# New and Unimproved Workplace Rants **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 14, 2015, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638 "2015-10-14T15:44:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 27
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2016, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/521 "2016-04-26T23:54:39Z")
Do we really want someone who has aged way past rainbow hair being appropriate, and missing a couple key teeth, to be a representative of our company, who deals with the public and other professional offices?? Bad decisions continue… Seriously, I didn’t know who this person was. Others told me to just look for the crackhead looking woman. Oh, OK, I spotted her in about 5 seconds at the last staff meeting. Really, “managers”? This is who we want representing us? ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2016, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/522 "2016-04-27T13:24:40Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Love those. Doesn’t anyone actually READ the error message before punting? > > Had one the other day where two of the fields they listed don’t exist on the table they’re referencing. Error message said as much. Then _I_ said as much. At this point, I can only conclude that users can’t read. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2016, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/523 "2016-04-27T13:41:01Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Love those. Doesn’t anyone actually READ the error message before punting? It’s been a while, but I used to have conversations like this regularly with some of the staff who used applications I wrote and supported. User: I got an error message in xyz application. Me: What were you doing when you got the error message? User: I don’t remember exactly. Me: What was the error message? User: I don’t know, I clicked OK before I read it. Me: :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2016, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/524 "2016-04-27T13:43:33Z")
What I’d like to know is, why do we have users who if a batch of file transfers fails open a ticket for each file. If I was allowed to, I’d give them a warning and next time open up that desk for someone who isn’t an imbecile. Guess that’s why I’m not allowed to. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2016, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/525 "2016-04-27T15:34:24Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > It’s been a while, but I used to have conversations like this regularly with some of the staff who used applications I wrote and supported. > > User: I got an error message in xyz application. > Me: What were you doing when you got the error message? > User: I don’t remember exactly. > Me: What was the error message? > User: I don’t know, I clicked OK before I read it. > Me: :smack: Heh. Is it possible/practical to write a subroutine to an OS that exports a screenshot to a dedicated folder whenever “OK” is clicked in a dialog box? ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2016, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/526 "2016-04-29T12:03:22Z")
Dear Person Who Makes the Schedule: Can you please please for the love of God and little baby Jesus schedule a person who is capable of coming in at 7 a.m. as my backup instead of letting Miss Thing come in at 8 on the days we work together? I notice that she’s fully capable of showing up at 7 on Sundays and Mondays, my days off. Why, then, can she not come in at 7 on Thursdays and Fridays? Don’t let her use that “I need to take my daughter to school” excuse because last time I checked Monday was a school day as well. Hate, Me ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2016, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/527 "2016-05-01T04:23:46Z")
The problem is not in the employees but the training. We were put on this because we are the best of the best, but the TWO-FUCKING-DAYS of training left us with not the slightest idea of what the call was about and what we should do. Because we are professionals we caught on right away, but that’s down to us, not you. But we made it up when real calls came in, using our half-assed training and help from others. And when it changed I first saw what it’s about and what we are supposed to say (with large differences from what we were taught) WHEN WE GOT OUR TEST CALLS! I said fuck it and grilled the tester when I had a question–I’m a warm body; are they going to fire me? (clue: not a chance) It takes 60-some hours of my life on this, but if I factor in my commute times with old jobs I’m doing as well as my last job in my real career. Just treat us as the pros you are paying for, assume we will pick it up from a couple test calls, and quit wasting our time. We know what we’re doing; it’s why you hired us, FFS. ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2016, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/528 "2016-05-02T20:58:12Z")
Undear co-worker: I understand why you don’t want it to be your problem to fix if we don’t have enough employees scheduled in another department. But guess what? We’re all in this together, and you being a whiny baby isn’t helping anything. Especially when you huddle over your cell phone with assorted others and play whatever the game of the week/month/year is. ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2016, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/529 "2016-05-03T00:07:18Z")
While I certainly understand that the one-line part names in our corporate database sometimes leave a lot to be desired, engineering makes every effort to ensure that the larger item description field contains detailed notes on each part, right down to where the customer will install it. Please make an effort to read these item descriptions the next time you get confused and feel inclined to yell at me because “there ain’t nuthin’ on this paper sayin’ this part is a bearing” when, in fact, the paper says “spherical roller” and the description field says “bearing, spherical roller”. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2016, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/530 "2016-05-04T15:16:32Z")
Quick notes to my co-workers: Co-worker 1: You are not a ninja. You are a middle aged cubicle worker. Even when you make karate chop motions toward your computer screen when you feel you’ve done a good job and are proud of your work, you’re still not a ninja. Co-worker 2: “It’s the best plan for me” is not a selling point. I’ve seen you talk people out of a good decision by going on about how it’s going to benefit you. Talk about the merits of your plan from their POV. If they start to agree with the plan, do not then emphasize how great this plan is for you, especially not at length, especially while not also highlighting the parts that are bad for them but great for you. It’s not a successful strategy. Co-worker 3: You’re in many ways an excellent co-worker, but you format like a serial killer. I have no idea what: \*\*The \*\*quick brown FO[FONT=“Lucida Console”]X _ju[/FONT]mped over_ the lazy dog means. Obviously, there are the words themselves, but what part of the sentence am I supposed to care about? Does red mean to do this right away or to never do it or just that it was the next color on the row? I’ve seen you use it in all three circumstances. In the same document. What matters, the size? bold? colors? italics? what? ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2016, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/531 "2016-05-04T15:56:27Z")
Dear customer service asshat: just because you didn’t understand the vendor’s report doesn’t mean they’re wrong. You’ve admitted to me repeatedly that you don’t understand the basis for the analytical method selected for these calculations, yet you continue to question the report and insist that there are massive errors. WTF. Also, would you please review revision 0 of the report before you start ranting about all the “stuff” you think the vendor added? Every single thing you’ve pointed out so far was present in the original version. ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2016, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/532 "2016-05-05T21:02:26Z")
Dear co-worker: No, we do not have the awesomest job in the world. Nor was our chore today the awesomest job in the building today. Such is life. Grumbling, making moaning noises, disappearing for large amounts of time for no apparent reason, whining to your mother . . .none of these speed up the chore or make it more enjoyable for the rest of us. Suck it up, or get a different job. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2016, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/533 "2016-05-05T22:47:54Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I got an email from a user today with a screenshot of an empty username and password field and the comment, “What do I do here?” > > How the heck am I supposed to respond non-snarkily to that? Maybe the user is elderly and a newbie. Just say’in… ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2016, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/534 "2016-05-05T23:00:26Z")
> [@Eureka](#): > > Grumbling, making moaning noises, disappearing for large amounts of time for no apparent reason, whining to your mother . . .none of these speed up the chore or make it more enjoyable for the rest of us. Reminds me of this outdoor party I used to go to back in the 90’s. On a farm, camping in his 5 acre yard. He hired the neighbor boy - about 12-ish, to mow the lawn before his guests arrived. The kid had agreed to do it a month or more in advance, but when the day came, he didn’t want to do it. His grandfather was there to make him do it and boy, did that kid drag it out and do it as slow as possible just for spite. When he finished, a lot of us were already there. He steps off the tractor and immediately complains about spending ALL DAY doing this instead of playing with a friend. We all laughed at him and his grandfather clued him in - “You could have done it in two hours and been over to (name)'s house after lunch. But instead you had to pout and make it take all day. You did this to yourself.” ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/535 "2016-05-06T12:00:27Z")
**Chimera** , Yes, exactly. Yesterday’s chore is one that needs to be done routinely, and yesterday just happened to be one where two of us were told to make it our priority for the day. And so we did. And actually, I didn’t think it worked out that badly-- sometimes there are technology hiccups that didn’t occur yesterday. Or the space where one must do the chore is too hot, too cold, too full of customers. Or too empty, and one gets bored. Well, co-worker apparently got bored and annoyed, but once his mother turned her attention to her job rather than interfering with his, my day wasn’t so bad, apart from the annoyance of having a helper who accomplished as little as possible. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/536 "2016-05-06T13:55:24Z")
> [@Little\_Pig](#): > > Maybe the user is elderly and a newbie. Just say’in… They’re in a job in a field where elderly or not, they should be familiar with the concept of a login screen and login credentials. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2016, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/537 "2016-05-10T00:24:52Z")
Dear people who seem to own me: These “bursts,” in which we work 60+ hours, were supposed to be short, a week, maybe three, at a time. You gave me Sunday and Monday evening, after my regular shift, as a break. I’m tired, and though I don’t have much of a life, I’m wavering between greed and “I’m too old for this shit.” Do you understand that? Greed, my most basic motivator, is fighting with laziness, and all I can say is that I need a new book of crossword puzzles because we are over-staffed for the client’s need. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2016, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/538 "2016-05-10T02:29:13Z")
I stopped having coffee with a coworker who constantly bad-mouthed others in our department. Not just work rants, but angry screeds of very personal gossip. Well, guess who’s a new target of those screeds? Sigh… I’m tempted to take people aside and tell them “Take everything she says with a salt lick.” But I’m trying to sit back and hope they know that, or that it just blows over. I’d feel slimy getting in the mud with her. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2016, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/539 "2016-05-10T09:05:19Z")
> [@Paintcharge](#): > > Why the fuck does it take you fuckers three weeks to process my invoice , then tell me that I forgot a friggin semi-colon, or an OK from the janitor, or some other such bullshit, so now it’ll be another three weeks before I get paid. I had this happen once on a somewhat large reimbursement check (which I wouldn’t have needed to be reimbursed for personally paying it if they had pre-paid it like we had arranged for them to do but they didn’t do), and they told me exactly what the minor error was, so they knew what the correct information was … so when I re-submitted the corrected form, I added a charge for 1.5% interest per month from the date of the original expenditure to the date they told me that my expense reimbursement check would be ready. Copied the wording exactly from that on our standard invoices. Then I went and told my boss about it, because I expected he’s hear about it. I said that I really didn’t expect them to pay the interest, but I wanted to make a point to them. And we both laughed about it. Turned out they did call him, and he actually backed me up on it, telling them they had to pay it. So they called his boss, a vice president, and complained. And grand-boss also said they had to pay it, and further that it should be charged to their departments’ budget, rather than mine. (I hadn’t realized that both boss & grand-boss had to submit expense reports much more often than peons like me, and they had annoying personal experience with this. So they were happy to make an issue of it, when they were ‘standing up for one of their employees’.) ---
**Author:** ![kiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7feea3/32.png) [@kiz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiz)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2016, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638/540 "2016-05-10T09:36:32Z")
> [@digs](#): > > I stopped having coffee with a coworker who constantly bad-mouthed others in our department. Not just work rants, but angry screeds of very personal gossip. > > Well, guess who’s a new target of those screeds? > > Sigh… I’m tempted to take people aside and tell them “Take everything she says with a salt lick.” But I’m trying to sit back and hope they know that, or that it just blows over. I’d feel slimy getting in the mud with her. Ah, you have one of those, too, I see, I skirt around mine by not saying anything more than the banal “Hi, how are you?” The less information I reveal, the less ammunition the gossip monger has. We had another one of these in my department a couple of years ago. I was the supposed “confidant” because this person would tell me all the gossip. Turned out I was the most gossiped about, according to my other coworkers. That coworker has since left the company and has recently endured a personal crisis. None of us have any sympathy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638.md?page=26) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-and-unimproved-workplace-rants/734638.md?page=28)