I think what’s being referred to here is the difficulty of firing incompetent people sometimes. I wonder how much easier it is in countries other than America. I have read things that make me think this problem is pretty universal though. I’m not sure why protecting employees from petty and unfair firings has had to end up protecting incompetents from justifiable firings but it seems to have.
I finally have something to contribute. (Although I might have bitched about something somewhere in this giant thread! 
)
Right before our biweekly meeting, we were all gathering at the conference table.
K’s cellphone rang with his “sheep baa-ing” ringtone. It’s annoying, but I suppose everyone’s ringtone is annoying. But it’s a sheep!
I jokingly said he needed to get another ringtone.
K blew up! He said (while still talking to the caller, his son) “I don’t have to do ANYthing! It’s my phone! You just don’t start with me! You just don’t even TALK to me!”
I mumbled, “I guess I can’t even joke with you.”
K’s phone rang two or three more times after that (with a different ringtone), and he didn’t answer – just stopped the call. But he didn’t put it on vibrate.
After the meeting, I talked to our supervisor, who was present for this, basically saying WTF? He said I didn’t do anything wrong, but I should take the high road, and maybe sometime next week try to approach him again in a friendly manner. I have been attempting to be friendly for a long time.
This guy hates me ever since he heard me talking about him behind his back. I wish he hadn’t heard me, but he really is a lazy worker, who spends a lot of his time goofing off and talking on the phone. He never asks for help. You know what though, a couple of weeks ago he actually DID ask me some software questions. Hmm. I forgot about that. At the time, I thought we were working back to a better working relationship. And when he came back from cataract surgery this week, I asked about his vision and said “welcome back.”
So I don’t get the venom, for what amounts to a stupid joke.
Then the supervisor called him into his office, door open, and we could hear K blowing up again - the supervisor had asked him to leave his phone at his desk when we have meetings. He said, very loudly, “I’ll just leave it in my car all day!!!”
The supervisor should have implemented a “phones on vibrate only” policy - not just a one person ban.
Drama! We haz it!
Housekeepers, you are all on my Specialized High Intensity Training list. I know you all want to go on and on at the morning meeting, but please note that I am answering the phones. I cannot hear the people I am supposed to be talking to over your yapping. Also, stop trying to buy your sodas and chips when I am on the fucking phone on the other side of the desk and cannot get to you. Stop trying to ask me what my problem is when I’m running back and forth like a ferret trying to do twelve things at once. Right now **you **are my problem. Don’t make me pull out my registration card to prove to you that I am a Slapaho from Kickabitch Creek because you will not like what happens when I do.
Well, the lady across the desk from me talked to me more today. She is probably just one of those people who don’t talk much to strangers.
I actually have that line stored in my phone so I can pull a snappy line out when needed. Oh heck, I still don’t know how to do nested quotes.
Nava, you use your tongue better than a 2 dollar whore!
The saga of the RatKing’s Lair continues. For those who get upset about child molesters, go to another thread. This post will really upset you. So this guy named Don would take poor women into his home as long as she had kids. When the kids started acting out, he would kick them out on the street. The kids would act out because they were getting fucked while the mom was working at his store.
Finally he got arrested and went to jail for a couple of years and then left the state. I have the boxes and because Don left the state, the boxes went to the RatKing’s Lair.
Don didn’t stop offending, he just moved to another state where nobody knew that he should die slowly and painfully.
Now, I’m supposed to produce the files, copy them and then send the copies to the new state. I’m willing to do this, however…I’m not willing to touch them.
I don’t think they will scan or copy well because the boxes have become nests.
So…a couple of days ago, I was told to go out and get them. I refused to go into the Lair without a hazmat suit. The PTB sent me an intern. I warned the intern about the rats and pee and snakes (did you all now that snakes can sneak into smaller cracks than rats?)
Intern turned white when I mentioned the snakes and that he would be going in alone. He’s an unpaid college student, but hoping to get a job after his internship is over. I’m very sorry for him.
Oh, hell. power is off, again. tbc
You know, I think I have a solution. Don (and possibly Charles Manson) should have to do all of the retrieving of files from the RKL. Also, Don gets to clean up the entire Lair. No hazmat suit. And he has to live in the Lair, too, until it’s completely cleaned up to your OCD minion’s satisfaction. Then, assuming he’s still alive, I’m sure we can find other suitable jobs for him.
Not that this guy isn’t a piece of work, but… in his defense, how daft do you have to be to talk *in front of *someone’s back at work? He’s justified in disliking you, and I can’t see that ever changing. If someone pulled that shit on me, they’d be firmly marked as “enemy” for the rest of my career there. So, maybe stop trying to be buddy-buddy with the guy. Laziness is something that can be fixed, given sufficient motivation. But being a backstabbing bitch is terminal.
Not as daft as you have to be to take a personal call on your cellphone during a professional meeting in front of your supervisor. If you’d done that at my workplace, you’d have had a stern talking to, and we were a fairly liberal left-wing university.
The point is that neither of those are smart things to do. A one-upmanship contest comparing one daftness to another is futile. And at least the guy taking calls during a meeting isn’t actively evil.
Now that my power seems to be stable I will continue the saga.
(the power people are redoing the buried lines. Hurray, they are making our culverts nice and clean. Boo because they keep breaking the main water lines and cutting the power off because they are whimps who don’t want to do the funky chicken while fixing things.)
So…intern and me in the van on a washed out dirt road. I wasn’t sure if he was green because he was afraid of the snakes or because of the washboards, or because the top heavy back wheel van tends to fishtail. We got to the gate and was able to open the chain.
That when intern asked “do I really have to do this?”
Me cherps No, of course not. You are a volunteer. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.
Intern: will I have any chance of getting a job if I don’t do it?
Me: I don’t know, you are on the very bottom of the food chain. Interns are cheap and easy to replace.
Intern: so I guess I don’t have any choice.
Me: didn’t you tell me that you fix cars as a hobby? Mechanics are always needed. Maybe you could take up plumbing. The last time I had a plumber out, I paid $40 an hour.
As we were talking, a dust storm formed, blowing tumbleweeds at us. Intern glared, mumbled something about being told that getting a good education would mean that he could get a good job.
I put the van into drive and went to the doors. The bright sun was baking the puddles of clay into bricks and the hot wind whipped through the air.
I gave intern the key and when he opened the first door, he fainted. I’m serious, his knees buckled and he went down. I managed to catch him so his head didn’t hit the ground, then ran away because of the stench of rotting paper and ratpee. I didn’t puke, but it was close.
Realizing that the lack of paperwork might let Don get a slap on the hands, I went back to the van, pulled out my duct tape, and covered my shoes and lower legs with it. Then I went in.
The stench was horrible. My precious boxes were all kittywampus. When I found the first box and shook it, the handles broke off. I dumped it on the handtruck and punched the other boxes before I touched them. When I got back outside, I spit and hacked while intern staggered to the van.
We bagged the boxes up and took them to the Sheriff’s office and told them that they would have to deal with shipping them.
Now that I’m planning to quit and move out of the state, I don’t care. Intern says he’s going to start volunteering with the Feds. I wish him well.
You could make a million if you could bottle and sell that, “I’m almost done here, so this isn’t my problem any more” feeling. I almost always have that as a temp - none of the stuff that goes on at a job is my problem.
I can’t WAIT until this hits the evening news.
Flatlined, you’re totally my hero even more for what you did. Sorry it put your health in such a dangerous situation. It was really awesome of you.
Congratulations on your upcoming wedding!
Was there paperwork about the intern fainting from the smell? Just in case either of you get sick later? (Not that I’m trying to push more work or annoyance onto you.)
Also, will this be the first full-on whiff that the Sheriffs have had of the situation? Are they likely to raise a stink of their own over having to handle rat-pee documents?
I only ask out of pure prurient interest and nosiness. And good on you for bravery in the face of scumbags falling between the cracks.
Wouldn’t it have been less repulsive to have us go find Don and beat him to a comatose pulp with 2x4’s?
[raises hand to volunteer]
No, thank og. All I have to deal with is lip smacking, slurping (even when it’s finger food, somehow), chomping, gulping and a weird noise that seems to be a pre-staging for the gulping. One more noise in her eating symphony would send me over the edge.
I’m pretty sure that we’d enjoy that too much for it to be legal.
Anyway, I like my idea of forcing Don to deal with the Lair.
Hey Lynn, why can’t we do both? First we introduce him to a few clue by fours which allows him to be more attractive to the Rat King, then he gets sent in. Everybody wins!
An update on my retirement – 3 weeks ago I told the boss/owner that I am leaving full-time work at the end of April but would be willing to work part time in May if he gave me a schedule that we could both agree on, so that I could help train my replacement.
Since then he’s suggested that (1) less that 5 days per week is not useful and (2) a six-hour day, 9 AM to 3 PM would be acceptable. I responded that if it’s to be 5 days per week, I want to work no more than half time, and suggested 9 AM to 1 PM. This is because I know that at fair proportion of problems that come up now happen right around mid-afternoon. I don’t want to get sucked into staying late as I often do now.
There has been no response to that. On Friday afternoon, I broached the subject again and he said he’d let me know by mid-week (that is, the day after tomorrow). What he seems to fail to understand is that the default is that after this week, I WON’T BE COMING IN TO WORK AT ALL. Period. He can’t run any kind of power play. What’s he going to do, fire me?
As far as I can tell he has done nothing about a replacement. He has not asked me to instruct any of the other employees, nor have I seen anyone come in for an interview. He’s been grouchy as heck, though, which isn’t helping any.
I’ve told all of my cow-orkers, and every single one said, “Good for you!”
[weird anti-workrant potential thingy]
There’s a possibility I may be hired for a part time office job this summer and that would just be super great as this has kind of been the Summer of Employment Disappointments. Having a job, even part time where I’m not on my feet the whole time would be super spectacular. So fingers crossed.[/w a-wr p t]
Now, to be relevant to the thread: I hate people. I hate people who must pay with exact change. I hate people who try to pay with a hundred. I hate people and I hate the fact that this job has made me hate people.