This will sound crazy, but I have a coworker that can be an extreme pain in the ass. The reason it makes me kinda mad is because she forces me to “get case of the ass” in military jargon when I shouldn’t have to. This is probably the easiest assignment in the ENTIRE armed forces. Hell, I was on 3 different types of blood pressure medicine when I got here. Now my BP is controlled to a level that I’m only one, well, two, but I’m not in the 172/118 range anymore.
This person is an E4, (Senior Airman in the Air Force, equivalent to an army specialist/corporal) and we both work for a civilian boss, and you’d think she’d have some common freakin’ sense. She’s not a bad person, and she sometimes hangs out with my wife. But she’s in her early 20’s and its obvious that she’s gotten away with stuff at former assignments playing the “I’m a girl” card. She hates to be alone, and constantly has to have someone to talk to. She used to call me in my office all of the time saying she needed help with a particular task and when I came to see what was up it was a one person job. So I had to explain in small words to not call me for stupid shit.
She honestly said to me once when I told her to do something “Ok, 'll do it. You kind of outrank me.”:eek:
I was so shocked I couldn’t help but yell. “Kind of? Airman I DO outrank you. I tell you do something the only thing I want to hear back is “Yes, sergeant”. Did you even GO to basic training?”.
And she’s suprised the first sergeant wrote on her evaluation 'has trouble following basic orders." Geez.
I thought she got the idea. So one day she calls me and says she has a problem in one department fixing a broken PC and needs help. I stop what I’m doing, go to the office she called from and she ain’t there. Theres a coffee shop in that bldg so I look in there. She’s drinking fuckin’ coffee with a friend of hers. Reigning in my temper, I ask her what the problem is. She says that the PC needs to be replaced and she’d have to make two trips to the storage room to carry both the monitor and the PC. Its a 2 minute trip to do so. Most anyone would have just taken the stuff and came back with a new one. It would take maybe 30 minutes tops. Less if she went and just got a cart from the store room. So I had to be all like “Step outside here with me” not wanting to explode in front of the people in the coffee shop. I thought were past that point, honestly, where she did this dumb shit.
ME: Look, I don’t know what it was like wherever you came from, but you don’t call a senior NCO saying you need help carrying a fuckin’ PC…on a task that you could yourself in a half hour. Especially when I have to come from another building stopping what I was doing to get here. If you seriusly need help, its not a problem, but this isn’t one of those times. You especially don’t call me and then go drink coffee and yak to your friends when I get here. Thats unacceptable, Airman. I don’t work for you.**
HER**: *But if you carry the PC I can take the monitor and it only takes 15 minutes (first name). *
ME: *I don’t work for you, and I don’t take orders from you either. And cut the first name shit out, too. We’re on duty, you address me as “sergeant”…got it? I’m going back to my office and you’re gonna finish this job right now. By the time I get there you’d better be done, too…I will be checking the work log. Don’t talk, just get your ass in gear. * (And I’m toning it down here, I really did go nuclear when I said this with more…uh, colorful language.)
So she slinks off, does it. (even her friend who is an Air force NCO) told me she knew I was gonna go apeshit when she called me. Even my wife, who was a platoon sergeant when she was in the military told her that she had to cut this crap out as a friend. Its obvious that wherever she was posted last she got a lot the guys to do stuff for her “because she’s a girl”. I really don’t play that.
So fine…I’m really an easy going guy, so later I gave her another verbal counseling about it, because I know it was her need to have someone to constantly talk to that made her call me. Of course our civilian boss found out and chewed her ass some more, so she stopped doing that crap.
So monday rolls around again…in this place we don’t have medical facilities. If you’re sick you go to a civilian doctor in the village. So unlike a normal post, if you say, get the flu you don’t have to go to a doctor and produce asick call slip to not go to work. You can justy call and say “I’m not feeling well, I have a temperature…is it okay if I stay home.” Surprisingly no one milks this here. What does she do? She claims to be sick but instead of calling my boss or me, she calls my wife (who works in a different department but sees my boss several times during a work day…and my wife is a former servicemember) to tell my boss she’s sick. I almost went through the freaking roof. You don’t call through proxy. Our boss is a retired marine, so he was not happy. The next day he went ballistic when she came inand when she got all sad about it I reminded her you could have avoided that ass chewing by calling me, the boss or one of the other TEN people in this department and telling them you were sick. No one would have even questioned it. What are you stupid? You call MY wife, who doesn’t have anything to do with this department to tell our boss you were sick? Now every time you say you’re sick they’re going to make you prove it. You fucked this up yourself.
Its like she doesn’t realize she’s in the military. If this were god help her and army post, they’d have slammed her by now. This place is too easy to work in. She just doesn’t think before she does something. Hell, I wouldn’t have cared if she were sick or not. The first sergeant wouldn’t have cared…all she had to do was to have called me, the boss, or even one of the german soldiers in the office and say “I’m sick”. Even worse, she could have just asked for the day off if she was faking. Our boss is so tired of yelling at her he would have let her have it. I had one of the Air Force Senior NCO’s speak to her about this kinda stuff (technically, she’s their problem, so they can write her up)…its like she’s unable to get a fucking clue.