I’d scream at Creepy Maintenance Dude, but I’ve seen how he reacts to people disagreeing with him, much less raising their voice. I think I’m gonna take the camcorder to work for a couple days and if he starts up again, video it and show it to the upper management folks and say “So. This is supposed to be a SAFE WORKPLACE. Ten bucks says when he blows, there will be homicide committed.”
And put me down for really disliking Speakerphone Dudes. I work with a guy who can’t seem to pick up the receiver when he calls my office and not only can I not hear him clearly, he says he can’t hear me. Most times I just hang up. If it’s that important he can haul his ass down to my office, send me a bloody e-mail or call me back PROPERLY.
Did the boss name names? Part of the problem in the company I’m leaving tomorrow (yay!) is that the two teams that go before mine in the process chain are too big, and that orders tend to be given in impersonal ways: “please tell the consultant to fill in the proper form, this document she sent does not comply with our procedures”, and 12 people nod, and 12 people figure they’ll let someone else send the consultant the bad news; after all, you want to make sure she doesn’t get 12 emails, don’t you? “We need to transfer all these documents to the repository”, and 12 people nod, and 12 people figure out that “since I wasn’t named, it’s not my job”; after all, you wouldn’t want to start organizing things only to discover that someone else was shuffling files at the same time and you’ve got different criteria, would you?
That used to happen a lot at a company where I worked. Solved it by volunteering to be the one to ‘take minutes’ for those department meetings, and distribute them to everyone afterwards. Then I made sure the minutes specifically said who was in charge of doing each task (and when it would be done). If the boss hadn’t made it clear at the meeting, I just put in the name of the person I thought most appropriate, or even chose someone at random. That person either objected as soon as the minutes came out, or (most often) just did it.
Didn’t take long before people were making sure that someone specific was assigned to each task during the meetings. Either because they wanted to do the task, or they wanted to make sure it went to someone else!
This seemed to help productivity in the department quite a bit.
Oh, awesomesauce. A co-worker startled my suitemate (NiceSweetCoworker) the other day. She sits facing our door, so she usually can see him, or whoever, come in. Now he’s taken it as a personal challenge to make her startle again. The problem?
I sit with my back to the door
and
I startle very, very easily.
:mad:
(Seriously, I’ve been startled by my own husband when I KNEW HE WAS IN THE ROOM with me.) This asshole co-worker is the same guy I have to listen to as he blathers on and on and on AND ON about fantasy frikkin’ football. Side note: new 1-hr. white-noise track I got from Amazon? Oh, how I wuvses you.
So, Dopers: will any of you visit me in prison? Because, seriously: he startles me one more fucking time, and there will be blood. Oh, yes; there will be blood.
Does your recipe include a shiv or small metal file in the center of each cookie?
Why am I getting so many email requests from people who don’t understand the concept of replacing X with Y?
So, current website has file “A.” I get an email with attachment “B” and a note saying, “Please upload B to the website and replace it with the current one.”
Not once, but multiple times, and not from the same person. WTF?
I’d visit you. I snapped once on a guy who did that to me on purpose. I get into my zone and I don’t notice things when I’m concentrating, well this one jerk (who was my trainee no less) grabs my chair and shakes it. I was so pissed I let him have it, I was in the middle of putting together a report and in that really good zone where time flies and work gets done FAST and he completely wrecked it. (He was mostly trained, or as trained as he ever got, he didn’t need me for anything just decided to scare me for fun.)
It’s one thing if it’s accidental (I turn around and you’re right there when I didn’t expect you to be) but to wreck my concentration for a bit of fun? You’re not five and even my son knows better than to try and startle someone when their working.
It’s time for a new personal tic! I’d suggest stretching a lot to crack your back. Then you “accidentally” smack him in the face when you’re stretching.
Or you could do what I do when someone hovers over me: spin around, deal out Glare of Death (over the glasses is perfect if you wear them) and ask in your pointiest voice, “Help. You?”
I’m wondering if its time to do a “Strangers on a train” sort of thing. One of you takes SG, I’ll “startle” PHS’s idiot, she can kill the File Room Jerk…
Today, my boss came to talk to me. Conversation went something like this:
B: Flatty, you cannot continue doing this.
F: innocent look
B: Don’t you know what sort of reputation you have in the county? People respect and admire you. Everyone knows you, they know that you always go out of the way to help them, they know that you turned the warehouse around. They know that you are fearless, you run into the highway to save dogs, you ride with a biker club, you tossed that IT guy into the courthouse fountain in full view of a Board meeting.
F: nods, smiles
B: So now you have everyone worried about their boxes and nobody is willing to go into that storage area. If you won’t do it, we can’t get any one else to do it.
F: They shouldn’t. Facilities needs to deal with the problem. That’s their job.
B: You are upsetting people.
F: One thing I have learned working here is that if people aren’t inconvenienced, nothing will change. Besides, people aren’t getting upset with me, they are upset that Facilities has done nothing.
B: I might have to pull you out of the warehouse and into the main office. You will be answering phones and talking to the taxpayers.
B: For elections.
F: starts to sweat
B: No more comfy boots, business causual clothes.
F: starts to squirm
B: sees her advantage Pantyhose, Flatty. If you don’t stop doing this, you will be wearing pantyhose again.
F: cracks up You really had me worried for a while. Threatening me with pantyhose would have done it if anyone working here actaully wore them. Heck, you and your bride maids didn’t wear them for your own wedding.
B: Flatty, you really suck.
F: grins and now you know how good I am at it!
B: So, what are we going to do about this problem.
F: I’m not going back into that storage unit until the rats are gone and its clean again. You are going to call the Facilities Boss and tell him to get off his ass and deal with his problem.
B: This is going on you eval, you know.
F: The one you gave me last week, the one that said I was an exceptional worker?
B: You really do suck. Want to meet at Taco Don’s for lunch?
Flatlined, please add my Mrs. Boss to the Strangers scenario. Pretty please.
Despite the fact that I love my line of work, and sincerely, genuinely like all but one person in this company, I have decided to give my notice on Monday. Today, Mrs. Boss decided to get all up my nose over a screw-up… That she made. And the final straw? One of the auditors and I are coffee fiends. We decided that, instead of drinking the (crummy, but better than nothing) hotel coffee, we’d bring our own set-up: maker, coffee, and fixings. I already use my own non-disposable cup, and brought another for the auditor. The owner won’t leave the coffee pot plugged in for a 10-minute brew so that I can pour it into my thermal carafe! Seriously, we’re not allowed to use her electricity, even though she sees a net gain by us purchasing our own coffee and supplies. (I’d estimate that the auditor and I average 12 cups of coffee per day - each. Maybe more. Without our coffee station, Mrs. Boss is still paying for the electricity to brew what we drink. Plus coffee, filters, water, and fixings. So how does her “don’t use my electricty” stance make any sense?)
I give up. The other manager will be back mid-month. I feel like I have handled my obligations well. And I will miss my job, and my colleagues. But Mrs. Boss can kiss my shiny white ass.
You are so added, Lacunae!!! I once had a boss who called a meeting to tell everyone that we couldn’t fill our water bottles before going home. The bottled water was for while we were at work. In the middle of summer in the middle of the desert.
Okay, flatlined, now we know how you got the IT guy into the fountain. Do we get to know why? (I’m guessing it was necessary, given that no one who worked with him wanted to break up the fight and that you’re still working there.)
Plus, why isn’t Facilities taking care of this problem?
Nice to see that Boss isn’t likely to hold this against you, although I’m slightly disappointed that she tried to pressure you into doing something she knows isn’t safe or your job.
Although a small, evil part of me wonders what she would have done if you’d said, “I’ll go in after you do.” If she’s not willing to do it, she shouldn’t be asking you to.
Visiting would be a bit far… where do you live? Sorry but I don’t remember.
I know a priest whose job in New Mexico includes visiting prisons, he says he’s always amazed when somebody whose worst crime ever has been yelling at a sibling 30 years ago thinks he’ll freak out during confession of something along the lines of “sometimes my wife really gets on my nerves”. “I take confession from murderers, gangbangers, coyotes and drug dealers, what do they think they can tell me that’s going to shock me?”
Re. leaving jobs, I’m switching jobs on Monday. The notice I gave was short, but it was above the time listed in my contract. The only reason my agent or the guy from the Big Consulting Firm have been able to give me for why I shouldn’t change from a job where the Client is a mess, the BCF has not provided any of the support we’ve asked for, and we’re being paid less than usual. Noticeably less than usual. If the next job (which pays more than my usual rate) stops after the three-month initial contract and I’m unemployed for two months afterward, I won’t have lost any money and will have had two months off :p… aaanyway, the only reason they’ve been able to give me for not leaving has been “but but but you can’t do this to me!”
Uh… why not?
I’ve been having flashbacks to my graduate advisor, whose reaction to “ok, since you haven’t proposed any solutions to your stealing my research in the time I gave you I’m leaving” was “but but but you can’t do this to me!”
WHY?
If you want people to stay, give them a reason! Make them want to stay! Do not write in the contract “five days notice” if you want thirty, do write “minimum length of contract six months” if that’s what you want - and if you write that, remember it means on both sides: we can’t leave before six months, and you can’t kick any of us out before six months unless it’s in a police car.
As our Finance guy (who, as it often happens, is the one with the most conservative and careful outlook) put it “my own contract is one page long. One page long. You can’t require people to do things which are not on the contract, that’s the point of writing things down!”
We’ve already had one person leave (someone who arrived later than I did); another one who almost left but who didn’t because the guy from BCF is an old friend (they’re godparents to each other’s children), so the “you can’t do this to me” argument actually works… yet the guy was absolutely surprised by my notice. Really? You’re losing people left and right, you’re not giving them the support they’ve repeatedly asked for, the training they’ve repeatedly asked for (we’re qualified for another part of the process, not for the one we’ve been stuck on - the best plumber in the world is not necessarily a good bricklayer, specially with no training), and you think that anybody who hasn’t given notice yet is happy?
I don’t know what does he take, but it’s probably illegal.
Officemate: Keep hammering on that goddamn keyboard like that and it might end up in an uncomfortable place. :mad: And I’ve never encountered anyone who uses the mouse loudly…seriously, I should not be able to hear you clicking and scrolling when I’m wearing headphones. Also, that glop-in-a-cup you had for your midmorning breakfast fucking reeked.
Not in my cookies, no. My cookies are good and should be eaten. I can make a homemade pie crust, though, that would only be improved in edibility if I included a shiv and/or file. Thank Og for Pet-Ritz frozen pie crusts!
Instead, the next time he sneaks up and startles you, jump up and shriek!“Eeeeeek! What’s wrong? What’s the matter?”
Better yet, if you can prep a friendly, nearby co-worker to go after him: “Why are you in her office? What’s sso important that you had to interrupt her? Why couldn’t you just send an email?” Meanwhile you just stand there trembling, and being comforted by fellow workers.
Your shriek should be loud enough to be heard at least 3 offices down the hall, and attract a lot of nearby co-workers to come running to see what’s wrong. (The more the merrier!) The bigger the fuss, the longer he will be reminded not to do that again.
