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

my job told me last week they won't renew my contract end of january, they can't tell me any reason why, they've just stated a lot of bureaucratic reasons, my recruiter tried to find out and ended up concluding "it is a mystery".

it's not a big sad story or something, i p much have another more highly-paid job secured already and i'm a contractor, so these things can happen. but it was a good place to work and prob a centre of excellence of sorts for what i do. i prob stepped up and did some of the best work i've ever done, and was learning more than ever.

it's the circumstances involved that are rotten too. we've just finished one major project which took a year, a big editorial set of 160 pages or so. and despite working on a team with 3/4 others and having no more responsibility than anyone else, i probably ended up writing 130 of those pages and seeing them through to completion. during this time more than one contractor went on sabbatical for two months and came back to a new contract. i carried the project at times, i became responsible for lots of things i didn't have to be responsible for, they kept fencing off sections for other people to work on but because those people would never finish other sections they had started, on schedule, i'd end up working on those too, with the blessing of my bosses. in the end over time some of the bosses who knew me really well had moved to other teams, and it was like there was nobody to stick up for me.

i wasn't even told one to one by someone i know, my new boss summoned me to a room with herself and two people i never work with in it, and they just mumbled loads of bureaucratic excuses like "frameworks" or "procurement" which my recruiter subsequently found out to be untrue. ironically my role exists to eradicate the kind of language they use. coupled with the fact they tried to move me from one team to another last month, it's doubly sinister. they vaguely alluded to my contract when, for the honest good of the business, i said i had to stay in the team i was in to actually finish the year-long project, like to protect them from themselves, then the next day they said asking me to move had all been a mistake, they had got confused and it didn't matter, everything was okay, i think because it was clear how weird and unprofessional the whole thing was.

i keep trying to tell myself this is how contracting works, and i will move on and it'll be even, plus even if i wanted to stay there i could, i could go permanent for 40 per cent of the money, but the fact is they've renewed other contractors in my team.

we're launching the product this week with a big hoo-ha and i prob have as much a sense of attachment to it and commitment to it as anyone, if not more, yet i feel v little pride given my work has transpired to be invisible.

That always sucks - i was just made redundant along with 2 others out of a team of 20, when I'd been there 12 years and others were on less than 2. I tried fighting it but, given the circumstances (we were in administration and got bought out by another company very different culturally) and the redundancy settlement, not that hard.

The main feeling is that my manager didn't go to bat for me. But I'll never see him again so...

> "it is a mystery"

A lot of this too. I guess they don't have to explain...

that sounds hard after such a long time - at least i was only there 15 months or so. such a weird feeling once you know you're leaving a place, everything suddenly seems so irrelevant.

I am in my last week and am literally doing nothing, just seeing the time out. I have decided to use it wisely, and am re-reading Cerebus opnely at my desk.

I spent yesterday writing an audio skit about a fictional Irish priest, episode 1 of 8.

sorry to hear that lg. weirdness sounds the worst part of it

as i say, i'm in no position for a poor mouth story, i'm lucky enough that there are lots of things on the table elsewhere, it prob means i can take a few weeks and go on holiday between roles, but it's just the general sense that all the work i put in meant nothing - leaves a sour taste. sometimes i wonder if the fact i was progressing and learning a lot is the reason i was let go. like a wing clip.

That's really shitty LG. Wonder if they had to prove costcutting after you'd done all the work?

Contracting/temping is so sucky. My bf has been working temp at a company for about a year (mostly but not always full time). They didnt invite him to the Xmas party - but they made him design the fucking invites for the Xmas party.

They didnt include him in the end of year newsletter either, everyone else in his team was featured in a column but not him.

Oh that newsletter was designed by him as well btw.

that kind of thing is shit. our place makes a big song and dance about how contractors must be treated exactly the same as permanent staff etc, but it can't be that way. ultimately they want to nurture or promote the permanent people and not the contractors. if they had actually just given me an honest reason along these lines that would be fine.

i feel like i might have worked myself out of a job, like one thing i know is that i work unusually quickly, which probably means despite the fact i try to be communicative and inclusive etc, i usually end up feeling like there are too many people on the team or not enough work. that's a good thing overall but i dunno, maybe working ahead of the pace of an organisation isn't a good thing. i'm not saying this to big myself up, it's just a fact of my time there, it was like a running joke in the team. i guess having three people who work at the same pace and are happy to have long periods of boredom might function better and might mean all three are learning.

Not stupid or annoying, exactly, but the two most boring dudes in my office just had a conversation about the minute particulars of beard maintenance, and I realized that my personal hell will be those five minutes on a loop for all eternity.

LG, let them know how much money they are saving by assigning work to you vs others.

Our Holiday party is later today, and already the catty retired assholes are showing up in my office to talk a bunch of shit.

I am one half of a two-person IT dept for an office of abt 55-60 and there is one person who drives me CRAZY. She is constantly in a rush, can do nothing for herself, routinely emails the wrong people for help (and communicates exclusively in breathless sentence fragments devoid of punctuation or details), has ZERO info retention and needs to be told the same thing repeatedly. All of this is manageable, but she is also v selfish and asks for special favors constantly, or asks other people to go out of their way for her own convenience. I have emailed her a PDF of how to install Office on her home computer THREE TIMES because she can't be bothered to search her inbox. She asks to borrow equipment that she already has but doesn't feel like carrying around with her (also lmao she prefaces these requests with "I know I'm being selfish, but..." as if this absolves her of her selfishness!). She also has zero respect for our time, and cancels or last-minute-postpones more than half of meetings she sets up with us. Yesterday, she showed up to an already-pushed-back meeting 15 minutes late (of c with her freshly purchased Starbucks and tons of apologies) without letting us know she was running late and without the information I'd asked her to bring. The irony is that her time is INVALUABLE and trying to pin her down to help her with something she needs help with usu means scheduling a 15 minute meeting 3 fucking weeks in advance. Which will inevitably be canceled.

Also she talks and talks and talks and talks and it's like, if you'd stop blabbering in the hallway maybe we could find 15 minutes in your workday.

Also also she emailed me at 8am on a Saturday FREAKING OUT because her laptop didn't work. I told her to do a hard reset, which with our laptops requires holding down the power button for 15-20 seconds. She said she'd already tried it and it didn't work what can she do she needs to do so much work please help she doesn't know what to do!!!!!!!! 15 minutes I get an email saying she fixed it by doing it a second time by holding the button down for 15-20 actual seconds instead of holding it down and hurriedly counting to 15.

the expense reporting system is beyond outdated and really not convenient for virtual people like without a fax machine. Whenever we file an expense report, they want us to file it online, then fax in a signed copy of the cover sheet with our receipts. Even though we are required to electronically sign our acknowledgment prior to transmitting the report (making the signed page moot). For those of us who are virtual with no fax machine, oh, they are kind enough to give us the alternative of mailing in the receipts. If we try and slide by and email the receipts to the mailbox, they....just fax our email to the fax number, instead of processing it, and half the time it gets delayed.

we give the customers we service numerous methods to upload their supporting documentation in a variety of ways but for actual employees, nope, it's still fax or mail. normally I just use one of those freebie fax services online but it's a pain and sometimes they don't work right, and this month has been especially a pain given how busy I've been.

day before holiday hoping to be let off early, fucking boss peaces out at 4 with a sob story about how hard it is to get approval for early closing

and yet middle manager under him got an early close for us on thanksgiving no worries. *shrug*

ended up leaving right behind anyway. said fuckit & took pto bcz fuuuuuuck this stupid place

that's the spirit! frck em

There were so many dogs in the office today. So many dogs.

One woman is foster parent for dogs. She brought, like, four of them today.

You all love dogs. I love dogs. But having a dozen dogs running through the office, occasionally sparring with one another, occasionally nipping at your heels as you carry a paper bowl full of Stouffers Three-Cheese Ziti back to your desk... it gets really, really old.

pplains i would go insane idk how you even deal w that

The kids came up for a couple of hours while sunny and grandma went shopping. The boy comes up to my desk and says a dog kinda nipped his leg in the hallway.

We roll up his pant leg. No marks. No bruising. No cuts. He says it doesn't really hurt, but I can tell it scared him a little. Someone must've caught wind of it because a little bit later, the president/gm stops by and asks if the boy's ok.

So now I think I've got this plan to make a million dollars AND get rid of all the dogs. All I gotta sacrifice is my boy's health for a few months, and oh yeah, not reveal my plans on a public internet messageboard.

See that fucker on the bottom left? Followed his owner into the bathroom recently and poked its little pointy head under the door while I was sitting there.

http://i.imgur.com/XRhn0kU.jpg

sue them purple

kids say the darndest things witness stand special edition

^^^ ding ding ding

that does look like a bitey little fucker

I am fine with coworkers dropping by with family members, kids, and have friends who have had workplaces with a "dogs at work" day which seems... ok in theory

But one friend, she told me after the dog day (this was her prior workplace) they had a client meeting in a meeting room that no one had been in for a few days, and right before the meeting started they realized there was a dog shit right in the middle of the room. Because some sneaky dog had ran in and dropped a deuce yesterday.

wow can't believe dogs are living things that sometimes do inconveniences and aren't just like animated stuffed animals

Take it to the children vs animals thread

it's a calm place where we discuss this matter.

wow can't believe dogs are living things that sometimes do inconveniences and aren't just like animated stuffed animals

― Fluffy Saint-Bernard (Stevie D(eux)), Friday, December 23, 2016 1:59 PM (twenty-three minutes ago)

Thing is, in these situations it seems more like the owners believe they're animated stuffed animals, and thus when they're in the workplace it'll just be *cute* and *fun*. The people complaining are very aware that they're living things, and therefore realise that a herd of them probably shouldn't be in the workplace.

I like workplace animals (particularly shop cats), but surely anyone with any sense would realise that allowing *every* dog owner to bring in their pets is a recipe for disaster.

exactly

lol yeah give every dog a day, that way everyone in the office has an opportunity to appreciate the good dog of the day

if all the dogs are there at once how are the dogs to feel special

This is crazytown, dogs don't belong in a white collar workplace. Do you work with school kids who think this is okay--do you have soda pop coming out of your drinking fountains too?

the only dog I ever saw in my office in ten plus years was a service dog that belonged to a blind employee, pretty sure if anybody tried to bring a non-service dog into the office security would tell them to walk their happy asses back to the car.

forget dog poop, we had enough issues with the human kind, including an employee who one day, for some reason, felt compelled to smear their feces on several lunch containers in one of the break room refrigerators.

weird i came here to vent about someone, and the someone brings their dog in! i'm actually fine with it but somehow i wind up with the kurmudgeonly boss role. it's just when i'm wearing the nice clothes...

ok so my venting is fairly limited: the person is just kinda full of himself. like kindof a smartass. it irritates me! and what gets me into trouble is that i play dumb sometimes as like a general habit. but it's not a good dynamic esp when i'm supposed to be in charge.

nbd, it's gotten better lately as i've clocked it; he responds better to a businesslike candor in the ofc whereas with the girls, we just gab gab gab etc.

sorry *ofc=office

he's out today but i'm READY FOR HIM WHEN HE GETS BACK

one of my clients said something "didn't pass mustard" today

. . .

rude

https://media1.giphy.com/media/qegqatEZkOUeI/200.gif

Passing mustard sounds painful.

When you pass mustard, it's the only time you can say to it, "Come on, ketchup!"

and say it with relish

must ardently stop the urge

been battling a co-worker for two months - we need her to review a series of documents purely from an accuracy standpoint before we send them for editorial review. first time around, the first two docs that come back with her feedback was like 10% accuracy, 90% structure. I reminded her that wasn't her job and to focus on just accuracy of the information and she went back to work.

she finishes, and now it's more like 2% accuracy 98% structure/format.

at least she's consistent

omg

i'm losing my patience

with dog-person?

rly dont understand why ppl that are sick as a dog decide to come into work anyway

especially when they can afford to take a day or two or three off

I have not seen daylight today and have spent 90% of my day staring at either spreadsheets or brakelights

Plus some arsehole stole my milk from the office fridge