OK, this annoys me when you do this.... (more co-worker mini rants)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

You there fella. When you want to talk to me, you walk towards my door, stop outside and say “knock-knock” in that same voice like you’re interrupting me then stand at the door like there’s a force field holding you back. Yes you usually are interrupting, but everyone else in this place: drivers, staff, mechanics - they just walk in and ask if I have a minute.

Also, you again. When you send me an e-mail, it’s completely unnecessary to (A) walk over, say knock knock and ask if I got your e-mail yet; or (2) print it and drop it in my in-box. Either of those would be silly - but once in a while, you’ve done BOTH.

And hey - across the hall… I understand this whole newfangled computer stuff is just a phase and you can ignore it. But at the very least, understand that using Excel to write memos instead of Word, or hell - even Notepad makes you look ridiculous.

And you two in the offices to my left. I’m the boss. I make decisions. FINAL decisions. I always listen, usually defer to anything that you know better than I do, but on those occasions when I say: “we are going to do this, and I know you may not appreciate all the reasons why (so I then explain said reasoning), but this one falls under management prerogative, so this is how it is. Period, Thank you” - I don’t need you to stew for 3 hours then come in to my office and stutter about my not supporting you. Holy Christ on a popsicle!, do you have a clue how many times I get your backs in any number of situations? Why, yes you do, because I do it right there in plain sight of you!

And you, Mr. Junior High Principal. One of the 18 buses coming to your school this afternoon will be 10 minutes late because the high school idiots had a fight that cops had to come and take some kids off the bus for. I called your office, your cell and texted you. Got no answer, so I called your AP, and your secretary so that at least someone knew. Then why did you call me at 3:10 to ask where that bus was? Because you’re an idiot, that’s why. Because you had your cell phone turned off while you were outside walking around the building with your engineer.

And finally, Mr. Fellow Administrator, I saved you for last. You disagreed with a decision I made - namely that I would not and could not send a full size 40 foot long bus into an apartment building parking lot, where it would then have to back up, and 3-point turn it’s way out, just so a 5 year old boy’s mother didn’t have to walk him 500 feet to the parking lot entrance. After several back and forths, including a written opinion from our legal counsel, you backed off.

Your response was then to pen a scathing e-mail intended for our superintendent (completely skipping a step over my boss’s head) all about how un-cooperative I am, not caring about children (or their lazy mothers, who I might add has no other kids at home, stays home and is in perfect health?) and generally attempting to hack me to pieces.

Fabulous. Except when you send an e-mail, you need to make sure that you send it to the person you intended to, and not the person it was about!

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Yes folks you read that right. He sent it to me. Nobody else, just me. I promptly made sure it got to it’s intended recipient, including both my boss, and his, adding a brief self-deprecating comment about how useless and irresponsible I truly am.

Guess who today’s laughingstock is around these parts?

2

Ah, co-worker mini-rants…

Co-worker, as we share the plates and silverware, could you please wash them instead of just rinsing them off or whatever it is you do that leaves them still dirty? I really don’t want to share your lunch.

Thanks bunches.

3

Oh, Mr Bus Guy, that last one is rich indeed. These are the little things that make it all worthwhile, eh?

Dear annoying co-worker: is there some reason you use “quotation marks” in the “subject line” of every “email” that you “send”? You are driving me “insane”. Plus, it makes you look like “a moron”.

Also: would you please consider learning to yawn silently? I cannot concentrate with your loud gasping and HUHHH HUHH HUUUUUUUUUUUUhhhhhhhhh going on in the next cube.
Between that and your repetitive “Well alrighty then!” and compulsive teeth-sucking, my nerves are shot and I may have to strike you.

4

Coworker in the office next to mine - you suck. Mightily, in many ways.

Way the first - do you have anything resembling an inside voice? 'cause when I’m in my office, during office hours, I keep my door open so that my students will know I’m available. And I’m having to close my door and put a note on it saying “I’m in, just knock!” because you? Are standing outside of your office in the hall having general chit-chat conversations IN A VOICE THAT COULD BE HEARD ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DAMN BUILDING, IF NOT OUTSIDE.

Way the second - and you have those conversations constantly. You never shut up. If you’re not in class, you walk up and down the hall going into everybody’s office to talk about general non-work related topics. In that same voice. So that there’s a constant barrage OF YOUR VOICE UP AND DOWN THE HALL ALL DAY LONG EVERY SINGLE DAY. Seriously, do you ever just shut the hell up?

Way the third - when you have exhausted all of your conversations opportunities (i.e., every single person on the hall has thrown you out of their office because we have things to do like lesson plans and grading and meeting with students and committee work and phone calls and, you know, those things we get paid to do that you never seem to be doing?), you sit in your office next to mine and BURP. Loudly. Wetly. Like a third-grade boy who’s just learned how to burp on command and there’s a contest at recess.

The coworker on the other side of your office has already asked you to please, please, pretty please with sugar on top talk more quietly when you are standing outside our offices chatting at the top of your lungs about nothing with whatever poor soul you’ve been able to grab in their day. Your response was to pompously condescend to her regarding her being comfortable in her place of work (you sociologist windbag, you), and miss the fucking point that we are all used to keeping our doors open on this little hall so that our students see that we’re in and available, and now every single one of us is having to close our doors all day every day because of you and your loud wet burping diarrhea of the mouth.

Thanks bunches, jackass.

5

I once did some computer training classes at the US location of a Major Japanese Car company, and most of the people in that class used Excel for everything, never opened Word. That was the first time I’d seen correspondence written in a spreadsheet, and I was truly stunned.

As for me …

Coworker1, could you please stop prefacing every single question you ask with, “I’m just curious …” It’s OK to simply ask the question, promise.

Coworker2, could you possibly, possibly NOT use speakerphone for checking voicemail and holding 90% of your phone calls? Even though you are in an office and you (usually) close the door, the volume of both the phone and your loud-talking means you might as well hold the conversation in my cubicle. Oh, and while we’re here, why in og’s name do your sneezes ALWAYS rattle the building, and you cannot sneeze once but must sneeze a *minimum *of five times with a one-second pause between sneezes? I’ve never heard anything like it.

6

Well. I have to admit that I say “knock-knock” to my boss when I come to her door. She sits with her back to the door and the door is also open just a foot or so, with real walls on either side. With my co-workers I just say “Hey, [name]?” which is probably annoying too. But I’m just modeling the behavior I would like them to use with me. Rather than walking up very quietly to my cubicle and just starting to talk, which almost always makes me jump and cuss.

I probably also go overboard with the emails, but on the rare occasions when I do send email to my coworkers, I like it to be read. And I’ve found that many people really are functionally illiterate, or maybe just one step above that. I might be able to carry on a reasonable conversation with them by getting up in their face and pinning them with eye contact, but often when I only send an email I end up getting in their face, pinning them with eye contact, and reading the gosh-darned email word for word, over and over until they get it. Meanwhile I’m trying not to get angry. Ha ha ha.

And speaking of sounds people make, I once worked on the other side of a cubicle from a guy who coughed several times a day and made these horrible, strangled puking sounds instead of ordinary coughing sounds. Brrr. It’s been 25 years or so and it still gives me the creeps.

Just a few years ago I worked on the other side of a cubicle from a woman from another department who hated our room because it was “dead in here”. Just because she was the kind of person who had to be running her mouth all day long, and we (the two of us who usually share our little room) are computer geeks who make all our racket with our keyboards. Hmph!

7

Dear space cadet coworker: when you want to talk to me, first make sure that I am actually in the room. Talking to me when I am NOT in the room serves no purpose whatsoever.

Also, when talking to me, please *use common english instead of terms that only you seem to know the meaning of. *

Finally, when trying to communicate, it works best to speak entire sentences out loud. Trailing off in the middle leaves me unsure as to what the hell you’re trying to say.

8

Goodbye, lunch.

9

Can students play?

Dear twenty-something who came here straight out of your Bachelor’s: experts are a perfectly valid resource for a translator (or any other professional, as a matter of fact). I will really appreciate it if, for the rest of the course, you stop insisting in not accepting anything that your two more-expert teammates say until you’ve confirmed it in wikipedia. If you continue, I may find myself forced to feed you the keyboard.

Thank you.

10

The burping thing I would definitely call out. “Excuse ME!” You say in a loud, mock-offended tone. Next time you drop the mock. It works 97% of the time.

Of course if your person is in that 3%…
My main thing these days are loud talkers. I generally like my office quiet, with a little low music playing. These guys talk so loud - talk all day, I don’t care, but when I’m reduced to sticking a headphone in my right ear so I can drown you out IT’S TOO LOUD. STFU.

11

Yeah, what’s with that, otherwise brilliant woman down the hall? Yes, you have a separate office, but you can still be heard up and down the hall. I’m self-conscious to call you knowing it will be broadcast. And it’s not like you’re always typing or looking things up while talking–sometimes you just sit there and talk at the phone.

Why??

12

When I was head of the software department, the head of the accounting department told me he never learned any editor, just started and stayed with Visicalc and never bothered with anything else.

13

Do not whistle in the breakroom, you insufferable ass.

14

Two that get me:

  • The coworker who always wants to “improve” everything, and can’t stop coming up with grandiose ideas of rearranging things or working out new ways of doing our work. Your ideas are stupid and uninformed for the most part, and the ones that aren’t are too ridiculously grandiose and above your station. Knock it off and get to work!

  • “That reminds me of a funny story…” - the stories are always overlong, rambling, not funny, and completely unrelated to whatever “reminded” him of it.

15

Dear New Guy:

Please tell me which ignorant asshole gave you a typewriter, because I am going to kick the ever-lovin’ shit outta them. No. I am going to correct all the mistakes in their emails and send them back. What the fuck do you think you’re going to do with that thing? I heard a report from another cow-orker that you typed a postie note and left it for her. Classy…

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we hired you to develop an American History exam, not a Paleontology exam. When we get to the publication I am going to have to develop with you, I can assure you that I will be dragging your antiquated ass kicking and screaming into this century because there is no possible way I can make a deadline working on paper with a red fucking pen. It’s just not going to happen. It would be in your best interests to just go ahead and sign up for that Acrobat class down at the community college because when I have to start up that publication with you? I am taking a baseball bat to your typewriter and I will duct tape your hands to the mouse and the keyboard until provide your reviews to me in electronic form. I will be accepting nothing but pixels from you, Mr. Dinosaur Teacher Man.

Sink or swim, little fish. It’s a technology driven world. Learn the newfangled skills now or be left behind, unemployable, for the remainder of your years.

Much love,
Dogzilla

P.S. Do you still pay for porn too? Really?

16

Stationery porn? (underline mine)

17

Dear cube neighbor, you are a really, really nice person. I like you a lot. But your very loud continuous throat clearing is driving me nuts. I know it’s probably allergies or post nasal drip or some such that you can’t help but you ad in vocals in a loud high range that you really, really could stop. Oh, and while you’re at it, stop finishing off your sneezes with that little verbal “chew!!!” Not cute. Thanks.

18

Oh, I’m so sorry. I got here from hitting “new posts” and I thought we were in the Pit because the word “rant” was used in the subject.

My apologies. I would have cleaned it up if I’d realized I was posting in MPSIMS.

  • embarrassed *
19

Last I checked, you can be a pottymouth in forums other than the Pit, just not towards other board posters here.

20

Yeah, I didn’t think anything was wrong with your post at all, Dogzilla!

I want my cube neighbor to get off the phone with his mama, and his cousin, and his nephew, and his church people, and EVERYBODY he knows! Constantly! He never gets off the phone! I can’t help but hear you, and I know way too much about you and yours. Stop it!