I’m just sick of her so you all get to hear about it.
She hates her job. Our job (there are only two of us) consists of showing up relatively on time, reading things on the internet, listening to the radio and doing a little cashiering every 20 minutes or so. We have a VERY lenient workplace. (hence, I spend all my free time in the pit ) Every DAY I get to hear her whine about how
a. she has no money
b. she hates this job
c. (ten minutes after we open) “Is it time to go home yet?”
Repeat ad nauseum.
This is not a once in a while thing. Everyone has bad days where all they want to do is go home and sleep. I have these days, but I try to keep them to myself and do my job. Also, you could try LOOKING for another job. That’s usually how you find them.
She hates her husband. I get to hear all of his faults. Admittedly, he has some faults that would make me mad, too. (He refuses to drink anything but soda or beer with meals. This is weird. He does not have a job nor is he looking. This is lazy/depressive behavior. She buys him soda and beer and then complains about not having any money.) She’s also cheating on him and has left work “sick” to go see her boyfriend. How do I know this? Her husband called to talk to her. I told him she went home sick over four hours earlier. She hadn’t shown yet. I asked her the next day if she made it home okay (because geez that sure was a nasty headache you had). “Yeah, got home fine.” “That’s funny because your husband called and you hadn’t made it home yet” (he thought you were dead in a ditch somewhere) Silence. I snickered.
Her life just sucks. Her father-in-law gave them a car so they would have two and hubby could do more efficient job-hunting. She complains that the car is not perfect (it has some periodic engine trouble) and that insurance and taxes and plates cost too much. Sell the car if it is such a fucking hardship to be GIVEN a late model sedan.
She exaggerates EVERYTHING. “My home phone bill is $50 a month. No, I don’t have any extras like caller ID or anything.” Funny, I pay $26.00 a month with the same company in the same town. I think you’re a liar. To a friend on the phone (see personal phone calls below) “I can’t go out with you tonight because I don’t even get back to town (we work in the city about 40 minutes away from home) until 9:30.” Well, we get off work at 7:30. I PASS HER CAR every night on the way home (because I speed). How in the world does it take you 2 hours to drive what should take you at the absolute extreme (in good weather going anywhere close to the speed limit) less than an hour? Oh, it doesn’t, you’re just looking for sympathy.
I will freely admit that I used to be guilty when it came to exaggerating for sympathy. I have taken great pains to stop this lying and when I find myself doing it I correct myself immediately. It is childish and stupid.
Personal phone calls. She tells me she doesn’t have a home phone so her friends call her at work. (lie. see #4) Her friend from France calls her all the time and they jabber away in French for two hours at a time, giggling and absolutely not helping any of the customers that need assistance. This wouldn’t bother me so much if we had more than one phone line. She ties up the phone and then I have to check the messages and call back all the customers who needed assistance. If I ask her to get off the phone to help me with a rush of customers or to answer a question directed at my “supervisor” (snort) then she gives me a dirty look and tells her friend to “call back”. Don’t fucking call back, use the phone on your own fucking time. If I have a personal call to make I make it on my cell phone, never let it last more than a few minutes and if there is a customer, the person on the phone has to wait until I’m done with the transaction. This is what is called BEING AN EMPLOYEE. Fuck.
There are more things that are pet peeves that probably wouldn’t bother anyone else like not getting any paperwork (such as the deposit forms) done until after we close causing me to stand around for an extra five minutes every night when I could be on my way home to make dinner, taking each individual coin out of its sleeve, putting it in her palm, transferring hands and then dumping it all into the deposit bag. I asked her about this last one asking her why she doesn’t just stick the sleeve in the bag, tear it open and let it all fall out directly into the bag saving her time and frustration (she drops coins because her hands aren’t big enough to hold all of them). She said that she tends to drop the coins when she does it that way. I just walked away lest I be prodded into punching her in the face.
She also says “Bloody Hell” a lot and adopts a bad british accent seemingly without knowing it. 'Allo, love! It is not charming. It makes you seem like a wannabe ‘continental’. You grew up in Wichita. Shut the fuck up.
Thank you, SDMB, for letting me vent this here and not at my loving and long-suffering boyfriend.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed that she gets herself fired poor you - maybe you should ask for her salary as well since you seem to be doing all her work… cripes.
Exactly, Jurhael. This job is amazingly cushy. I wish I could get her fired. Then I’d be full-time, salaried and get benefits, if I could get her job. They’d probaby hire someone else and make me train him/her.
As it is I make $7.00 an hour and have no benefits.
I’m thinking of sitting down with my boss for a long talk, only he’s a big scatterbrain so I’m not sure if it would do any good.
How does one go about detailing the faults of one’s supervisor? I did this at my last job by writing everything down and trying to calmly tell my manager and I was told that it was my fault that he didn’t do his work (because I hadn’t reported him earlier) and then asked to shape up my attitude or leave the company. I hadn’t reported him earlier because I tried to work it out with him and give him a chance to change his behavior before I went crying to a manager. I guess I’m too forgiving.
Would email be sufficient? I could detail things and have time to think them out (using material from this thread, definitely) and then report her.
I don’t want to come across as trying to get her fired so I can get her job. Getting her job would just be bonus.
The things to focus on, if you speak with the boss, are only those that have a direct bearing on the job - leaving early, customers not able to reach you by phone, possible the paper work. The rest are merely annoying. Highly annoying, but not necessarily detrimental to the company.
Instead of making it a complaint “She does this, she doesn’t do this”… put it in terms of “What can I do to make this work better?”
For instance if I had a problem with one of my employees at work (not exactly a parallel situation, I’m the very juniormost “supervisor” meaning that I have other employees there for a couple hours a night, and work most of the night myself) and had addressed it with her… well, let’s say personal phone calls. We get a bit more business than it sounds like you do, so if someone was making a 20 minute phone call every night, it’d be a huge pain as far as disruption.
So say I’d mentioned to this employee about how her phone call thing was really unfair and making the rest of us do more work, and she hadn’t fixed it, I’d go to my boss, or the office manager. But instead of saying “Waa, she makes all these phone calls”…
I’d say something more like “I’m aware that I have some slack time on my shift, and that if it’s not sufficient to let someone go home early, or the time is spread out unevenly, I’d prefer to turn some of it into equal off-the-phone breaks for the employees, and use the rest to do maintenance and administrative stuff (filing, updating, things like that). I’m concerned because one person is taking 20 minutes or so to make a personal phone call every night, and it’s unfair to all of us. How would you like me to handle the situation, or would you prefer to speak to the person yourself?” So, instead of making it a case of “YOU need to fire this person or something” turn it into “All of us need to work together to be fair.”
Now, you know and I know that there may not be much of anything you’d be expected to do to keep Slacker-Babe from making a 2-hour personal phone call-- but by making the offer, you’re presenting yourself as being on your boss’s side, and being willing to make whatever effort the business needs, not just getting her off your last nerve.
Do NOT do it by email! DO take the time to write it down, “think them out”, rehearse, and plan on your answers to questions. Once you’ve done that, report her. Start out by letting the boss know you will need some time - don’t just walk in and say “got a minute?” - make an appointment. Take your notes with you, and make sure they’re in shape for if the boss wants a copy.
I have a co-worker kinda like that. Her job is to answer the phones (help desk) so that we don’t have to and can monitor our systems and client processes. But she’s always away from the phones. Doing God-knows-what.
Then, she’ll come in to our area and says “I’m going to (whatever fast food place). Who wants something?” Nice, right?
Wrong. It’s a hustle. She spends 30 minutes getting orders and cash (and never gives back the right change), then is gone for 45 minutes to an hour, comes back with the food and eats (all the while, we are answering the phones). Then, an hour later, she announces that she is going on her lunch break.
This happens every day. I eat at my work station because I can’t spend that long away. (which isn’t bad, I get to surf the net whilst)
Sounds like you got 2 people doing 2/3 of one job. I wouldn’t start anything with management because management that does business like that probably just wants what little work there is to be done. They got two (2) people for less than one job so that’s a fair expectation.
As far as the rest of the shit, just tell her how you feel, straight out, more than once, in a reasonable manner. She’ll get mad and stop speaking to you and a lot of your problems will disappear. (Or perhaps she will listen and correct her behavior )
) Every DAY I get to hear her whine about how
poor you - maybe you should ask for her salary as well since you seem to be doing all her work… cripes.
)