# Workplace griping, anyone? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 12, 2010, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401 "2010-11-12T06:39:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 136

**Author:** ![Dr.Girlfriend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.girlfriend/32/193_2.png) [@Dr.Girlfriend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Girlfriend)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2702 "2011-12-08T02:44:58Z")

> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > If SG is going to be fed into a shredder, he needs to be alive and conscious. I insist upon this. Revive SG, then feed him to the shredder. The rats would be knocked out by a lesser dose of the gas, SG oughta survive that. 😃 Yesterday I dropped off some paperwork for my soon-to-be employer and there were a few people in the office that I hadn’t met yet. Everyone was sooooo happy to meet me, it kind of freaked me out a little. I’m not used to people being pleasant and happy at work. ---

**Author:** ![flatlined](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@flatlined](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flatlined)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2703 "2011-12-08T03:37:22Z")

> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > And you wanted a forged doctor’s note to put YOU there? Where do you go when you take your vacations? Camp Crystal Lake? Cracking up here 🙂 I’m happy that I’m able to make people like their jobs a little more by my posts. When I read the replies, I laughed and then grinned proudly. From what I got from my email today, Kevin is ready to go for the nuke it from space option. Maybe HR would send SG to the RatKing’s lair to deliver a file or something. My budget would get seriously dinged for having the van go out in a ball of flames, but at least I wouldn’t have to get the shredder repair people out to clean the blood, forks and stashed food out of the shredder. Someone upthread said that it was possible that SG was selling my thrift store forks to the second hand place. I thought that was very possible, so I used fingernail polish to put a dot of hooker red on the back of the last forks I bought, and then told my minion. He emailed me to say that bosslady had gone to the thrift store and bought 20 forks. Three of them had dots. ---

**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2704 "2011-12-08T03:47:49Z")

**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2705 "2011-12-08T04:03:13Z")

> [@SpazCat](#): > > Is tenting the place and pumping in carbon monoxide out of the question? > [@Mom-of-Andrew](#): > > Since SG is lots taller than the rats, pump in the CO2 until he falls over. Sorry, nitpick from the Chemistry Department: carbon monoxide is CO, no [sub]2[/sub]. CO kills by the same mechanism as HCN (gas chambers gas \<- this is not from the Department of Redundancy Department, even if it seems so), but somewhat slower. CO[sub]2[/sub] kills by a different mechanism and a lot slower. Both mechanisms involve “cells aren’t getting enough oxygen”, and in both cases one of the first symptoms is sleepiness. **flatlined** , would flamethrowers or Molotov cocktails be out of the question as a way to, uhm, sanitize the Lair of the Rat King? The nearest Chemistry or Chemical Engineering Department is bound to contain its share of house-trained arsonists: us Chem/ChemE love a nice fire and know tons and tons of ways to create one, but we refrain from doing it cos we’re nice and all that (half the safety training I’ve gotten through 25 years of them has been “how to avoid fires”; a quarter “how to put out fires”; another quarter “what to do when someone is hurt”). Or maybe the county can let the local firemen use it for training… at whatever time of year has the lowest risk for brushfires over yonder, of course. No vans need be damaged in the making of this movie. ---

**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2706 "2011-12-08T04:17:12Z")

> [@flatlined](#): > > Someone upthread said that it was possible that SG was selling my thrift store forks to the second hand place. I thought that was very possible, so I used fingernail polish to put a dot of hooker red on the back of the last forks I bought, and then told my minion. He emailed me to say that bosslady had gone to the thrift store and bought 20 forks. Three of them had dots. That just might be the final straw or last nail or whatever your favorite metaphor happens to be. Pretty much every where I’ve worked considers theft to be an immediate firing offense. No verbal. No written warning. Security will see you to the door now. ---

**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2707 "2011-12-08T04:40:08Z")

> [@Dr.Girlfriend](#): > > \ > Yesterday I dropped off some paperwork for my soon-to-be employer and there were a few people in the office that I hadn’t met yet. Everyone was sooooo happy to meet me, it kind of freaked me out a little. I’m not used to people being pleasant and happy at work. Not to be a downer or anything, but the honeymoon ain’t over yet, honey. 🙂 > [@Projammer](#): > > That just might be the final straw or last nail or whatever your favorite metaphor happens to be. > > Pretty much every where I’ve worked considers theft to be an immediate firing offense. No verbal. No written warning. Security will see you to the door now. Yeah, me too. ---

**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2708 "2011-12-08T04:41:31Z")

> [@Rysto](#): > > Goddamnit. They fired one of the members of my team for “performance issues”. I worked with this guy daily, and I never had any problems with his work. Now our team is left with a co-op student(think intern), somebody we hired 6 months ago, a remote contractor who’s very technically proficient but isn’t very familiar with the home-grown portion of our code, and me. Addendum: the co-op goes back to school in January, the new guy has been loaned to another team and management decided not to renew the contractor, so he’s gone at the end of the month. Now we are supposedly getting a new co-op in January, but at this stage I don’t know whether to believe anything anymore. ---

**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2709 "2011-12-08T04:48:48Z")

> [@Nava](#): > > **flatlined** , would flamethrowers or Molotov cocktails be out of the question as a way to, uhm, sanitize the Lair of the Rat King? The nearest Chemistry or Chemical Engineering Department is bound to contain its share of house-trained arsonists: us Chem/ChemE love a nice fire and know tons and tons of ways to create one, but we refrain from doing it cos we’re nice and all that (half the safety training I’ve gotten through 25 years of them has been “how to avoid fires”; a quarter “how to put out fires”; another quarter “what to do when someone is hurt”). Or maybe the county can let the local firemen use it for training… at whatever time of year has the lowest risk for brushfires over yonder, of course. No vans need be damaged in the making of this movie. You appear to be overlooking all the paper items that **flatlined** and her employers are hoping can be reclaimed from the RatKing. Come to think of it, seasonal goings-on have just inspired me to suggest that she have a young girl named Clara throw a broken nutcracker into the building and let HIM deal with it… ---

**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2710 "2011-12-08T05:18:14Z")

Not overlooking, writing them off. What can I say, a good bonfire is a good bonfire is a good bonfire… ---

**Author:** ![Canadjun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2711 "2011-12-08T16:38:54Z")

> [@Nava](#): > > Sorry, nitpick from the Chemistry Department: carbon monoxide is CO, no [sub]2[/sub]. CO kills by the same mechanism as HCN (gas chambers gas \<- this is not from the Department of Redundancy Department, even if it seems so), but somewhat slower. CO[sub]2[/sub] kills by a different mechanism and a lot slower. Both mechanisms involve “cells aren’t getting enough oxygen”, and in both cases one of the first symptoms is sleepiness. More nitpick. Not quite - most\* of the effect of CO is from binding to hemoglobin so it can’t carry oxygen to the cells. HCN doesn’t stop the oxygen from getting to the cells, it stops the cells from using it. - Learn something new everyday - didn’t realize CO also affects the cells; hence my addition of “most” ---

**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2011, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2712 "2011-12-09T02:16:02Z")

> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > You appear to be overlooking all the paper items that **flatlined** and her employers are hoping can be reclaimed from the RatKing. > > Come to think of it, seasonal goings-on have just inspired me to suggest that she have a young girl named Clara throw a broken nutcracker into the building and let HIM deal with it… That’s why I suggested CO–it won’t hurt the papers, just make them very sleepy. 😃 ---

**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2011, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2713 "2011-12-09T02:38:53Z")

> [@flatlined](#): > > Someone upthread said that it was possible that SG was selling my thrift store forks to the second hand place. I thought that was very possible, so I used fingernail polish to put a dot of hooker red on the back of the last forks I bought, and then told my minion. He emailed me to say that bosslady had gone to the thrift store and bought 20 forks. Three of them had dots. Which minion is this? Not Tony, I’m sure. Is bosslady aware that you did this? As \*\*Projammer \*\*said, that might be enough to get him fired, especially if you’re buying those forks out of office petty cash. At that point, he’s stolen property from the government, not from you. As for the paper in the storage facility … I suspect it’s a lost cause. By now, the rats have gotten into everything. ---

**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2011, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2714 "2011-12-09T02:53:44Z")

> [@flatlined](#): > > Someone upthread said that it was possible that SG was selling my thrift store forks to the second hand place. I thought that was very possible, so I used fingernail polish to put a dot of hooker red on the back of the last forks I bought, and then told my minion. He emailed me to say that bosslady had gone to the thrift store and bought 20 forks. Three of them had dots. Hey! [That was me](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14398513&postcount=2403)! Making the suggestion, that is. Not stealing the forks. Although, frankly, I’m a little surprised it turned out to be right. ---

**Author:** ![flatlined](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@flatlined](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flatlined)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2011, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2715 "2011-12-09T05:21:13Z")

I have no updates. Bosslady didn’t know that I was marking the forks, and we don’t buy them from petty cash. We both know that SG is stealing, but we can’t prove it. The facilities guys are in and out all the time. SG got my frozen dinners today. The roof in the main warehouse leaked on some of my precious boxes so she put the wet files there. I do expect a fire in the RatKing’s lair as soon as its dry. Not done by any of us drones, but because of lightning or something. Nuking from space might happen. I’m up for that. My commute will be longer, but SG’s camp trailer is parked half a mile away. Some fallout is always expected. ---

**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2011, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2716 "2011-12-09T05:28:23Z")

We had a big conference call at work today, to give us a 30,000 foot overview of Agile. I can excuse the technical difficulties that delayed getting things going at the start. These things happen, after all. What I cannot excuse is the damned fool idiot who was too oblivious to notice that he hadn’t muted his microphone/phone line, and who had a constant stream of chatter and, at the end of the call, about 10 minutes of HOLD MUSIC, interrupting and obscuring the presenter. Dude, we do not want to hear your phone conversations. We do not want to hear your phone ring. We REALLY do not want to hear the lite jazz hold music. WAKE UP!! People are commenting on this. The presenter and the call organizer both made audible requests for everyone to go on mute. The host sent a conference IM about it. How did you not hear your own voice and your own phone and your own hold music? How, if you heard it, could you not have the basic courtesy to do something about it? Oh, and organizer? I believe Webex has controls that allow you to mute everyone calling in, even if they didn’t get a clue and do it to themselves. Waiting until the last five minutes to even look for those controls shows a basic lack of ability to grasp a concept on YOUR part, too. And after all that, the presentation really didn’t give me a whole lot of information I hadn’t already gotten on my own. OK, it was only 2 hours, there’s only so much you can cover. But I was hoping for a bit more information on things like user stories and how to use them, since that’s what I’m most directly concerned with right now. \ Revisiting SG and the forks, it occurs to me that while stealing them might be enough to get him fired, the problem will be proving it. All we’ve got right now is a reasonable suspicion that those forks are ones that \*\*flatlined \*\*marked, as it’s entirely possible that someone else marked their forks for some other purpose, and said someone else used the same location and color of nail polish \*\*flatlined \*\*did. Hooker red is a screamingly obvious color, and it sounds like she put the dots in a pretty logical location. What she needs to do is mark them with a couple of different colours in a predetermined sequence, and then she has to take pictures. This way, we’ve got proof that they’re uniquely marked. If the uniquely marked ones show up in a thrift store, though, we still only have half the battle won. We now have proof that they were stolen. What we \*don’t \*have proof of is who did the stealing. Sure, we all know it’s SG, but knowing and proving aren’t the same things. There are others in the warehouse with the opportunity to take them, and all he has to do is go into his _po’ me, why are you persecutin’ an old, po’ man, never did a bad turn to a fly, my mamma didn’t raise a thief, it must be someone else_ routine to throw suspicion on everyone in the warehouse. I suspect, given that the thefts are petty, that nothing will be done about this, either. It’d cost to much to investigate, probably. ---

**Author:** ![2gigch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/2gigch1/32/3313_2.png) [@2gigch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2gigch1)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2011, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2717 "2011-12-09T14:53:59Z")

> [@Dr.Girlfriend](#): > > Yesterday I dropped off some paperwork for my soon-to-be employer and there were a few people in the office that I hadn’t met yet. Everyone was sooooo happy to meet me, it kind of freaked me out a little. I’m not used to people being pleasant and happy at work. While this may not last, try with all your might to pretend that this is your reality. I’ve found (in my world) that you kinda make make your own sauce after awhile, and this newfound happy group thing may last. Good to hear either way. ---

**Author:** ![2gigch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/2gigch1/32/3313_2.png) [@2gigch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2gigch1)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2011, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2718 "2011-12-09T15:02:28Z")

Re: The Rat King Anybody thought of calling up the Mythbusters? They seem to have a way of destroying things, they’ll do it free of charge, and it will make good tv. Just need to dream up a Rat-King-in-a-storage-container myth to bust. “Will attaching an exhaust pipe to this container kill these rats?” Hour spent devising ways to find out, then in the end they just get the sheriff’s department to load it up with C4 and it goes bang. All win-win to me. ---

**Author:** ![Dr.Girlfriend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.girlfriend/32/193_2.png) [@Dr.Girlfriend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Girlfriend)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2011, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2719 "2011-12-09T16:37:56Z")

Does anyone want to start a pool on when the credit union first calls me in a panic with some dumb question after I leave? I’ve been trying to train someone all this week, but I’m not getting very far. Mostly because the person I’m trying to train is one of the tellers, and apparently no one else in this office thinks they’re capable of running the teller line. Which is total bullshit, the branch manager is perfectly capable of running a drawer, but that would require him to put down his cell phone and get up off of his lazy ass. So here I am trying to teach someone all the finer points of month-end ledger balancing while having to stop every minute or so for a customer. Yeah, next month it’s gonna crash and burn. And I’m gonna be there with marshmallows. My new employer is literally right across the street from this place, so I’ll see the flames. ---

**Author:** ![FatBaldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2011, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2720 "2011-12-09T16:56:04Z")

> [@Dr.Girlfriend](#): > > Does anyone want to start a pool on when the credit union first calls me in a panic with some dumb question after I leave? Just be sure to print up a few business cards for your new Credit Union Consulting business and give one to your manager before you leave, along with your hourly consulting rates (minimum one hour per incident, of course). ---

**Author:** ![emmaliminal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@emmaliminal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emmaliminal)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2011, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/2721 "2011-12-09T17:00:03Z")

OMG SOMEONE IN THIS OFFICE IS PLAYING CAROLS ON A SPEAKER. KILL KILL KILL KILL OMG IT’S BURL IVES sob! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401.md?page=135) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401.md?page=137)