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

also good news for Neanderthal but bad news for this thread!

a few people in my building have decided it's apt to comment on the portion sizes of my lunch, ostensibly in jest.

i really want to tell them to stfu, but instead i've just asked flatly why they comment on it, or just not indulged in the way they want me to, which i guess is humourously self-deprecating. like why even say "ooh that's a big portion size"? it's not as bad as weight comments but it's in the same kind of judgey area. they aren't even massive lunches, they're just enough to see me through until i eat dinner like six or seven hours later.

That sort of smalltalk generally irks me. People who are all "oooh whats for lunch today!" eyeing off whatever you've just pulled out of the microwave. Ive had people fall in step with me walking out of the office, saying "going to lunch?" no, its 12PM and I thought I'd walk into traffic.

This happens to me a bit and I have always assumed it's because I am not much of a smalltalker and people just want to get a handle on me / humanise me a bit in their eyes. But I have perfected ways of getting out of and back into my workplace while running into the fewest people possible, and then I eat in my office, so they have no chance to comment.

Would that I had my own office!

(I'd fart in it with the door shut, that oughta show any little SOBs who then walked in)

Sometimes I end up having interesting conversations about food when someone has used smalltalk in the staff kitchen, so I'm not always on edge or defensive, but it's usually annoying people I barely know, pretending they're just making smalltalk when really their comments are too familiar and unnecessary, insinuating that I'm overdoing it. In general these are meals made from scratch, fairly healthy and nutritious, but even if they weren't, why do people feel they have a pass to comment on someone's food choices, especially when they're more or less strangers? ffs just let people eat their food and shut up about it, unless you're saying something nice or striking up a conversation about food that isn't meant to be suggestively judgey. There's nothing really smalltalky about it anyway, I mean what is the point of commenting that it's a large portion other than to hint that they think you're overindulging? It's not really "just an observation", it's just more thinly veiled moralism.

I understand it as that too, MatthewK, sometimes. It's sometimes a way of getting a handle on whether you're willing to humour their inane and moralistic comments, too.

Yeah I'm just not a smalltalk fan, which I know is a tad antisocial :/

Oh I'm pretty much the same. I have to be in the right mood to tolerate it, but sometimes I really clam up and cbf at all, even though I know it's supposed to be antisocial. I think it's probably more a defence against really tedious and/or aggressively social people. Kitchens are the worst for being trapped by smalltalkers too, especially when you have to wait for something in the microwave. I know silences can be awkward but some people just can't seem to handle not commenting on every single little thing that you're doing, or having any silences at all. I guess they think people will think they're being rude if they don't talk, but I'd much rather they just shut up unless they have something interesting to say.

I ask my coworker across the aisle what he’s eating if it smells good

That to me is perfectly acceptable. In most cases. If I'm tired I don't always want to talk to other people about my food because it's too much mental effort and anxiety to figure out whether there's something else behind what they're saying e.g. some people seem to be slightly resentful that I had the time to put together that kind of meal, or that I may have made a more appetising meal than what they brought in, as if I want to show off my fancy schmancy cooking skills, and even though I know that insecurity's on them, I just can't deal with it sometimes so I'd prefer that they didn't comment. I feel as if I'm being mock humble and they can pick up on that, but what I'm making usually isn't that complicated anyway, and it's just leftovers. I'm also just hungry and it's delaying me from the main event.

It depends on the person too ime. There's usually a perceptible difference between genuine interest or curiosity or approval, and someone kind of competitive and envious about food and culinary skills.

Any advice would be appreciated - as mentioned itt recently I was being trash talked daily by some guy I thought was my friend. Another co worker reported him cuz they thought It was unprofessional. I had just returned to work with a mostly healed broken arm and covered a desk I was trained on previously for one day, so I don’t think they could’ve expected much success at first.

Anyway on Friday 20 minutes after everyone else clocks out (I’m on nights ATM) I walked out into the hallway and the whole clique was having a secret meeting. Guy who got reported looked sheepish because he got rightfully shut down for being toxic.

Anyways I heard he was going around and trying to figure out who ratted him out. My opinion is I’ve entered a work place so toxic for so long that any outsider to this fucked up dynamic is a threat.

yeah and honestly I don't think his bosses would be too pleased to hear that after he got dressed down for his toxic attitude, he was now trying to identify and potentially intimidate the person who reported him. Honestly, it sounds like the toxicity of the environment is taking a toll on you. Because of that, if you see something beyond hearsay that suggests he's actively asking around, I would report it, tbh.

alpha male bullshit in the workplace needs to be checked, always. though I get that you might be afraid that nothing will happen and that he'll take it out on you in retaliation, which tbh is a completely understandable worry - but one he has probably thrived on for years.

my boss took forever to tell my team I was leaving. turns out he mistakenly thought my transition date was 5/7 instead of 5/1. woops.

let's just say uhhh the dept is very upset that I'm leaving. I think more departures are going to follow as morale is declining. so mega-excited for the new position (full time trainer)

You do not realize the restraint that I show by not posting ITT multiple times every weekday. Because I could. I think I forget half of the instances of jaw-dropping stupidity I encounter because they tend to be superseded by an even stupider occurrence within an hour or so.

(This was spurred by a years-long coworker referring a third party to me on the basis of my holding a position that I do not and have never held. Like he wasn't even in the ballpark. But it was, of course, delivered with complete confidence.)

I have been fighting literally for years with the head of another department who attributes all of her staff's fuck-ups to user error. This despite the fact that my work is hindered these fuck-ups multiple times every single day and they are less 'whoops, my finger slipped while I was typing' and more 'I fundamentally fail to understand my responsibilities, even when my responsibilities are explicitly detailed to me by a third party'. As always, I primarily blame the 'parents' (including my own, whose general spinelessness precludes them from ever having my back in these situations).

(I'm realizing that my growing apoplexy wrt this job is the cumulative result of minor-but-chronic irritations being completely unaddressed over long stretches of time. It's like letting a minor cut fester until your arm is completely gangrenous.)

I could seriously spend my entire workday posting ITT about the stupidity I encounter over the course of my workday. In many cases, it exceeds the bounds of basic stupidity or laziness and I begin to get concerned that there's some real impairment going on. Mini strokes, gas leaks, unattended grievous head injuries. I've got EMS on my speed dial just in case.

The most recent chronic issue which makes me go full-bore Scanners on a daily basis is on the order of:

Me: 'Hey, we're out of ____. Could you please make sure we get more ____?'
Idiot: (doesn't get out of seat to actually check on the status of ____) 'Looks like we're all good on ____!' (resumes huffing of gasoline)
Me: (dislodges cyanide capsule, bites down hard)

Like I received a response at the end of the day yesterday and came in to two more this morning that were exactly this. People far above my pay grade responding to specific requests to do a thing without which I'm unable to do my job, telling me that the thing is done only for me to find that not only is the thing not done but that the party in question never bothered to even check whether or not it was done. I just...what...I...motherfucking...you goddamn...just...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

This job is genuinely going to kill me.

I'm two weeks into this co-worker (and we're on the other side of the world so are together outside work most days too) and I can't even (as the young people say).

Once this is all over I might give the edited highlights.

Ugh that sounds dire, do you have to share a hotel room or anything horrid?

Not as bad as that but it'll all become clear when I spill the beans.

I'll summarise the worst of it by saying two weeks in he is still fighting the time zone.

who's winning?

The time zone, hands down. He seems to think he can battle for another 6 weeks.

Could the management here be any more useless?</chandlerbing>

Love love love it when a succession of managers play hot potato with a complex request which requires the guidance of management until the thing finally lands in my lap and I have to bring my own job to a screeching halt so I can spend an hour composing an email detailing to people well above my paygrade what their positions require of them. Looooooooove it. Toooooootally not raking deep and freely-bleeding furrows down my face with my fingernails rn.

garbageperson who gives give me a RED FLAG! high priority!! urgent!! task at 5 min before 5pm deadline aaaaaand then fucks off home immediately.

yep cool no worries it’ll all be there in the morning for you to answer the questions you should have stuck around to answer, asshole

new job is officially christened lol

Ring them at 10PM saying CANT FINISH THIS OMG YOU MISSED SOMETHING YOU HAVE TO FIX IT

One man's rush is another man's I'll get around to it.

congrats on the new job, I guess, vg!

thx!

i actually do kinda like it

but for real this place needs serious codification of the definition of the word URGENT and levels of (preferably physical) punishment for its overuse.

Me: Yeah here is how *thing* is done, pls follow this format when saving the file
Person: yeah I'm just gonna go ahead and do that in another format cos I dont like this one
Me: Gnnnnnnrrrrrghhhh

I love my new job but it makes me sad that I have no new entries for this thread lol

be the stupid annoying co-worker you want to see in the world

I live for the day I have nothing to contribute to this thread. The thought alone is making me a little misty-eyed rn.

Why is everyone’s job getting worse and more grim rn (mine as well)

money is getting tighter

My complaints at work can be boiled down to a single issue: people not doing (or not sufficiently doing) the thing they're paid to do (which very pointedly includes managers who fail to manage this issue). It does seem to be escalating. I guess breezing through life while being terrible at everything is just the zeitgeist rn. I just take comfort in knowing that when I finally wise up and split, my workplace will be hella fucked.

(Like neither of my immediate superiors really know how I do what I do, nor have they shown any interest in doing so. They just know it gets done. That seems like it might be an untenable situation for them in the long run, but what do I know.)

I think it's quite possible that there are just relatively few people who know how to excel at an office job versus the many more who are capable of convincingly treading water.

well every day i look forward to this one individual who throws out callous words at me, like "you're in for orientation? if you were at another hospital, you would be fired or transferred in a week". i'm casual and have 5 jobs, some which i've done for like 2 days total. i've complained but the manager/her are tight, but she said that two days in a row to me, and i dread going into work cuz absolutely nothing gets done about this - they say she's just "blunt" - she's not even my supervisor, plus she was fired from her last job, so maybe she should get the picture.

i work a monkey job i'm overqualified for, can't stand being talked down to

That is the worst! What a dick. I haven't worked in a rude workplace for such a long time, I don't think I could take it anymore.

Is there an HR team you can chat to on the sly?

yeah, in theory it could be reported to an anonymous line/union - other co-workers have had problems with her, but it seems like no action has really been taken. she's nice outside of work but just challenging at work, so it's kinda frustrating. she seems to enjoy being made fun of back, but that's really tiring. i've been off/on work due to injuries for the last couple months so i'm a little more scared to speak up to anyone, but i guess i'm protected by unions anyway,

probably find a new job soon tbh, 11 years in IT to ---this---

IME all kinds of personality disorders are given relatively free reign in the workplace because it's easier to gingerly tiptoe around the volcano than to address the annihilating blasts of lava head-on.

(Plus, I have heard direct from the horse's mouth more than a few times concerns that an unstable employee, once disciplined or terminated, might prove to be dangerously so.)

I don't think it's the team's problem to deal with, though - it's the manager's. And a lot of managers can be spineless or disinterested or assholes themselves.

Also lots of eccentricities can be solved without disciplining or firing people. It just requires a light touch. Which a lot of people don't have.

My manager is great but the most recent update is they’re navigating the problem by letting me not work her desk or be trained by her. Today was a shit show of being corrected every 5 seconds or asked what I’m doing. I’m no dunce man. Plus she trains in a confusing manner and then reams
Me out. Seen her googling anxiety websites. At least I can go to work and keep my depression at bay and do my job without being a turd. Old lunch otm as usual

it's my absolute hate when people say "oh so-and-so is just like that" - no, they are like it because their manager has allowed it to pass and enabled it by letting it continue. I'm a big fan of people having quirks and interesting personalities because it makes the day more interesting but if someone is rude, aggressive and ignorant then they're not doing their job to the best ability any less than someone who lacks technical skills. A manager who isn't prepared to deal with awkward conversations and difficult people is choosing to let that sabotage their team.

Absolutely otm

I’ve reported it. I can’t even go to work today cuz I need to focus on a new desk in isolation without
Being told to sit down!!! Actual quote.

Management has stated there’s been a long term problem
with a toxic culture but as long as they never spend time in the room, they never witness it. Anywhere else these individuals would be duly fired.