Look, I’m filling in for someone. I’ll be here for a month, tops. Would everyone in the department please stop coming by my desk to stare at the new guy? If you’d like to introduce yourself, fine, but please cut the small talk because I really don’t give a shit if Ron over in A/R is “such a jokester”. I couldn’t care less that Stacy in Accounting is pregnant again. I’m quite up-to-date on the merits of why I should get a flu shot, thankyouverymuch. And most of all, I loathe repeating my work history with the hospital for Every. Fucking. Person. I know you’re only asking to keep par with the social convention that comes with meeting a new coworker, so I’m more than willing to let it slide… I won’t be the least bit insulted if you ask me nothing that doesn’t have to do with my current job.
I normally am a very social person, but at least 20 people who I will never have any common work with have come by since I started. Let me do my damn job.
Me too. The fact that I have an extra chair in my office is not an invitation for you to spend a half hour here every day. I know your job is boring. So is mine. I’ve learned how to keep myself entertained. You are interrupting me.
There is one particular person in this office that comes in to talk shop, then lingers for hours to chit chat. I’ve learned that “OK, kids, I’m off” is code for “I’m going to make a nuisance of myself for another twenty minutes, when I’ll say ‘OK, kids, I’m off’ yet again, lather, rinse, repeat for two hours.”
This is the same person who demands to know what I’m working on in exacting detail, but as soon as I open my mouth, hand waves whatever I’m saying away with “that’s too technical.”
Ah, temporary assignments. My favourite* part of them is when you’re getting to the end, and they are still talking about what you need to get finished up before you leave. You know what I have to get finished up for you? Not a goddamned thing. When I’m done, I’m DONE. And no, I don’t need to get to know everyone either. I brought a book; I’m good for breaks.
*I really do like the part when they think I have the same priorities as they do. Heh.
Argh. There’s a colleague in the office next to mine who canNOT stay in his office and, you know, work. If he’s in the building, he’s in somebody else’s office, chatting to them in his “outside” voice about whatever’s on his mind. It’s as if he literally cannot be alone with his own thoughts.
Thankfully, he’s gotten the message from me that my office is not a safe space for his multiple-hour stream-of-consciousness chats. Must have been all those times he came in my office and I refused to turn around from my computer or to respond to any of his statements with more than a “hmmm.”
This is the best part about quitting a job too. The last job I quit I was on very good terms but I still couldn’t help getting a laugh when the HR guy would nag me about all of the things I HAD to do before I left.
RIGHT - I’ll get to that 15 page pre-exit-interview survey just as soon as I can, m’kay.
The following is 100% A-fucking-true. I once had a co-worker who, once he started on about something, could talk non-stop for a half-hour. I don’t mean for a half-hour conversation. I mean NON-STOP, BY HIMSELF, FOR A WHOLE FUCKING HALF-HOUR. He sat behind me, and I would tell him I was busy once he started in. But one of my, shall we say, less assertive co-workers didn’t know how to do that. That is why I timed one of their so-called conversations. Once, a group of eight or so of us, windbag included, went out to lunch. Most of the others were new and didn’t know about this guy. I knew what was going to happen, so I sat at the end and waited for the entertainment. The guy talked through the whole lunch and no one else said a word. I kid you not, the guy didn’t let anyone say a single, fucking word.
This has always bugged the crap out of me. If want me to come by and chat about what I liked/didn’t like or give you some suggestions, then fine, just ask me. But you can take your “required exit interview” and shove it up your ass!
Did you fantasize about jumping up and yelling, “SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP! I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT YOU STILL DON’T SHUT UP!”? I know that one is not just me.
Annoying I know but it sounds like their hearts in the right place and they’re only being a bit overzealous in trying to make you feel welcome.
I must look like a right thicko myself because I often get people giving me advice about my job which I probably knew when they were just a twinkle in their dads eye,but i always thank them for their good intentions because maybe one day its something new to me and it will dig me out of the hole.
As for the month tops,I wouldn’t tempt fate if I were you.
I was working in a max security prison not too long ago and got chatting to one of the staff.
He told me that he took the job for a few months while he found something better.That was eighteen years ago .
