# 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:** 408
**Author:** ![Macca26](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/13edae/32.png) [@Macca26](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Macca26)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8142 "2014-07-30T18:35:55Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > It’s amazing how narcissistic and ignorant people like that can be about how they come off to others. He probably thought he was crowing about his business and how awesome both he and it are, but it usually comes off as one long “You really don’t want to work here” cautionary tale. Funny, 15 minutes after sending an email response to the owner that I would be unable to take his offer, the art director at that company called my current company to do some work for him on the side. He said it was because he was not paid enough at his current job. Asked me to not tell the owner he was doing work on the side, and when I said not to worry because I wouldn’t be taking the offer anyway, I started getting the pitch. Supposedly the owner would give me the shirt off his back, be ok with all the time off I’d need, fine with half days for appointments, really be a stand-up guy. Just, y’know, the pay sucks. Except what I heard yesterday in the office was a look of incredulity from the owner that sometimes I was able to leave work early now and then. Then he moved on and talked about how he expects people to volunteer for Saturday work if they want to stick around at his company. And of course training is on your own time. Mm-hmm. These statements don’t exactly match. And my foreman here says, “People say that that owner is crazy”. Well hey, more work for my current company in the end… ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8143 "2014-07-30T20:24:39Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Looks like I oversold my own importance in my post. The types of problems that might arise would not cause serious losses to the bottom line. More like serious irritation to certain other managers. Even so, companies that allow this kind of inattentiveness 9and your department is likely not the only poorly-managed one) will eventually suffer when a better-run competitor comes along. > [@Macca26](#): > > It always feels kind of shitty to turn down a job offer because a lot of people would want to be this lucky. But as far as I can tell the guy is a high-powered minmaxer. All he could talk about was getting things done even more quickly, getting more people in so he can run his shop longer than 8 hours a day, how overtime is standard, how even when he’s home all he does is read about his business, and how he still needs to look at everything before it goes out the door but wishes he didn’t have to. So he expects design to be done in 15 minutes flat but also can’t trust his employees to do right by him. And he has no hobbies outside of work. Not exactly sounding stellar. > > Then, he says he’ll get a written offer to me later, but wants me to start training on my own time now. Before I even know how much he’s offering? Really? > > As shitty as my job is right now, even for more money his is sounding worse. He prided himself on being stubborn so I won’t be surprised if he starts hounding me after I turn his non-offer down. Ugh. Only take this if he loos unhealthy – out-of-shape, overstressed, high blood pressure – and his wife seems like a decent person, Theb work hard, and get to know all parts of the business … so that you will be indispensable to his wife/widow when she takes over the business after his inevitable heart attack/stroke/etc. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8144 "2014-07-30T21:19:21Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > …Half of them don’t know the name of the course they teach. One claims to need the materials in time for a course that started in 2011… Tell them that the materials will be available on January 1, 2011, and that any materials not picked up by midnight December 31, 2011 will be donated to the Keep Bozuit Off The Street Fund. ---
**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:** [July 30, 2014, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8145 "2014-07-30T22:15:55Z")
> [@Macca26](#): > > It always feels kind of shitty to turn down a job offer because a lot of people would want to be this lucky. But as far as I can tell the guy is a high-powered minmaxer. All he could talk about was getting things done even more quickly, getting more people in so he can run his shop longer than 8 hours a day, how overtime is standard, how even when he’s home all he does is read about his business, and how he still needs to look at everything before it goes out the door but wishes he didn’t have to. So he expects design to be done in 15 minutes flat but also can’t trust his employees to do right by him. And he has no hobbies outside of work. Not exactly sounding stellar. > > Then, he says he’ll get a written offer to me later, but wants me to start training on my own time now. Before I even know how much he’s offering? Really? > > As shitty as my job is right now, even for more money his is sounding worse. He prided himself on being stubborn so I won’t be surprised if he starts hounding me after I turn his non-offer down. Ugh. > > Hopefully whoever does get his job is a clone of him so they can enjoy it. Wow. It almost sounds like he’s fishing for a decline so he can offer the job to someone else. Is there any way to corroborate those working conditions with a current employee? ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8146 "2014-07-30T23:24:55Z")
I had to take a company-mandated defensive driving course this morning. We learned that GPS devices can be unreliable, like a woman giving directions. \>.\< ---
**Author:** ![Belrix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed655f/32.png) [@Belrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belrix)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8147 "2014-07-31T00:43:41Z")
Really? Their words? ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8148 "2014-07-31T05:11:03Z")
I think it was just the presenter…the slides and notes themselves seemed to be rather vague. He did add “or boyfriend” to that statement after realizing there were three women present in the class. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8149 "2014-07-31T07:00:24Z")
> [@WolfpackJeep](#): > > I think it was just the presenter…the slides and notes themselves seemed to be rather vague. He did add “or boyfriend” to that statement after realizing there were three women present in the class. Wow. I’d never heard that one of the benefits of marriage was that it upgraded your unreliable-navigator boyfriend to a perfect-navigator husband. Why do they never tell you the important stuff? ---
**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:** [July 31, 2014, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8150 "2014-07-31T08:19:52Z")
Nah, I’m sure if he thought they were married, he’d have said “or husbands.” But why would he think any of them were married? They’re still working; ergo, they must not have found husbands yet. Q. E. D. amrite? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8151 "2014-07-31T22:16:52Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Wow. I’d never heard that one of the benefits of marriage was that it upgraded your unreliable-navigator boyfriend to a perfect-navigator husband. Why do they never tell you the important stuff? > [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Nah, I’m sure if he thought they were married, he’d have said “or husbands.” But why would he think any of them were married? They’re still working; ergo, they must not have found husbands yet. Q. E. D. amrite? > > :dubious: The presenter is a manager from another department in my company. I have little to no involvement with him, but the company is small enough that he would know who is married and who isn’t…the two other women who were in the class with me have husbands. There’s also a road test given as part of this defensive driving course…they’re taking us out in pairs. One person drives out, then the drivers switch and the other person drives back. The thing that gets me is we’re being encouraged to use our own vehicles – meaning that if you choose to take the test in your own car, someone else will be driving it for their own test. This seems to be all kinds of wrong to me – there are precious few people at that company who I would allow to drive my vehicles, and I would not feel comfortable handling someone else’s personal vehicle for a test of this nature. My other options are to either use the company truck (assuming another test taker has similar feelings), or demand a solo test (which has been hinted at as an option of last resort). ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8152 "2014-08-01T02:25:36Z")
God I hate workplace bullying. Its not even constant, but that 5-10% just makes the other 95% of the time miserable because you have to walk on eggshells. I wish to fuck people would just leave me the fuck alone to do my job. I don’t need cunts, assholes and bullies taking their frustrations on people further down the food chain, people who they know aren’t able to fight back. I’ve never ‘liked’ my job, but I didn’t hate it until the last few months. Now I fucking hate it, having to worry if today is the day I have to deal with a crazy, abusive asshole looking for an easy target. But the economy is shit and my marketable skills aren’t that great. Fucking fuck. I don’t mind the incompetence, or the usage of corp speak to hide the fact that people don’t know what they are doing. I don’t even mind the boredom. But I can’t take all the hypocritical negativity. Why are the most incompetent people the most judgmental? Even if I do find a new job, how do I know it won’t just be more of the same crazy bullshit? ---
**Author:** ![MagicEyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@MagicEyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MagicEyes)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8153 "2014-08-01T13:17:18Z")
Is anyone else having trouble getting quotes to work? Is it a Firefox thing? **Dung Beetle,** your noisy coworker sounds just delightful! You get extra points if she does it on speaker phone. I just love the cackling. It’s like working in the middle of a flock of hens. Big, noisy hens who are using speakerphones turned up to 11. I’m going to follow up with my supervisor on a task that she wanted someone else to review before I do anything else with it. It’s a pretty safe bet that she will have forgotten all of that and she’ll be mad at me because I haven’t done it yet. But good news–Annoying Coworker is out today!! 🙂 That makes me a happy little worker bee. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8154 "2014-08-01T14:10:56Z")
> [@MagicEyes](#): > > Is anyone else having trouble getting quotes to work? Is it a Firefox thing? … Apparently not! 😉 (I’m in Chrome, if that makes any difference.) > [@MagicEyes](#): > > … That makes me a happy little worker bee. That’s a nice mental image. Enjoy your annoying-co-worker-free Friday! > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > … But I can’t take all the hypocritical negativity… _ahem_ Hyp **ER** critical. Jeez, [get it right](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hypercritical)! - D&R \* ---
**Author:** ![Canadjun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8155 "2014-08-01T14:17:03Z")
> [@MagicEyes](#): > > Is anyone else having trouble getting quotes to work? Is it a Firefox thing? No to both questions. ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8156 "2014-08-01T14:21:39Z")
Update: I have gone back to my old department. Fabulous thing: Boss gave me Sunday OFF completely (and I think I work late this Sunday-- I’ve gotten a peek at the coming week’s schedule, but don’t know all the fine details yet) Not so Fabulous thing: Everyone thinks it’s great to have me back, but they (collectively) aren’t doing a good job of telling me the things I need to know to do my job. It’s starting to really piss me off Add to that coming back the week of a MAJOR SALE, so customer service hassles up the wazoo . . . and really small trucks (one of my favorite parts of this job is dividing up product by department and putting it on the shelves) . . . and too many tags for a department which has been dramatically rearranged in my absence . . . And the person who now has the job I had for six months? Hates “my” job. I feel bad for her, but I don’t want it back (even if they’d give it to me, which they probably wouldn’t). ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8157 "2014-08-01T16:27:10Z")
Nope, hypocritical. Some of the most abusive people I’ve seen in the workplace are also the most incompetent. They try to harm others for occasional mistakes far smaller than they make daily. It’s like dealing with a morbidly obese person who lives on fast food who is abusive towards overweight people for occasionally eating a donut. ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8158 "2014-08-03T02:17:36Z")
TLDR: Crappy day at work. I’d call it the crappiest day in recent memory, but I think that would be underselling how bad certain other crappy days have been. And I’m due back in less than twelve hours, which means I don’t get to go to church on Sunday morning. ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8159 "2014-08-03T21:53:13Z")
The Good News: Sunday was a much better (easier) work day than it had any right to be. Two of us sat out on the “Front porch” for hours and chatted with anyone who came by. I’m not convinced we sold enough product to justify doing it, but it made me feel much happier. ---
**Author:** ![7e42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/7/51bf81/32.png) [@7e42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/7e42)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8160 "2014-08-03T22:52:21Z")
anyone else have a supervisor who doesn’t know anything? ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401/8161 "2014-08-03T23:10:55Z")
> [@7e42](#): > > anyone else have a supervisor who doesn’t know anything? My Boss is ok. It’s her bosses that don’t know anything. One of the things that made Saturday crappy was my Boss coming in from vacation because the Managers were sending her texts saying “your department looks like crap, and your crew won’t fix it”. We, the crew, were not refusing to fix it on principled grounds, we just didn’t really understand what exactly looked like crap and what needed to be done to fix it. Boss came in and straightened things out a lot, because she had better clues what part looked like crap and what not looking like crap would look like. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401.md?page=407) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/workplace-griping-anyone/560401.md?page=409)