Mechanical Engineer here. Trying to install a WiFi adapter on a Linux box is what ultimately made me say “Fuck Linux”.
And it’s not your fault the dipshit Electrical Engineer didn’t properly document his fucking switch.
I sent off my notes to the electricians. I have no idea if any of this is going to work. This is terrifying. Oh well, just my job on the line, nothing important or anything.
I love it when people ask me to do something ASAP, and then don’t respond to my emails when I have questions. My coworkers have asked me to get something printed. (Anyone could do this using Vistaprint so they don’t really need me to do this, but I’m happy to help.) They sent me three images in the body of an email, for a two-sided document. 
That’s okay, I can figure out which ones they want to print, but the quality is not good. I’ve asked them to send me better files, but of course they have not responded. I think this is going to be one of those things where everyone thinks that someone else will take care of it, so no one will do anything.
You care way too much. Print what they sent you, give it to them, and your task is done.
The adapter actually included a ‘support ticket’ for Linux systems, so that tells me a lot. Their support has been surprisingly helpful; I think they’ve narrowed down the cause of the problem.
It’s not the first time I’ve encountered a problem like that; we once received a new, 8-channel controller with a manual that had clearly been run through some translators. It was impossible to operate the thing based on the given instructions, so another engineer and I were assigned the task of writing a new manual and test procedure. The test department supervisor was happy to give us the space to work. (That attitude went away completely; engineers are generally not welcome in the testing area now, which is why I was surprised that my supervisor had been able to jump in and start wiring.)
Oh, I hate it when someone starts a chat with me in Teams and just leaves me hanging. They start a chat with me, suddenly and unexpectedly stop responding, and then pick up like 5-10 minutes later.
A-men. A while back, when IM was still relatively new at my workplace, someone sent round a few etiquette guidelines, the most important of which was along the lines of “Don’t start a conversation with just “Hi!” - put your question in the first message. Otherwise you’re just interrupting someone else’s work for no reason.”. Sadly, it’s not widely followed.
It’s very easy to do this and still be polite, for example: “Hi, how are you? Quick question please: can you send me a copy of file XYZ that you were working on last week?”. As opposed to the vastly more irritating:
Hi
How are you?
I have a question for you
Do you have a copy of file XYZ?
Bonus irritation points if there is a delay of more than a few seconds between messages. Extra bonus points if you type half a message and then leave the cursor there for minutes on end, so at my end it says “Typing…”.
I’ve just been dealing with the non-IM version of this.
Person: Hi, can you come help me with my problem?
Me: [stops what I’m doing, follows person to their office] Of course, can you tell me about the problem, and what kind of solution you’re looking for.
Person: Yes, I need some stuff.
Me: OK, I can help with that, let’s get the stuff working.
Person: Uggh, I don’t have time for all of this, can we just deal with it later.
People need to learn how to say, “I need some help with stuff, can we find a time later to do it?” or “I need some help with stuff, but I only have 10 minutes now, if it needs more time let’s talk later.”
The thing that really gets me though, is that it invariably comes with an attitude that somehow when they asked me for something, now I’m wasting their time. The way I deal with it is by never following up. If it’s important, they’ll come back.
How dare you try to help them.
Sometimes the asked questions is “can you help me,” but the real question is “can you do this for me.”
Often that isn’t even a problem. I’m happy to fix up this data for you in exchange for being fourth author. Other times it’s impossible. I can’t do this for you, by it’s nature I can only show you how to do it for yourself.
Which gets to something I’ve been trying to explain to my kid for 10 years now: if you ask for what you don’t want, then you’re going to get what you don’t want; just ask for what you want.
Mechanical engineers! Bah!
I struggled, and finally came up with a solution that fit all the criteria. He says, “Oh yeah, it has to move 30 degrees, too.” I told him I don’t think these hydraulic cylinders you specified will do the job. So he has me check the dimensions of the models I downloaded from the manufacturer’s website.
Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.
Person: (Points at a screen full of data) “IT’S NOT WORKING, FIX IT”
I’m grateful at least most employees who contact me start out with something like, “Good morning, Odesio. I have some questions about my benefits and was wondering if you have time to talk?” I have one employee whom I’ve dubbed my official stalker. He’s a relatively new employee, and despite having very little contact with the guy, on occasion he’ll just send me a text just wanting to chit chat. We work in entirely different departments and there’s just no business reason for him to be contacting me. I’m in HR, and I’m like, “Who the hell do I talk to when something like this happens?” Eventually he stopped contacting me so I guess it’s all good.
My employer allowed employees to pay a few bucks a month to get extra casual days. The funds collected were then used to donate to various local charities by a committee of volunteers elected by the employees. Even though we don’t really have casual day (thanks COVID), we still have a lot of employees who donate to the fund and the committee still selects a charity to donate to every month. Typical charities include organizations that help the homeless, take food to the elderly, help pay for camp for disadvantaged kids, etc., etc.
Recently the committee decided to give funds to a charity that helps homeless LGBTQ kids by providing them with a place to live until they’re able to stand up on their own two feet. I got to field a number of complaints from employees who didn’t want their funds going to that kind of charity. I was very, very disappointed by those messages and even more disappointed that I couldn’t tell them to fuck off.
On Teams I seem to have become the offshore people in Bangalore’s ‘go-to guy for random problems about other-people-who-aren’t-here-this week’s random jobs’. Don’t bother me with your shit - sort it out yourselves, that’s what you’re paid for.
It’s like they’d rather these kids be dead than be who they are.
That’s what I thought of but you beat me to it.
Work is an absolute mess. I’m not going to try to fit it all into one post, so I’ll add updates. Higher-ups have decided to split my department (10 people!). There are very weird power plays happening. They did not talk to anyone in my department before they announced this is a meeting. So now I have four bosses, I have to work closely with someone who is very difficult to work with, and there are going to be some big problems because nobody on the third floor knows anything about my job. I’m getting the feeling this is not going to go well, and I so much want a big squishy muffin with sugar on top right now.
MagicEyes.
Take notes. Lot’s and lots of contemporaneous notes. Date them and list who was at the meetings.
Just make sure you get your TPS reports in on time.