started.
Instead of telling the agent to just remove the Employee Life, he incorrectly told them that she couldn't cover the child on medical at all because of the unrelated coverage she had under her mom
Scares me to think how many other catastrophic mistakes he's made
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Thursday, 29 February 2024 16:50 (one month ago) link
xp - this was actually my first interaction with this specific first person, but yeah, i'll definitely have my radar up next time they reach out for something.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 29 February 2024 16:52 (one month ago) link
the other archetype i hate are the 'intentional forgetters', people who know there is a defined process for doing things, but they circumvent the process and go right to you, and when you remind them of process say "oh I'm so dumb, I forgot about that, well can you just do it for me now and I'll remember next time"...and then next time, do the same thing.
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Thursday, 29 February 2024 17:00 (one month ago) link
we have a 'mega important meeting' scheduled today that we're told we can't miss under any circumstances, even if we're teaching a class. I had massive sleep disruption and drastically needed to take a half day, so I inform them I'll be joining at 1 so I can attend this meeting. I get to sleep (thankfully), log in to find out my boss has inexplicably moved the earth shattering meeting to 3/25...when I'm on PTO, and they know I'm on PTO, for my brother's wedding. and he's on PTO all next week so literally the only time we can all meet is today through Friday.
Hey, how about we actually have the meeting today and if there's something that's still in flux, you just fuckin tell us?
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 13 March 2024 17:36 (two weeks ago) link
(I'm already anxious that it's something like 'layoffs are coming' or 'so and so won't be returning from LOA' or that our dept head is leaving, so I don't like waiting anyway)
and no, I will not call in on my PTO, esp since I Have no fuckin clue what i'll even be doing throughout the day
hi GUI programmer, I know you hate it when people report to you things don't work, but waiting three days to respond only to ask "oh hey is it still happening" and hope it went away on its own is not a solution. or simply not bothering to check the error logs to see what caused it and snidely responding "idk it works now, try again", as if the screen caps and error details I pasted were faked.
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Monday, 18 March 2024 14:07 (one week ago) link
Currently sitting in a Teams training course where my supervisor wanted to make sure that we are actually watching the session. She got the admin assistant (who is on camera throughout) to hold up a sign at random intervals telling us to send her a private message. If we don't send the PM within 30 seconds of her holding up the sign, we don't get a certificate of attendance.
― lord of the rongs (anagram), Wednesday, 20 March 2024 13:35 (one week ago) link
that's the worst thing I've ever heard
― kinder, Wednesday, 20 March 2024 21:06 (one week ago) link
Yeah, that's astoundingly awful.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 20 March 2024 21:09 (one week ago) link
Fuck you if u gotta pee, sign might come!
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 20 March 2024 21:29 (one week ago) link
I too enjoy when my employer treats me like a toddler.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 20 March 2024 21:31 (one week ago) link
that’s when i quit my job
― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Thursday, 21 March 2024 19:29 (one week ago) link
nine times out of ten people aren't paying attention in meetings, it's because someone's sharing a poorly written, cluttered powerpoint and the presenter is taking 20 minutes per slide and it's something any idiot could have figured out via an email.
i used to have this monster of a director who any time an email thread had more than two responses, she'd immediately demand we created a meeting for it, so I'd be side-messaging people follow-ups to obscure this because then I'd have 8 hours of meetings a day
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Thursday, 21 March 2024 19:37 (one week ago) link
Still waiting on that follow up from Swen.
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Thursday, 21 March 2024 20:35 (one week ago) link
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 21 March 2024 22:14 (one week ago) link
Of course I also had a friend/colleague at work who knew I used to tune out and do other work in pointless meetings, she used to throw to me for a comment when she could see I was doing it, just for the joy of watching me try to tapdance around it!
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 21 March 2024 22:17 (one week ago) link
i call bullshit on that, sorry
― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Thursday, 21 March 2024 22:18 (one week ago) link
the lecturing comment, i mean
To simply blame the speaker is ignoring a huge number of variables, from whether the course is required to whether the student thought it would be a gut when it isn’t to the ability of contemporary technology to distract and consume our attention more than what is actually important and right in front of us. The speaker isn’t always at fault, and the listener or student isn’t always innocent. In a sense, your scenario places all of the onus for education on the educator, and frankly, that’s horseshit
― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Thursday, 21 March 2024 22:22 (one week ago) link
Whole lotta low-paid working class jobs where that's the rule, not the exception.
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Thursday, 21 March 2024 22:29 (one week ago) link
It is on asserts own lecturing though, table. It is admittedly harsh on the speaker (I had a nobel lecturer who stupidly had his class scheduled to clash with Champions League games, though I would note he also didn't win his nobel for lecturing)
It is good for any lecturer to see that as a challenge to raise their game though. Focusing more on delivering your message well will be better for those who want to pay attention. Even if you don't win.
― horizontal, Thursday, 21 March 2024 22:50 (one week ago) link
The general principle I operate on is that under no circumstance can I make everyone listen.
But...if I begin losing half of the class or more, including people who had previously been focused, then maybe I need to change gears.
Not even necessarily my fault that it happened, but my responsibility to try a new strategy.
Of course the big wild card are cliques or people who manage to distract other people. If you have one or two people repeatedly distract well-meaning students, or a group of friends who can't focus when they're around each other, them sometimes yr only option is to be the grade school teacher who separates the T-Birds
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Thursday, 21 March 2024 23:06 (one week ago) link
yeah table my view is more like Neando's there, I was exaggerating because I worked with people who would self-immolate by demanding people switch off their phones and pay attention. I was / am a very good lecturer (no point in false modesty, I've been told enough) and my view was that the material was interesting, I'm putting in the work, the students are paying and I'm getting paid, so attention is up to the listener and I'm not going to demand it. Not pitching it right in the lecture, that's totally on me, and I made a contract with students that they could just make a kind of "uhh" noise if something didn't make sense, and if I heard that I would go back and elaborate. Takes the heat off raising a hand to say "I don't get it". And of course that's useless now because it's all online with a sea of black rectangles containing student names.
― assert (matttkkkk), Friday, 22 March 2024 00:07 (one week ago) link
working from home, in meetings where my camera is off, I sometimes close my eyes and lean back to better concentrate on individual speakers. just try doing that in any other context
― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Friday, 22 March 2024 13:36 (one week ago) link
is my 7th work anniversary tomorrow so i was going to post on the work message board along the lines of '7 years, eh? you get less for $crime'
looking up 7-year sentences here: https://www.thelawpages.com/court-cases/maximums.php and it gets really dark and nsfw really quickly
― koogs, Tuesday, 26 March 2024 19:30 (three days ago) link