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

I am going to preface from here on out, any post I make itt is just sardonic eye-rolly stuff, not a reflection of active rage.

they asked me to review some powerpoints that were being created for training. I was supposed to have them 1/3, I got them yesterday, and was asked to do them by EOB today.

I opened them and almost howled laughing at how bad they are. too much text on slides, paragraphs on bullet points, inconsistency in presentation.

When it was evident I can't fix this mess without doing it myself, I deleted my initial feedback ("delete these files, please take the following course on Powerpoint development, then do these over"), and just gave them a list of the most actionable stuff and sent it to them. it's still gonna be a turd but w/e, I get credit for polishing it.

i think i still am naive enough to be surprised that people get paid significant amounts of money to do things they don't know how to do ... as in, presumably these powerpoints were created by people whose jobs it is to create training materials?

they're hired to be training specialists, but I sincerely doubt any of them know Powerpoint very well. it's not really emphasized. I happened to know it pretty well coming in, but people know just enough to know how to put dots on a page and that's it.

when I started here in 2004, on Day 1, we were tasked with creating a Powerpoint in groups and present it to one of the area leaders, and I took over because one of my partners was telling people to write the Ppt in paragraph form and clearly had no idea what she was doing, and I was like "uhh no, my reputation is at stake here". lol.

like, I do a fair amount of work for/with nonprofits that are largely volunteer run ... and this is the type of thing I will see/deal with there. Like the volunteer who is de facto in charge of marketing/outreach who sent out a mailchimp newsletter asking people to contribute to the org's Godfundme campaign

convo between me and a co-worker, who I will call Gweezybork

Gweezybork: Neanderthal, learner can't get into our call interaction program, she's tried, she's opened a ticket with IT, nothing happens when she clicks logon button.

Neanderthal: guarantee you she's not connected to VPN, that's literally the cause 999 out of 1000 times

Gweezybork: now she can't get into this other application as well

Neanderthal: ok, pretty obvious she's not on VPN, that's why she can't get into any application.

Gweezybork: She tried to reinstall the program, that's not working

Neanderthal: It's almost as if SHE'S NOT CONNECTED TO VPN, can you tell her that now that I've asked three times?

Gweezybork: You were right, she was disconnected from VPN.

(this person didn't notice they were disconnected for 3 whole hours)

same person sends follow up messages about the issue as if the conversation earlier didn't happen, and then doesn't respond to a single follow-up message for two hours (finally had to enter their class and physically say "please see your side chat - now")

"did the survey email go out yesterday morning? I don't have a copy"

"yes, I'll forward to you"

"thank you, but that is the email from Tuesday morning, I need the one from yesterday morning."

"oh! sent"

"Thank you, but this is from Tuesday afternoon. I need the one from yesterday morning (Wednesday)."

"ok. sent."

"This is the same email you just sent me."

"Neanderthal, calling you"

*ring*

"So to confirm, you need the email from Tuesday, right?"

"NO I NEED THE GODDAMN EMAIL FROM YESTERDAY AM I TAKING CRAZY PILLS?"

teacher in my department likes to tell students "i am a college professor"

reality: they participated in guest lectures for a non-credit-bearing online course from an online university that doesn't award degrees

Lol damn

inveterate self-aggrandizing bullshitters are everywhere in education. and they always fail up

maybe that's also true of college professors and public service jobs in general

actually maybe that's just the human condition, idk

inveterate self-aggrandizing bullshitters are everywhere in education. and they always fail up

maybe that's also true of college professors and public service jobs in general

actually maybe that's just the human condition, idk

― the late great, Thursday, January 26, 2023 10:57 AM (four days ago)

human condition imo ... one of my nonprofit clients recently hired a finance manager who claimed they had expertise in all the things ... over the past couple months, this person has issued authoritative statements on various topics that are consistently wrong. Like, factually wrong. This person is being paid twice what I am being paid. This person is also not really doing their job? As in, most of the tasks requiring technical expertise have now become tasks assigned to me. The culture of this nonprofit is very much about the person managing the work actually does a lot of the work themselves, so it is feeling like "not a good fit" ... this is the fourth person they have hired in the past 6 months to do this work. The previous three were even more incompetent.

I get the sense that this person is used to working in a more institutional/corporate environment and not for a volunteer run nonprofit that is like Murphy's Law incarnate

the dramatic landscape at my workplace is largely shaped by a long simmering antagonism between my manager (breathtakingly incompetent human silo who repels all collaboration) and coworker (hard-working and passionate but maybe a little too attached). i very much side with the coworker but sometimes find it useful to be a little more neutral because it's easier to sidestep / ignore the long-winded email chains etc. the truth is that no one here (gov agency) has very much actual work they have to do, but everyone wants to feel like they are important so this kind of bullshit just naturally emerges i think. i'm realizing that it really doesn't work for me to get ensnared in all of it - sometimes i don't have much of a choice, but often i do, and the choice sometimes feels like a "bad" one - to check out - but it's actually good. it's weird having a job where no one really has to do much but everyone pretends that they do. there's a lot of making stuff up to do that gets praised. funny how just not doing anything, even if you can get away with it, is stressful in its own way.

i try and "do 1 thing" at least every day lol, otherwise i feel way too disconnected.

that was less about stressful coworkers and more about my bizarre job and possible adhd-related work avoidance.

it's weird having a job where no one really has to do much but everyone pretends that they do.

omg this is hilarious but also .... I can see how it can get super toxic.

some middle schoolers are watching a nutrition video about eating less carbs and more legumes in my classroom (rainy day PE class) ... the narrator keeps saying "when you eat a nut" and this stupid annoying idiot teacher keeps giggling

oh wait, that stupid annoying idiot teacher is me

(i know nuts are not technically legumes)

peanuts are

if you ask me an hour ago if I have 5 minutes to talk, and I say yes, and you don't respond for an hour, my "yes I'm available" is no longer valid.

O. T. MMMMM

So I've spent most of the day trying to herd cats enough to schedule a meeting for next week between two researchers, two outside consultants and my boss. Finally got things nailed down enough between the outside consultants and sent the two researchers a list of seven possible times. At 3:20 I sent out the email with the list of time. 3:25 - Researcher A responds and says they can only do Time Slot B and Time Slot D. 3:36 - Researcher B responds and says they can only do Time Slot D. Great, at least we all overlap on one! 3:40 - sent out the invite to everyone. 3:48 - Researcher B's assistant declines invitation and says, "sorry, Researcher B has now filled up that time slot".

So I am back to square one for the week after next because, of course, Researcher B is the most critical stakeholder to be at this meeting.

I don't think these people deserve to have a meeting

The double/triple/quadruple time slot meeting bookings at my company are completely out of control.However, I particularly hate meetings more than a half long and they all are but I realized if I’m triple/quadruple booked I don’t have to go to any meetings because everyone just assumes I’m in one of the other meetings. Problem solved.

okay, I think I truly get the thing we were talking about earlier on this thread about the "missing stair" ... I understood it in concept before, but now I have first hand experience with this, and good fucking lord, map (I know you have one at work) I truly empathize. In fact, I think map's "missing stair" co-worker is similar to the new person at one of my client sites ...

this person was hired two months ago as "finance co-ordinator" and I know they exaggerated their qualifications (in terms of what they know how to do), the only question is by how much, at this point. This person is, of course, an independent contractor. And this place isn't used to having paid staff. They are volunteer-run, and no one is full-time, and thus there is next to no oversight/accountability when someone doesn't do what they are supposed to be doing. Because this person was a friend of one of the core volunteers and was familiar with one of the projects this place does, I think everyone trusted that they cared about the place, and they would "fit in" and do the work and not waste time and charge for wasting time.

At this point it's almost comical. I was doing a fairly limited set of financial tasks for them. And now, because either this person doesn't know how to do things, doesn't want to do things because they believe these things are "not their job" or are coming up with excuses to delay doing things ... I am doing the majority of this person's work.

I'm going to stop there ... otherwise I can fill the screen with examples and more venting Neando style <3

yikes - yeah it kind of sucks to have to have some of the 'checks and balances' in businesses regarding accountability because often time people who are doing their shit get caught in the crosshairs and it can alienate them. but on the other hand, if you don't have any, it kind of opens up the door for these 'missing stair' folk to come in and essentially not do the majority of their tasks and there aren't any levers to pull to do anything about it. which tbh I understand why that happened when you're volunteer-run and now have paid staff.

so what's the next step - is there someone you can discreetly report it to?

So a coworker is getting ready for her maternity leave and getting all her ducks in a row, understandably. She's pretty thorough and detail oriented, so of course she'd put a lot of thought into this. What I don't like is learning that, previously unbeknownst to me, she has volunteered me (in meetings that I did not, and would never be expected, to attend!) to take over tasks and attend meetings that are normally her responsibility.

Which isn't to say that I wouldn't help with some of this stuff, but maybe have a conversation with me before you volunteer my time and efforts to people?

that's pretty standard SOP - any time I'm missing a significant length of time I have a meeting with whomever my backups are going to be and talk about tasks they'll be taking on, and I document it in a chart. and that way if there's any disconnect about any of the tasks, like that person doesn't think they should be doing some of them, we can talk it out and come to an agreement.

I'm sure something as life-changing as maternity leave, which is overwhelming, probably had her overlook that step (not that I would know nor could I fairly comprehend). but it is indeed important to talk to people about you expect them to do in their absence before it's communicated broadly. I don't even list people on my OOO messages as backups unless they've given me permission.

lol jon, and ugh, sorry ... and thank you Neando ... the missing stair recently attempted to assign even more of their work to me, and I had to say, "You know, when I said I could do x,y,z that you are now putting my name next to, that was before we determined that I was also going to be doing a,b,c, and unfortunately, I don't have the capacity to do x,y,z anymore."

the other complication with "missing stair" is that previously I had done her job (partly through another org I worked for, as in the client wasn't paying for those hours, the org I work for was subsidizing that labor). I quit last summer. But now I am back in a limited capacity after a bunch of stuff got resolved. ... and she is this client's 4th attempt at replacing me.

or rather (sorry for so many posts) my org decided to take a break from working with this client because there were constant conflicts with some new volunteers, who are now gone.

good for you enforcing that boundary early. this isn't an 80s sitcom where someone can randomly just dump files on your desk and walk away.

it's funny how there is a sizable group of people (which includes me) that actually hates delegating for a variety of reasons, and there are some people who feel so comfortable with it they forget they're supposed to be keeping some of the work for themselves too.

xxpost lol don't you love when you leave a position and then you still wind up doing it anyway? hoping they're not taking advantage of the fact that you know how to do their job.

xxpost lol don't you love when you leave a position and then you still wind up doing it anyway?

this is definitely not the first time this has happened to me, lol!

hoping they're not taking advantage of the fact that you know how to do their job.

how would you categorize being condescending and acting like they know more than me?

It reminds me of this anecdote a friend told me. He's a musician in the free improv scene and used to play with this old German musician, Wolfgang Fuchs. And Fuchs would say, "I'm sorry, you can be an asshole or a bad musician, but you cannot be both."

In other words, if this person was nice and appreciative and modest, I would not be as annoyed about doing her work for her.

that's even worse. gahhhhhhhhhhh, you have wayyyyyyyy more patience than me w/ someone like that. that's the type of person I used to have to take a walk around the block before msging...and after msging.

has anybody else also reported issues w/ her? or are you the only one who would notice due to working closely alongside.

well, at least I'm not the only one, that does kinda make things better? ... Basically, all the volunteers in the Finance WG have started a private slack channel for complaining about this person.

oh damn. that truly is a missing stair.

it only makes things somewhat better but i was thinking more of a 'coalition that could approach leaders and say 'we need to talk'"

However, the hiring decision was made by "the board" -- the majority of whom don't really interact with this person, and one of the board members is the friend that proposed that they hire her. so, the board just wants everyone to get along, do the work, and not bring drama to the board.

i think the stated goal of the private slack channel is to formulate the approach to the board ... as in, "we need to talk about a, and it's NOT okay, and here's why"

that's actually a great idea!

*remove superfluous 'actually', didn't mean to sound condescending...posted too fast

yeah, there are some things this org is good at ... they often have very good ideas. They regularly do not follow through on them.

so our SSO link to our training website stopped working for us two weeks ago. I started a ticket and all the person working on it has done for two weeks is the following song and dance:

"Are you still having this issue?" (you mean the one I've emailed you about multiple times this week? yeah it didn't resolve overnight on its own)

"Weird, i can't replicate the issue!" (that's it? you're not willing to help figure this out?)

"Can you share what logins/accounts you're using?" (I've done this five times now, including step by step screenshots - the same ones each time)

This is normally the point where I ask for a meeting but this person works overnight hours, so they're usually leaving when I'm arriving - typically we have to work meetings out in advance so I can log on early or they can stay late.

finally today, we did that after days of begging, and this person finally has promised to take it to the appropriate team to investigate. after two weeks!

I really don't want to be that guy, but this coworker crying at her desk three to four times a week is really grating on my nerves.

I kind of wish I didn't know her at all because I would normally assume some very serious personal issues leading to this much public and demonstrative crying, but she also very loudly lets us know that it's "email A" or "email B" (of which I am often also copied on and spend probably more time than is healthy trying to parse out the upsetting part, but never can) that is the trigger. I just... can't. I think she just hates her job and allows it to hit her in a very raw and personal way... I just wish she'd quit for her own mental health, let alone mine and others in our open office who have expressed similar concerns.

is this the same one who constantly complains about how awful things are or is this a different miserable coworker?

Same one.

Cried twice today already.

If her manager isn't terrible, is it worth cluing them in? Something's really messed up

Her direct supervisor is actually kind of terrible, though he seems to be aware of some of the extent as he's made passing remarks about how she's always upset.

it's a tough situation because I've seen multiple instances of people in my own workplace who are upset and share it loudly with those around them, and the motivations were worlds apart. One was an actual 'missing stair' themselves, a very manipulative person who attempted to improve their standing by imagining transgressions (when they were themselves toxic)...and a friend who was often bullied by the toxic alpha-male Executives in a department full of headhunting jackasses who would go crying to her manager if she did one thing they didn't like. one day, she just broke down and couldn't stop.

your situation doesn't immediately sound like either of these, really, though it's hard to tell without knowing more, though I wonder if the direct supervisor being terrible plays into it at all. there are always co-workers who will make things not about them about themselves and loudly grouse, but...there are also those who are experiencing legit, intense distress on the job, sometimes from toxic people, and if the person they report to doesn't take it seriously, they don't feel empowered to do anything other than try and loudly react to it, to get it out of their system, or hope that someone will rescue them.

but it is still disruptive to a workplace environment, for reasons beyond just distraction - my natural reaction to someone crying is to want to comfort them, and not pretend it isn't happening, but if it's happening all of the time, one can't do that without hampering their own ability to get work done, and there's always the fear that the person will then come to you directly with these things and possibly test boundaries, which isn't good for either of you in a work environment.

is there an HR that could be approached? idk how I would feel about doing that without her knowledge, but if there's any hint that the direct supervisor might weaponize what they are told about this employee, I could understand not wanting to go that route.

btw by not pretend it isn't happening that was not a jab or dig at you jon, more my expression of how I feel uncomfortable doing nothing when someone is crying next to me. that doesn't mean I think doing something is always the appropriate course of action in all contexts, its just my natural instincts to 'feel' as if I'm doing wrong if I do nothing.

Yeah, I wouldn’t get involved. Maybe she has some bad problems in her real life where she can’t show emotions like that (not wanting to alarm kids or whatever) and something small at work just tips her over. Get a good pair of noise canceling headphones, maybe?