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

probably not co-workers but work related. i have to send my laptop back because the battery is bulging more than i can ignore (it's been noticeable for about 3 years but now you can feel it)

anyway, had a note saying that it'll be swapped on Monday and that it should be placed on the original packaging (which i don't have) AND an outer box with 3-6 inches of bubble wrap (which i don't have). but, Saturday today, the shops are open...

just had a text saying they'll be coming between 10:36 and 11:36 this morning, Saturday, and the nearest whsmith is in Westfield which doesn't open until 10 and is 15 minutes away... which is cutting things fine.

it would also help if my packing tape was actually sticky.

(^ my work laptop, hence posting here)

he arrived 5 minutes after 10:36

and the replacement laptop came in really scant packaging, was probably no need for me to be at rymans at 9 this morning buying 10m of plastic coated air for £8.50

I pretty much set my own hours at my job, though usually try to work either 8:30 - 5:00 pm or 9:00 am - 5:30 pm. but on training days, I usually try to be up by 8:30 because of the endless parade of people who aren't registered for a course screaming at me "WHERE'S MY TRAINING INVITE?", because apparently people in 2022 still don't know how to properly sign up for things and think I can read their mind.

holy shit my manager is a nightmare!!!! the awfulness escapes my ability to accurately characterize it. she shows no analytical abilities, i think she has adhd. she seems literally incapable of taking a step back and having perspective. it's just, tree, tree, tree. it would be one thing if she were somewhat aware of all of this and relied on other people... but she wants to be the one who knows everything at all times! and she expects people, even her colleagues who don't report directly to her, to just do what she wants all the time! she shows no ability or inclination to collaborate or work with or 'dialogue' with people. just absolute dogshit all day every day.

is this the missing chair manager or the closeted Mormon star wars one?

holy shit map, that sounds a lot like mine, just mix in a healthy dose of constant conspiracy theorizing and information hoarding on top of that.

is this the missing chair manager or the closeted Mormon star wars one?

― sarahell, Tuesday, June 14, 2022 6:33 PM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

haha the missing chair manager. star wars is actually pretty solid, except she kisses up to missing chair all the time and is her best friend, which i don't understand at all.

i wonder if the "information hoarding" is intentional or accidental if they have adhd?

holy shit map, that sounds a lot like mine, just mix in a healthy dose of constant conspiracy theorizing and information hoarding on top of that.

― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, June 14, 2022 6:42 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

mine is incredibly petty and egotistical but so far she hasn't shown the inclination to "go after" someone if they don't comply. i'm even more sorry if yours does.

xp - that's a good point, sarahell, i haven't been able to tease out the root, but it certainly ties into an overall need to "control" everything

his form of "go after" is more just badmouthing them to anyone within earshot, "not a team player" is his favorite phrase

its always like:

manager: "hey person X, this isn't your job or even in your wheelhouse, but I forgot about it and I need you to expedite it for me so I can look good and my oversight will go unnoticed"

person X: "um no, wtf. I'm in the middle of an incredibly important deadline for what is actually my job, so I might look into this when my workload lightens up in the near future"

manager: "WOW. person X is really not a team player and I'm not sure we can count on them"

sounds like manager is super entitled and arrogant ... I am assuming that manager doesn't "return the favor" for other workers? ... like if they have forgotten something or are overburdened, manager will pick up the orphaned task and do it himself? ... However, if he does actually do this, then it's more an issue of "this job is my life, your job should be your life," when, it sounds like, based on your descriptions of your workplace and duties, that your job should definitely _not_ be your life because it doesn't seem particularly meaningful.

I had a manager once that would schedule meetings, make us wait on hold without showing up for a half hour, then show up 50 minutes late and get angry asking where everyone was and making us rejoin.

oh haha that reminds me 'missing chair' is late to 90% of meetings. 50% of the time she is 10 or more minutes late. oh and her excuse is always "my computer was being weird"

manager: "hey person X, this isn't your job or even in your wheelhouse, but I forgot about it and I need you to expedite it for me so I can look good and my oversight will go unnoticed"

person X: "um no, wtf. I'm in the middle of an incredibly important deadline for what is actually my job, so I might look into this when my workload lightens up in the near future"

she does this all the time too. but doesn't directly badmouth people, she's wayyyy too passive aggressive for that.

of course she never 'returns the favor'! she doesn't have to, she's the manager, that's literally all being a manager entails, not having to do anything she doesn't want to and passively aggressively suggesting that anything that goes wrong is someone else's fault.

i've never worked anywhere that is remotely so passive aggressive, it is astounding. like it is absolutely against the rules for certain people to ever directly communicate with anyone else!!! or like they literally don't know how to do it. total wastes and fuck ups. daresay it isn't a coincidence that those people mormons.

I became very direct and firm in my old job at this firm back in 2017, when I had my back against the wall, and people acted as if I shat on the American flag. I think in the business world now everybody expects passive bullshit like:

"I'm so sorry I forgot to do my assignment and the client is angry and possibly not renewing the contract because of me because I was at Dunkin Donuts"

"aw, no worries - things happen!"

*5 minutes later, to someone else who has no power to do anything*

"WHY DON'T WE GET RID OF THIS PERSON!"

I am assuming that manager doesn't "return the favor" for other workers? ... like if they have forgotten something or are overburdened, manager will pick up the orphaned task and do it himself?

ding ding ding!

you truly work with annoying, stupid people! you deserve better!

my (very likely adhd) co-worker is always perpetually late to meetings ... that he scheduled (and sometimes rescheduled) ... but he doesn't blame others for his mistakes or do the type of pass-agg bullshit described above. He will take on all the work. If I forget something, or flake, he will do it and not throw me under the bus. This makes me feel better about all the times I have to cover for him, like when he double books himself or forgets about a family vacation and then tells me two days prior that he will be gone camping for a week.

that's really what matters is like ,if you're ognna be erratic and goofy but mostly get shit done, it's cool as long as you don't throw me under your bus.

you truly work with annoying, stupid people! you deserve better!

oh, absolutely, i know this. there are certain benefits that i would not find elsewhere, which is what is (for now) keeping me here, along with the hopes of managerial turnover, which seems to be very frequent.

even if you're gonna be erratic and goofy and get very little done, I am way more tolerant if you don't throw me under your bus and are aware of your flaws and are gracious and appreciative that I do not have them (as much).

Innovation for the sake of innovation drives me nuts. so they're doing Phase 2 of the content redesign for the CCR materials (which I think I've talked about in this thread). In doing so, they took content that was in a consistent, structured format across different topics, and turned it into more of a FAQ format, which is much harder to navigate.

but they didn't have time to update all of the content at once, so they did it in waves, meaning half the pages are in the new FAQ format, the other half in the old one. the first wave of pages in the new FAQ format were also written differently from the original pages - all new content.

This time around, the 'redesigned' pages are just the original content structured in the new format - however, they made us re-author it all from scratch anyway. AND worst of all, these redesigned pages are missing things.

Now the Health Care Flexible Spending Account materials don't even include a place that includes the claim submission deadline. Kind of important!

please tell me it includes a "wizard" on top of the FAQ format.

related to the topic of co-workers -- do you know if there is a way to have an employer health plan where the employees are insured by different companies?

(that is an xp to Neando)

I've seen that at large companies but never at medium or small ones. Mr. Jaq works at a state university where there are options for 3 different plan providers.

sarahell - it is possible. my company has a marketplace plan similar to those you find on state/federal marketplaces, with tiers of Bronze/Silver/Gold, and then you choose your carrier. so I could have had this same plan w/ a diff carrier.

but even non-marketplace plans, you can have the same plan with choice of diff carrier. As Jaq says, this is more common at large companies. lots of companies only offer one carrier. or the plan is inextricably tied to the carrier (i.e. "there's an HMO plan, but you can only have Aetna").

that's kinda why I'm kicking myself. I coulda checked what plans utilized CVS before signing up.

btw, not dumb co-workers, but 'venting'.....

re: the growing cost of health care coverage and shrinking employer contributions.

when I started with this company, I paid something like $20-$40 a month to cover just me on an HMO plan that covered 100% of my services with no deductible. amazing plan.

I pay the same amount now for a garbage Bronze $2500 deductible plan that only covers 70% coinsurance and has an HSA attached, with zero employer contributions. they no longer offer plans like the one I had 17 years ago, but even for a plan that covers 90% with a minimal deductible, I'd have to pay hundreds of dollars per month. for just me!

of course I had that mega awesome plan when I was 24 and had no health maladies to speak of.

should have stayed 24 then, shouldn't you. poor planning.

I was 24 for 4 years actually

i'm 24

i legit just felt a weird existential dread thinking about how i’m closer to 42 than 24.

I've got 5 months until 42 :/

though I hate prime numbers so I guess I prefer that

wait a minute, hold on, back up, you hate prime numbers?! what! why!!

lol I keep screwing up my age based on a couple friends’ ages, my brain rolls me over to the next year a month or so before, and then after that I think I’m a year older or younger than I actually am

so yes, I’ve almost said i’m 42 multiple times in the last month. so instead, 24 😊

before my actual birthday that is

I'm 24 x 2 - so I guess I have as much health as two 24-year olds

I resigned from my job this week! (Going to a new one!) Which is good because I've developed severe loathing for anyone in the organisation's technical & product teams, who clearly give more of a shit about internal KPIs rather than uhhhhh our customers.

I am much closer to retirement than I am to the beginning of my career. That gives me anxiety.

not really 'stupid people', but more venting, but the product we've spent almost a year training people on and rolling out, after being fairly smooth technologically for a while, had the login/syncing stop working abruptly out of nowhere today. we were thinking it was a simple 'outage' that would be fixed, now we're being told "welp the entire login process is going to change for good, we'll have a new document for you later today".

which means not only will my partner and I have to retrain every trainer on this new process, but that misguided folk are going to come out of the woodwork asking him and I what to do because many of the users already (falsely) think he and I are product IT and ignore what emails say.

my poor boss's boss is coming back after a week off today to this, and she just dealt yesterday with her mother falling and fracturing her thigh, and also exposing her to COVID as she unknowingly had it prior to admission. (her and I are good buddies due to the ailing parental connection)

two separate, simple processes that wind up only being done by me every time. even though I've showed three different people how to do them multiple times, and sent them reference emails with screenshots/links to previous tasks I created (which can literally be copied into a new task with just the details changed).

why don't I complain? well, cos it makes me termination-proof since if I leave, nobody knows how to do it.

my business instructor asks me what time training ends today - she asks me this at 5 pm ET. the class ends at 5:30 pm ET. It said this on the initial email I sent welcoming them to instructing the class. But even more bafflingly, that's the time the Out look invite says - the invite that this person CREATED THEMSELVES.

do you feel like you work in a sitcom without a laugh track because it has ceased to be funny?

actually today it was very funny, i told my boss's boss "get what *I* just got asked?"

lol ... i had a client a month ago (now ex-client) ask me to design a form for them to use as a template ... so I did, even though I strongly suspect they could have done this themself. Then I sent the template form to them, and got asked, "what do I do with it once I fill it out?" ... This is the person who manages and oversees the information architecture for the organization. Like ... do I need to tell the person that makes the folders and organizes them to make a folder and put it in one?

I didn't respond because anything I could think of would have come across as sarcastic or antagonistic and while the question seemed absurdly stupid, they weren't asking it to be an asshole.

hah I hate those situations because it seems like anything you say will come across as, well, glib, and it's mostly because the question was....something they should have known?