Someone send me an extra-large bottle of sanity at my place of work. Or something.
This is really a collection of random rants that have been simmering for some time.
PHONE RANTS
Slow down when you give your goddamned phone number!!! I’ve stopped counting how often someone is leaving a voice mail (which half the time is rambling, overlong, and incoherent anyway) then, when they get to their phone number, say something like “my phone number onetwothreefoursixeightninethree” which, if I’m lucky, I will decipher after rewinding the v-mail about 14 times.
Even worse are people who you are speaking to directly, in real time, who do this then get pissed off you didn’t catch the number the first time. So after sufficient cajoling they repeat themselves - even faster
Real simple concept here - if you don’t leave contact information in understandable format I can’t call you back.
Do NOT use your cellphone to record a new voice mail message It will sound like shit.
REVIEW your fucking phone message. I am apalled at the number of v-mail recordings that sound like someone is underwater being deep-throated by some large sea animal. DO NOT eat while recording. DO NOT go “er… um…uh…” like the fucking drooling idiot you actually are.
MANAGEMENT RANT
Don’t fucking yell at your secretary her first day back from vacation. If you really couldn’t function without her those few days you shouldn’t have authorized time off. If you didn’t ask the person covering for her (me) to do something that isn’t HER fault - it’s YOUR fault.
The silent treatment. Don’t fucking do this to people. It’s worse than yelling at them. At least when you yell at them you’re acknowledging they exit. Treating someone with less consideration than the furniture or the rent-a-plants is just fucking low.
GENERAL STUPIDITY
Don’t wear a wool suit when it’s 100 degrees out. That’s just fucking stupid. You don’t look professional when your hair is soaking wet with sweat and you smell like a dead sheep with a serious need for deodorant. If you MUST wear a suit at a meeting carry that fucker to work in a garment bag and change there, but for Og’s sake don’t attempt mass transit + wool garments + Chicago summer, m’okay?
If the CEO has to carry a fucking ID card so do you