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

"hey, two people are getting this error message".

"cool, can you have them try this thing?"

*crickets*

"hi again, I didn't hear back, so here are three questions I have for you, and two things to try, if the issue hasn't resolved, can you answer these?"

"Hi Neanderthal, just confirmed these two learners are still having the issue, plus one additional person"

"so...you ignored my questions, and you didn't try any of the things I asked you to try?"

*crickets*

"cool, here once again are three questions I have for you, and two things to try, if the issue hasn't resolved, can you answer these?"

boy what a week.

we told this new hire to contact IT via web chat to report an issue. they'd inadvertently created a non-urgent online ticket instead of going through IT web chat, which means it will get shoved to the bottom of the priority pile. so I asked the trainer to have them report the issue to IT web chat.

he lets me know he's finished and shares the screenshot, which shows that he had her submit the ticket the exact same (wrong) way a second time. the option for chat is literally named "I want to request help via chat" and both of them inexplicably they picked the other option.

it is good to know that I am not the only one who has these type of people in my work-life

At the bar, I work with mostly great people. But one young woman, the youngest on the crew, gets slowly wine drunk all shift, disappears for long periods, ignores customers in favor of scrolling through her feeds, and shows up wild late and leaves early… yet tips are pooled, and since she is technically there for the same amount of time as the rest of us, she gets paid the same amount for doing much, much less work. Drives me up a wall, and it is driving my coworkers up a wall, too.

my coworker cannot keep track of her emails even on a good day, but when she travels it’s worse

she emails me to send her a proposal “in a ‘clean email’ so i can easily forward” (deep eyeroll from me bc that means now there’s going to be two chains for the same goddamn thing)

ok. so i do that. subject line clearly calling out HEY THIS IS THE THING YOU JUST ASKED FOR

two hours later, she replies on her original request “hey did you send this”?

me: yes, sent in a clean email like you asked (attaches clean email)

later:

her: ohhhh i didn’t see it thank you!

me: muffled screaming

I’ve worked for the same small business forever and it’s well documented on this thread that my boss was an incredibly frustrating person to work. She’s the kind of person who’s owned her own business since she was in her early 20s - she’s now about 65-70 - because in her own words she’s literally incapable of working for anyone else. Disorganized, scatterbrained, a poor communicator, etc etc.

Well, at the end of the last year she finally managed to convince someone to buy her failing business (she’s remortgaged her house multiple times over the 40+yrs of running this business, it hasn’t made a profit in god knows how long. RC is in her 30s, owns a couple other businesses, has long resume in event planning - she sounded like someone who was gonna come on board and really turn things around.

Nope.

I moved states in March and was obviously going to be quitting but RC wanted me to stay on remotely and help with the transition and some backend work online. It’s been so fuxking frustrating.
- She asks me the same questions repeatedly because she loses the info/doesn’t organize the info.
- despite having run two other businesses she doesn’t seem to grasp basic business concepts, like gross and net numbers.
- she never proofreads her texts and they’re often really garbled to the point that context isn’t even helpful.
- she overly complicates every single process. I created really efficient and readable spreadsheets for a couple of processes and she keeps putting info in the wrong fields, adding extraneous columns, not using a consistent format, creating extra spreadsheets requiring the same info to be added to multiple sheets in different ways.
- I had to train her and her business partner on how to do the dyeing, over the phone, because my replacement quit after a couple months because she couldn’t handle the job*. This was a NIGHTMARE. Dyeing is a very straightforward process but these two women - one of whom I’d trained in person several times, and had written out very clear instructions for - just couldn’t get a single fucking thing right.
- I have a million more complaints but I’ll leave it there.

*so the last 3yrs I’ve been hella depressed and my old boss was out of the country 6mo of the year so I was honestly barely working. Like I wouldn’t bother going in for 2 weeks (but I was still claiming hours worked). I legit worked maybe a third of the hours I was paid for. I figured I was gone look bad when I left and my replacement starting getting way more done in half the time. But the opposite happened - she was working twice as much and getting only about a third of the work done (and badly), so now everyone thinks I’m a rockstar. When you hate working you just get really good at making shit highly efficient and streamlined and don’t tell anyone.

she never proofreads her texts and they’re often really garbled to the point that context isn’t even helpful.
- she overly complicates every single process. I created really efficient and readable spreadsheets for a couple of processes and she keeps putting info in the wrong fields, adding extraneous columns, not using a consistent format, creating extra spreadsheets requiring the same info to be added to multiple sheets in different ways.

I feel sympathetic anger and frustration about this! ... There is a person at one of my jobs who is basically the same ... they want to learn financial stuff, like bookkeeping (my job), but they are just very not good at it. They were making these spreadsheets that were inconsistent, incorrect (info in wrong fields!), and apparently taking quite a while to do it ... So I came up with a simpler method to do what they had been doing, using the Project Management Software that everyone in that department uses, so that it would also be more efficient, and less likely that things are missing or wrong.

Now, this person, wanting to continue to be helpful, and further their learning, has now started making extraneous, inaccurate, and half-assed spreadsheets for other financial information.

I have showed this person how to export reports from the accounting software into spreadsheet format.
They said they understood.
They have now admitted, they did not understand how to create and export reports from the accounting software.
This is very user friendly accounting software with numerous tutorials and help menus.
This person apparently doesn't find those useful.

We’re just using google sheets, and the two main examples of problems are ridiculously simple - one is a sheet that tracks special orders (i.e. items not in stock in the store) for customers, and the other is sheet that sorts those orders by color so the workshop knows what needs to be dyed. The other problem is that there are 10 or so store staff and not a single one has managed to fill out the special order sheet correctly in 3 months. I go in and fix them every time, so now there are 70+ orders that are correct - they just have to look at any one of those 70 examples of how to do it right.

I understand some people just aren’t very smart but this is just lazy ignorance.

they just have to look at any one of those 70 examples of how to do it right.

<3 <3

this person's original effort at financial spreadsheets was tracking income from event rentals. They would regularly record the income in the "received" column before we actually received it. So there was no simple way of seeing who had not paid for their event. Some events require a deposit paid prior to the event itself. The amount of the deposit would not regularly get recorded.

We’re just using google sheets, and the two main examples of problems are ridiculously simple - one is a sheet that tracks special orders (i.e. items not in stock in the store) for customers, and the other is sheet that sorts those orders by color so the workshop knows what needs to be dyed. The other problem is that there are 10 or so store staff and not a single one has managed to fill out the special order sheet correctly in 3 months. I go in and fix them every time, so now there are 70+ orders that are correct - they just have to look at any one of those 70 examples of how to do it right.

I understand some people just aren’t very smart but this is just lazy ignorance.

― just1n3, Monday, July 24, 2023 1:30 AM bookmarkflaglink

there is definitely a personality type that willfully disregards the proper way to do things because "who cares, if it's wrong, they'll fix it", and with little regard for the person that has to do that time and again. fucking hate that shit.

I'm sorry to hear about the mess at your company :(

one of our partner sites keeps swapping out trainers on me at the 11th hour. Not due to illness or unforeseen personal circumstances, but because of scheduling conflicts on their end. it's making them look really disorganized.

this morning, I was told they were replacing one of the instructors with another, hours before I was supposed to meet with them. annoying, but whatever. then an hour later, they told me they had to replace the replacement.

last week, I prepped a trainer for 5 days along with their co-instructor, only for them to replace the trainer the day training started. that completely destroys the chemistry between instructors and gives me no time to react to it.

trainer: Hi Neanderthal, lots of learners still reporting technical issues, we really need to get this fixed ASAP.

Me: Who is having them? and what issues? do they already have ticket numbers? I asked you to gather all of this on Friday and this morning.

trainer: we just really need to get this fixed ASAP or come up with a Plan B.

Me: Who is having them? and what issues? do they already have ticket numbers? I asked you to gather all of this on Friday and this morning.

trainer: just so you know, assessment is coming up in a half hour, we really need to have this fixed

Me: WHO...IS...HAVING THEM? WHAT ISSUES? DO THEY ALREADY HAVE TICKET NUMBERS? I CAN'T JUST WAVE A FUCKING WAND!

<3 clearly you are a duct taper

yup.

big diff between last year when I had an almost rage-quit meltdown and this year is that we have 7 more people on my team this year than last year, so I have a lot more help. which is why I'm still aggravated but not flipping out.

i had a thing a couple weeks ago that was similarly absurd

Them: Can you get us the lease for this project that got awarded a grant?
Me: They don't have a lease. They are essentially a committee/department of the org that owns the building
Their friend: Hey so I'm helping with this grant stuff, and do you think you can help me find the lease?
Me: There is no lease. The project is part of the org that owns the building. They can't lease space to themself.
Their 2nd friend: Hi, I am helping "Them" find stuff for this grant, and I was looking in the shared google folder and I can't find a lease ... do you know where I can find it?
Me: (in an email to Them, Their Friend, Their 2nd Friend) I have been asked by all of you about this lease for a grant, and there actually isn't a lease. Here is what I would communicate to the funder. Please feel free to c&p this in response to the funder's email

to add to the frustration, I was asked for a handful of things when they were applying for this grant. During this discussion I clarified, that the project is not its own entity. It is part of the org that owns the building, which is why the grant applicant info had to be that of the larger org.

But, even after that, no one changed the language that some nice volunteer had written in the grant application "project leases space in the building" ... hence the funder asking for a copy of the lease ... which doesn't exist.

I feel like there is a certain personality type that can't adjust to new information after an initial communication. So, whether it's an email with a mistake that you correct via email, or your situation, no matter how many times you correct the mistake in subsequent communication, they gravitate back towards the initial instruction and 'forget' the new instructions, over and over again. and if called on it, they point back to the initial communication, and leave out the fact that you sent numerous follow-ups - even ones they possibly acknowledged and responded to!.

That's why I stress so much about emails containing instructions, because I know if I make a mistake, even if I catch it quickly and submit a correction, there's a non-zero number of people who will never be able to get past what I initially said.

some of said people are probably pedants that think it's ridiculous that it was wrong the first time and subconsciously manifest that resentment into forgetfulness about subsequent instructions, but that's probably a huge oversimplification.

i think some people just don't read things that closely -- whether it's because of inattentiveness or lack of caring/dgaf -- or if the "new information" is contrary to what they want to hear.

I'm guilty of logorrhea in work chat and my strategy for combating that is self-editing down to nearly nothing. Still doesn't always work.

it's really funny when you edit a thought down to two or three words, though

lol yeah. I can never send any message these days in just one draft. I'm always surprised at how many redundant words/phrases and qualifiers I initially employ, like I'm expecting the initial email to encompass the entirety of the conversation.

it's always 'first draft = just write the thing as ugly and longwinded as possible so you have something to edit', 'second draft = ok make it make sense to your audience', 'third draft = ok now say it with 70% less words'.

*before sending, obv. it would probably be amusing seeing multiple drafts of the same message sent back to back to back though

it's worth sending an initial message with the barest bones of what you're thinking to see what direction your coworkers will misunderstand things

human communication is difficult if not impossible

re sarah’s predicament

i find too this happens so much when coworkers get asks from higherups

they refuse to draw on information they already have ~especially~ if the answer is “no we don’t have that”
instead they just push it down the chain VP IS ASKING FOR THIS DO WE HAVE IT so that i am then the one on record saying “no we dont have that we never had it and if one more person asks i’m taking you all with me”

it’s like they think the seniority of the person asking somehow magically changes the answer idk

magical thinking for sure

some of said people are probably pedants that think it's ridiculous that it was wrong the first time and subconsciously manifest that resentment into forgetfulness about subsequent instructions, but that's probably a huge oversimplification.

― linoleum gallagher (Neanderthal), Monday, July 31, 2023 12:07 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think this is a perceptive observation tbh

also I rarely do multiple drafts unless it's a super sensitive thing where I am representing others and they should have input, though I re-write and edit as I go ... and then have to go back a final time to make sure I don't have any grammatical errors from rewording things.

My "key thing" is to always put the thing I want the other person/people to do/respond to in the first paragraph.

If they have to spend more than 2 minutes reading/looking for what I expect them to do/hope that they will do ... I have noticed that they will be way more prone to ignore the whole thing.

Of course, if your goal is to have them ignore it or just realize it isn't worth spending the time and you clearly have it all thought through and know what you're doing and they would be thrilled to just let you do what you are proposing to do so that they can avoid it ... (which sometimes, tbh, is the goal) then definitely bury the lede.

more like "bitch about your asshole co-workers" but today that person is me.

I was rushing around all morning putting out all kinds of fires for my team and that's when I tend to make mistakes. so I mistakenly report that someone didn't take an assessment (despite them insisting they did the day before), only to find out they did, but it showed on a different screen, which I knew but forgot in the heat of the moment.

obviously I rushed to announce I had made a mistake, took accountability, and said I will do better next time (fortunately within minutes of the notification going out), but I feel like a humongous asshole. that could have gotten someone in trouble if I hadn't been quick to catch my mistake. :(

i mean i'm not afraid of repercussions or anything, I have no problem saying "shit I fucked up", but it is just upsetting to me when I do things like this carelessly that could impact other people.

Two months ago I was invited to sit in an hour and a half training for software that I will never use, designed for a department I never work with, in a capacity that is about as far removed from my actual job as anything could possibly be. I was invited because the third-party software vendor worked with me previously on developing a completely separate software solution. It was a wasted 90 minutes for me, but these things happen. They've been trying to schedule a 2 hour follow-up for several weeks now and since I was on the the previous training session, I've been copied on all the communications for trying to set up the new one. When questions of scheduling came up, I clearly stated several times that they should schedule without me as there is no need for me to attend. Last Friday the software vendor contact in charge of setting up the training even called me to ask if it was fine if he left me off the invite, I responded with an enthusiastic yes.

Fast forward to yesterday. A co-worker forwarded me the invite, copied everyone even tangentially involved, and added, "Oops! Looks like you forgot to include jon/via/chi! I'm adding him now". As I was drafting my response about not attending, my boss' boss hopped in with, "Great! I'm so glad jon/via/chi can attend now, I can jump on a different, conflicting call instead".

Infinite facepalms and an afternoon's productivity lost.

i often wonder about people who have jobs where they have the agency and autonomy to fill their work schedules with totally pointless activities that are mostly trainings and meetings. As in, they choose these things. They somehow see them as productive and relevant. Perhaps they have their own message board called MDXor.com where they complain about their co-workers who are people like us?

mdxor 1: I can't believe jon doesn't want to participate in this training. So what if it's something he will never use? He should just do it because YOLO
mdxor 2: otm - who doesn't like learning about all the software solutions?

lol yes, the co-worker in question who snitched me into the training absolutely looooooves trainings, she volunteers for them and watches the ones she can't attend on replay later (there's an argument to be made that this is due to a failure in our management to give her enough to do, but that's a separate type of complaint I have)

is she a "live laugh love" person too?

meanwhile yesterday I filled out a survey for one of my workplaces, because we were going to get paid to do it. No one else had responded to the request, so I did it. One of the questions was about our "governance structure" ... options were "hierarchical", "distributed" and "other" ... I chose "other" and put "non-hierarchical/chaotic"

xp - ha, now that you mention it... not exactly, but i can see how she's whatever the younger millennial version of that might be called. like 10 years ago she 100% would have been a "live laugh love" person, but is young enough to consider that tacky so it's all "notorious RBG" swag on her desk.

here they've changed the training system so everyone has to do the mandatory training again. it's like it's lost all our saved games.

my week summed up:

"You've been leading this training class for years - why are you making mistakes like this is your first time?"

as a callback to talk upthread about people who willfully don't want to learn current processes....

whenever there's a GUI issue, there's a simple process for starting a ticket. I shared these details over and over again with the same people, who sometimes asked for them even after they'd already successfully submitted them. it was tiring.

they changed ticketing systems earlier this year. our boss told us all months ago to get used to it, register, and make sure we understood how to use it.

so the GUI issue comes up again and I was out yesterday and my backup hasn't learned how to use the new ticketing system, so he reports the issue via email to the guy who usually fixes it, and of course, nothing gets done.

Ugh … do you need more duct tape??

srsly. and now of course since this didn't get done yesterday, the issue persisted into today, and now the person who needs to fix it is otherwise distracted.

it's sure fun trying to run a training class when all of the standard processes we have in place for catching up learners who miss time and people who are at risk are being vetoed by our partner client (when they don't really have the authority to do that), and yet nobody higher up in my dept wants to step in and actually talk to them. so I promise to my instructors these things will happen and look like a liar when they don't.

that and banning OT a little over a day before training which turned everything into a logistical nightmare = I'm literally LOLing at how bad this is going.

so tired of this same old song and dance:

Step 1 - person x makes out of left field request that is only tangentially related to what our department does, has an unrealistic deadline and will take significant resources on our end

Step 2 - department head internally says to our team, effectively, "no way in hell, that's not our job, we don't have time for that"

Step 3 - department head responds to person x's initial request "sure, we'll get right on that!"

Like I don't know what happens between steps 2 and 3, but oh boy it would be nice for that support of our team's resources and capacity to be expressed externally even just once, for a little treat.

xp - ugh, sometimes LOL is the only sane response

xp jon -- do you ask? Like, perhaps this is me envisioning a sane functional workplace that does not exist, but, in this hypothetical sane functional workplace, I would ask, "Yo, Chief, didn't you say there was no chance in hell we would do that? What's the story? Do we actually have to do it, and if so, why?"

And I am no stranger to having to do other people's jobs for them as well as things that aren't my/our department ... in just this one job where I've been part-time (and before that a contractor) for 5 years, the list of these things is ... long. Some of them are like "this thing seems worth developing the capacity to do" which leads to "let's spend countless hours learning about this thing and getting supplies/software so that we can do it" ... and most of the time, we don't end up doing it more than once.

Like, three years ago the thing was "Property Needs Assessments" ... and I (on the request of my co-worker) spent many hours researching PNAs, what they looked like, what went in them, how the reports were formatted, what the underlying methodology and standards are for conducting them, summarizing these standards in google docs, explaining them to my co-worker, and then we ended up doing all of two PNAs. ... Granted, the stupid ASTM methodology guide was useful in re other things as it gave me a checklist of all the different building systems and components that I will use when doing walkthroughs and other things.

I've actually gently asked in the past and gotten some variation of the, "well so-and-so thinks this is important, so we better do it". Which I totally get and that will happen, senior leadership wants to push through pet projects, etc etc. My frustration is more born out of the fact that we (using "we" as our department, in general) consistently cave immediately to the slightest insistence that THIS one is the important one. It just would be nice for someone with any leadership weight to say even, "listen, I know you think this is important but the last time you asked us for a rush plan, you ended up sitting on it for six months. given our current workload and priorities, I just can't promise the turnaround you're asking for right now but we can revisit in a few weeks". You know?