To each his own.
Some people like a change of scenery, however small.
Some people’s chairs are uncomfortable to sit in for 9 straight hours.
Some people need to signal strongly to the idiots that they are ON A BREAK.
Some people need to get away from the boss.
Some people also microwaved their food, and don’t want to carry it all the way back upstairs, then back down to rinse the dish, or whatever.
Some people are waiting for you to ask about their book. No, they’re not.
I personally prefer not to risk having to be social in the lunchroom when people are on my last nerve, so when I need to get away from desk, I have taken to reading in the car, even when it’s 90 degrees out or snowing.
ETA: in my last workplace, the lunchroom was actually quieter and smelled better than the office.
I just solve the whole conundrum by leaving the building entirely and going somewhere else to eat. If I were to eat at work, I would have no choice but to eat at my desk since we don’t have a break room.
One of the minor plot points on the “Welcome to Night Vale” podcast is that the City Council has banned all writing utensils for no apparent reason.
I have a stash of old computer equipment too…along with a small stack of old Java and other programing books. :o I did manage to put together one working computer from the stash though, so that justifies it.
Speaking of which, it’s been a few years now since anyone put fish in the break room microwave!
Same department (but not same person) invites me to a recurring meeting, and sends a snippy email to my supervisor informing her that there’s no reason for me to attend and I should stop. This is an RCA meeting that covers upcoming changes to all our products, including the one I run. Fuck yes I should call in!
And if you don’t want me to attend, fucking update your distribution list! Damn thing reads like a who’s who of folks who’ve quit or been canned, some a year ago or more.
Besides, who in blue blazes attends meetings not necessary to their job? No need to forcibly kick people out, they’ll just self-prune anyway. What’s with the silo mentality? Why cloak your own meetings? This fucking IT dept. acts like growling dogs pissing on their territory and barking at anyone who gets too close … And those were the precise words I chose to explain myself to my supervisor who got the “please instruct Purple that she does not need to attend anymore” email. (Supe came to me with a “huh? I thought you said this was needed for you?” and asking for clarification.)
On a side note, my supervisor really should be calling into those, too (those changes affect a lot of products that her staff supports, so it’s nice to know if, yanno, the entire fucking interface is gonna change and whatnot) and now she knows about the damn meeting in the 1st place. IT never invited her (see above re: silos) so at her request I simply forwarded the Outlook invite and now we shall both be calling in, and IT can lick my nonexistent nutsack.
The way I (and teams I’ve been on previously) deal with things like that is to refuse to accept any decisions made in those meetings which affect our products/code/SLAs because we were not invited and did not participate in those decisions. We do not consent. If you wish our consent in these decisions, we must be a participant in the discussions and decisions.
The good news is that Shorteyes Mc Kiddieflasher didn’t get his new job. The lesson is that, if you are on the Sex Criminal Watch List, do not give notice before the background check is done.
The bad news is that he will continue to sit across the aisle. He tried for my sympathy and it was all I could do to not say, “This wouldn’t be a problem if you had kept your dick in your pants.” He works in bands that play in parks and at festivals that children attend and I’m looking for how I can report him.
I know my company mostly just looks for a pulse when hiring, but some things are beyond the pale.
If you don’t want to, you know, WORK, your problem. Just STFU already and let the people who are actually taking calls (you know, what we’re actually being paid to do) be able to HEAR their callers (someone sitting near me actually had a caller comment on the background commotion) without cranking phone volume to hearing-endangering levels. Those of us actually doing our job could also do without all the profanity in the yelled socializing, since we’d rather not have callers mad at us because they thought the person they’re talking to called them an obscene name or something. Call center microphones CAN pick up more than just the wearer’s voice, after all.
The ghetto loudmouth crew seemingly could NOT even dial it down for more than about a minute or two even with supervisors getting on them about it. Our grandboss has come over to tell them to tone it down and that only helps briefly. Super-mellow supervisor J was PISSED today, making noises about how if people WANT to be fired…
At our latest all-company meeting the big boss was going off on one of his usual speeches about how we need to do more for our clients. “We need to find our +1, we need to do more, we need to stand out!” That’s how it usually goes.
This time he says that we need to start doing ourselves some of the things we ask the clients to do. Dude, if my department did that the company would get shut down. I’m in life insurance, and we’d have FINRA on our asses so fast everyone’s head would spin. There wouldn’t be an insurance company in the world that would work with us anymore. Sad thing is that some people in the company who have no clue about the regulations will start asking why we’re not doing that.
Sorry… continuing education that clients have to do to keep their licenses. Training that they have to do in order to sell certain products. That’s the sort of stuff my department is asking them to do, and if we did it for them we’d be in big trouble.
This. Absolutely fucking this. “You work in a call center. You need to deal with background noise.”
No, I’m providing customer service for someone I called out of the clear blue. I need to build trust with her. I’m not in Boiler Room or Glengarry Glen Ross. I am calling for a legitimate client offering a legitimate additional free service for one she already uses. It does not help me if you are screaming obscenities about last night’s game.
And you know why they are in a bad mood because? Maybe they are in a bad mood because their lover left them, or their dog died, or they have to work next to you.
