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

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?

I'm anxiously awaiting tomorrow because a project in which I'm ONLY responsible for the training portion of goes live, and it's equal parts training agents and "training the trainer", the actual team managers who will be responsible for handling any issues post-live. this group has mostly ignored three weeks of exerted pleas from me to spend the time after training re-reviewing materials, asking questions, reviewing job aids, so they can be ready to support.

so I'm spending today being Helicopter Neanderthal, making sure they did all these things that are usually routine, which is frankly something I don't like being on the receiving end of, so I really hate doing.

its just my natural instincts to 'feel' as if I'm doing wrong if I do nothing.

same here. though I was in a position a while back where I did intercede and it ended up coming back on me in this totally weird/dysfunctional way.

though, sadly, it is good to know that jon just has one very demonstratively unhappy coworker and not two ... when I thought he might be talking about two different people, I was wondering, "Wtf is wrong with jon's workplace?!!!"

in my world of annoying coworkers ... the missing stair from last week? ... well, two of the volunteers that are on the team that the missing stair "coordinates" publicly complained about her. My first response was diplomatic ... I too am a paid contractor and I don't want to get involved, but if you want professional evaluation of this person's work (or lack thereof), I can give it. ... but then I went very much in character and made a list of the things that if I were in her role I would be doing, and noted that she was doing hardly anything on these tasks, and in one case, was actively blocking it getting done.

My actual coworker (my colleague that works for the org that I work for that is helping this other org that hired the missing stair) ... did his classic thing where he wrote a lengthy message which addressed most of the same concerns/points I had already made, but didn't acknowledge that I had already said the same thing ... but at least this time he did initially say he hadn't read everyone else's responses before adding his own ... and compared to this org's missing stair, my coworker is incredibly great.

And I know this isn't the "compliment your actually pretty okay coworkers" thread but ... in the past week, he did actually follow through on the next step for this project that we had gotten a grant for that we hadn't really been doing much work on, and I was lowkey getting anxious about having to report on our progress to the funder ... so things are kinda looking up?

So it sounds like missing stair may be discovered soon, sounds like the rumblings are increasing.

Hoping that some of it will drift to the board so that when you make your coordinated approach, they already have a whiff.

Lol at replying prior to reading responses, I read emails in reverse order to prevent that.

yeah, the volunteers basically expressed their concerns to the board and at least one of the board members has engaged in that conversation and they were discussing the flaws in the hiring process and oversight.

One thing this org is great about is ... finding fault with each other and complaining about it.

things are less tense than they were last summer when every day there would be a minor difference of opinion that would be called out as a racist microaggression, gaslighting, or white supremacy culture.

Been a crazy busy day for me, not ignoring the posts, particularly appreciated your thoughtful post Neando. This particularly stuck out for me:

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.

This is the thing, when it first started happening, I would awkwardly try to offer a little sympathy and empathy, but I think that was a mistake, because now she feels comfortable with the latter - if I (and others in our office, tbf) don't acknowledge and ask her what's wrong, she'll wait until the senior leaders are out for a meeting or whatever, then come dump it all on me anyway. It puts me in an awkward position for sure and, considering how often it happens, I really run out of pat things to say. I know I'm not imagining this, another co-worker has explicitly told me that she purposely schedules as many meetings and tasks outside of the office as possible every day, so she can avoid her.

I guess I'm more venting than anything, because I really don't know what to do. sunny's point about headphones is a good one, I typically have my earbuds in when I'm able, but she will straight up just come stand and look at me until I take them out an acknowledge her. I'm kinda cursing my past self for being empathetic enough to open the door like this in the first place. HR probably isn't a good idea because their first response is always to reach out to direct supervisor to follow-up so, effectively, it would be like going to him directly anyway and I really fear how he would punish her for this. Right now I'm just mostly silently hoping she hits a point where she quits.

Like a fairly specific example of how tough it is - I just walked back into the office from a meeting and said "hi" as I walked by her desk (she's the only other one in this afternoon) and her word for word response was, "don't worry, you didn't miss anything, I've just been sitting here crying X's latest email". And I hate myself a little for it, but my initial thought is, "oh christ, here we go again, I can't do this".

You could try telling her to quit

“This job seems to make you miserable, you should get a different one”

I've tried a few variations of that over the past few months, usually along the lines of, "I'm not sure this job is worth how miserable it makes you". Not sure how much it lands. Anyway, don't expect an easy solution here, it's just been something I've struggled with and appreciate this venue to vent a little.

my boss, who has been told multiple times over three years that any server issue in our GUI system affect ALL training databases as they are all tied to the same core GUI system, and that it requires a work ticket to fix, continues to ask people to change databases to fix the problem, which does nothing but delay the solution.

idk how many times I can tell him. but otoh my performance review looks better each time I correct him.

it feels a bit pass-agg tbh ... idk ... I am just going to assume you have tried the direct approach and it failed? Or you just don't have the emotional energy to deal.

How to handle the situation really depends on how much you actually like this person. It's okay to not like them. It isn't like she's your wife or kid(s) or best friend. But here are some more suggestions if you care about this person's well-being:

1. "I am sorry things are so shitty for you right now, but during the work day, I really need to focus on getting my shit done, but maybe we can talk about your issues after work some time?" (alternatively, if you have break-times that line up, talk to her then, but only then). ... If she has an outburst or problem while you are working, say a quick "I'm sorry, I can't" and get back to work.

2. "It hurts me to see how horrible this situation is for you, but I don't think I can do anything about it. Can I? Is there something I can do in my position that you think would make things less shitty for you?" -- this is to establish whether she wants you to do something. Also, ideally, it would get her to actually be empowered to come up with concrete ways her job could be improved ... or, come to the conclusion that there isn't anything to be done and she can just quit.

3. Tell her about all the problems you are having in your life outside of work that you are struggling to handle while still being functional on the job to reverse roles and put her in a listener/sympathizer position, as opposed to victim.

^ that was an xp re jon and not Neando's GUI issue

That's good advice, I do generally like her and feel bad that she always seems to be suffering, but I'll be honest, the more I see her dumping her problems on other people in the office while flat out cutting off anyone else who complains, I'm starting to like her less and less. She doesn't seem very receptive to the advice that myself and others have shared, sadly I think I just need to wait her out until she quits or something else changes.

On a lighter note, I believe I broke another coworker's brain this morning when I told her I didn't watch the Super Bowl. Six hours later and she has brought it up no less than four separate times, "I can't believe you don't watch the Super Bowl! what kind of person are you?". The first time I said something vague about not being into football and especially the NFL, but apparently I might as well have told her I absorb nutrients through my eyeballs.

I just say “yeah it was a great game” to anyone who doesn’t know me who brings it up. I’m from Philly, and I didn’t watch— I read a weird novel and played guitar instead lmfao

Exactly what I should have said, but I was afraid to get pressed on details about specific commercials or plays or whatever. Next year.

even worse than the IRS pushing through withholding changes for pension/401k that turned a simple election into a nightmarishly long one that can take 10-15 minutes to discuss...

is the IT team behind our training environment mistakenly thinking this was an optional change that teams could adopt or opt out of, and not coding any of it, so now our training systems have all of the old elections and we can't show them the new way in class.

but mostly fuck the IRS on this one.

Less of a specific coworker, but raging about an entire dysfunctional department.

Another coworker is going on maternity leave starting on Friday. This has been known for many months now, been on the calendar, everyone has been aware.

I find out just today, via a tossed off aside in another email, that starting Monday, I will be taking over 50% of her job responsibilities for the three months she is gone. I've had no direct conversation with anyone about this, much less her. I have no idea how this works, what the expectations are, just that suddenly, following that tossed off aside, I have now been added to three(!) weekly meetings that she typically attends.

To be clear, she's not the stupid, annoying coworker in this situation, just the fact that none of the managers or leadership have planned for her absence at. fucking. all. Someone panicked today and realized she wasn't going to be here next week and apparently the path of least resistance was to just, POOF!, make it my problem. My current project load cannot realistically support this, normally I'd loop my boss into this to make him aware of the change in my workload but, darn it, he just left the country for a multi-week trip.

Missing Stair got fired last night. ... it was not a pleasant meeting. I had intended to not attend the meeting (I am not obligated to attend every meeting.) just so I could be "professional" and "above the fray" but I was requested to assess the truth of what Missing Stair was saying and whether they were doing work of value, and ... I don't take the same enjoyment in calling someone an incompetent liar "to their face" as I did when I was younger.

Basically one of the issues for me was this person was claiming or seriously implying that they were doing work in the accounting system. The accounting system keeps a log of user activity. I have access to this log and this person hadn't logged in in at least a month (unless they had serious hacker chops and could mimic the user login of the Automated System Administration).

https://i.imgur.com/YEocCsQ.jpg

Missing Stair got fired last night. ... it was not a pleasant meeting. I had intended to not attend the meeting (I am not obligated to attend every meeting.) just so I could be "professional" and "above the fray" but I was requested to assess the truth of what Missing Stair was saying and whether they were doing work of value, and ... I don't take the same enjoyment in calling someone an incompetent liar "to their face" as I did when I was younger.

― sarahell, Friday, February 17, 2023 11:21 AM bookmarkflaglink

ugh - I know what you mean. even if something is accurate, it can still feel ugly inside to say these things to another person. i'm much the same way.

I'm happy they made what seems to be the right decision but I know that had to be a tough situation for you. :(

Basically one of the issues for me was this person was claiming or seriously implying that they were doing work in the accounting system. The accounting system keeps a log of user activity. I have access to this log and this person hadn't logged in in at least a month (unless they had serious hacker chops and could mimic the user login of the Automated System Administration).

― sarahell, Friday, February 17, 2023 11:27 AM bookmarkflaglink

I'm so paranoid about every little thing I do being watched that it kinda boggles my mind that there are still employees who don't just blanket assume that everything they do leaves a footprint (or everything they don't do leaves a lack of one).

the "computer made a mistake" defense also never works.

like there are definitely people at my place who have done stupid shit thinking nobody could track it.

Security person told us lots of people used customer data to apply for credit cards and buy shit, falsely believing that since our VPN connected to a server in Illinois, that all computers would appear to be from the same IP and that nobody could track where the illegal purchases were being made from. and acted surprised when they got caught. def a 'lemon juice invisibility' moment.

we also had a very high profile arrest of two agents in my office, as well as a Trust vendor back around 2008-2009, when my company was under another name. they had conspired to steal an old lady's pension, and uh they were pretty easily apprehended (word to the wise - if you're going to steal, perhaps don't use someone who is likely to be the first, most obvious suspect when the money does missing). the two agents were perp-walked out of our Orlando office. it made national news and hurt our reputation a bit.

feel bad for people who do obvious, easy-to-detect fraud…they probably think they're being so clever…

now I'm suspicious of whether I just sussed out Neando's employer

if so, lol you gotta get out of there

feel bad for people who do obvious, easy-to-detect fraud…they probably think they're being so clever…

― G. D’Arcy Cheesewright (silby), Friday, February 17, 2023 9:54 AM (one hour ago)

yeah ... at a place I worked 20 years ago there had been a ring of people who would come in with fake w-2s in order to get tax credits, and they were all from "Ross Stores" but the forger wasn't a very good speller because the w-2 said "Ross Sores"

i had a missing stair supervisor once, who effectively did the same thing i did, but just had the lead role with slightly more organizational work. the job involved database shit, and we'd log in and ID our files by name. i worked pretty fast and did a lot of work, but what i eventually noticed was the amount of work i was doing was decreasing retroactively in the system, and i saw that not only was my supervisor not doing that much work, but she was changing work i'd done to be shown as work she'd done. it was really, really tough since she was someone who'd always been nice to me but was over time clearly someone who was dancing on the edge of sanity. i had to take my boss aside and tell him what was up, and insisted that i didn't want her to lose her job over it, but i just didn't want anyone thinking i wasn't doing my fair share. he acknowledged it and all was good for me, but they kept her around. i don't know that she actually did ANY work.

now I'm suspicious of whether I just sussed out Neando's employer

if so, lol you gotta get out of there

― mh, Friday, February 17, 2023 1:37 PM bookmarkflaglink

haha i knew i left too many breadcrumbs.

lmao at Ross Sores

omar yeah it's hard in those situations to protect yourself as you need to while trying to be sensitive to the other person. esp since we know managers often tend to be 'snip snip' in regards to problems

xxp it's ok, if it's who I'm thinking of, I have a friend trying to get out of IT there and a number of other friends and family who have cycled through. A job's a job

I feel bad for a guy who posted on a friend's preferred messageboard today. He was bitching about my employer, but because he'd been laid off from a contracting job in the corporate IT realm. Because corporate put the contracts out for bid again and this particular guy's employer isn't in the pool that won the contracts.

I have no doubt this is a guy people were complaining about for some reason and a number of his contractor peers were stupid and annoying, but the way contracting and vendors work, many of them never have a chance to be anything but stupid and annoying for anyone who's one of their full-time peers.

i had to take my boss aside and tell him what was up, and insisted that i didn't want her to lose her job over it, but i just didn't want anyone thinking i wasn't doing my fair share. he acknowledged it and all was good for me, but they kept her around. i don't know that she actually did ANY work.

i was kinda at that point with this person last month, but the difference is that this is a small nonprofit where everyone else is a volunteer, so the fact this person was getting paid for not really doing any real work was not sitting well with a few volunteers who do a lot of work and don't get paid, including one who a few months back was basically living out of their vehicle because they couldn't afford rent.

By no means a unique complaint, as I've seen it at every job I've ever held, but it continues to amaze me that "well I didn't answer you because you didn't pester me enough" is a defensible excuse for not responding to things.

Had a meeting this morning with someone that I've been trying to get information out of for about a week now, having sent three emails and left a voicemail. The question gets brought up in the meeting and he immediately got defensive, saying, "hey, if this was so important you should have just kept bothering me until I responded". And one of the other senior management people in the meeting looked at me and said, "yes, you really need to keep at it to get information from busy people".

Like, wtf, three emails and a voicemail in a week is a lot! Every one of them clearly stated that I needed to have the info by the end of last week. Your choice to not respond to me doesn't just suddenly become my fault because it makes you look busier/more important! I've got a lot of things to do to buddy!

I get saying that if you send one solitary email two weeks in advance of deadline and never follow-up on it again and ambush them, but fuck that in your case, you did more than enough

xp - ugh, I've been there ... maybe that reasoning would be valid if the "busy person" was someone outside your company/org that you were supposed to motivate to do a thing ... but this is a coworker, you are all on the same team so to speak? You should be working together, right? idk just a crazy thought.

I have also been the busy person though ... and I have definitely felt that defensiveness tbh ... but then I get real with myself/the situation and acknowledge that I was not blameless in this.

unless jon works for Glengarry Glen Ross ... you are good here.

lol

Not really worried about it, more just noting that I've seen that excuse fly before.

Yeah, he's a coworker, though not someone I work with on a daily basis. His reaction was whatever, I could tell he realized he forgot and was making a lame excuse, it happens. Wasn't really annoyed at all until the other guy poked at it. What, you want I should camp out in front of his office every morning?