Workplace griping, anyone?

The BBQ Pit
421

A new Workplace Gripe.

People at the General Mail facility: you know what the Automated Parcel Processing System is; you know that the parcels you put into the All-Purpose Carriers are destined to be loaded onto this system, with its bewildering array of conveyor belts. Please don’t put rolling shapes such as cylinders and spheres into the APCs.

Mail handler/clerks: in the extremely likely event that they screwed up at the GMF and loaded rolling items into the APC, please cull those items from the load belt before they make it onto the singulation stage. You’ve been given a “pause” button for just that purpose. Also, please stop overloading the belt. It doesn’t do anything to increase our throughput numbers. In fact, it tends to do just the opposite, since so much product has to go through recirculation.

Third-class mail customers, please consider finding a system for bundling your flats such that the bundles will not come apart halfway through processing, strewing individual magazines and catalogs all over (and under) the APPS. These 54-year old bones don’t enjoy slithering around underneath the machine at the end of the run, retrieving all that stuff.

Well, actually the slithering itself isn’t all that bad. It’s getting on my feet again that’s a pain in the a–, err, skeleton.

422

To my cow-orker: if I could hate anybody, you’d be my second candidate. You’re lucky my ex-boyfriend has that number one spot, or you’d be up there easily. You get offered OT to come in and help cover the switchboard, and you refuse, then you complain about not getting any OT. So the main receptionist is off on vacation, and someone else covers until you get here to take over. We have our jobs to do as well: but you come sashaying in, 10 minutes late, then you have to come back to the back, clock in, and then get your coffee. 10 minutes late is not too bad, but yesterday you were almost three hours late and I had to put off my job to wait for you to get in. It’s end of month, I’m on a deadline, and can only spare so much time.

It wouldn’t be so bad if you clocked in at your desk. We can clock in from any computer. Matter of fact, I clocked in from your computer at the switchboard this morning. But when I offer to help you and show you how to clock in from your station, you snarkily tell me to drop it. Fine. If you don’t want to know how to do your job better, don’t let me stand in the way of your failure. I’ll stand back from now on and watch you burn.

423

I sit next to a fucking ice chewer. All fucking day she sounds like she’s crushing fucking gravel. And how does she get this bottomless supply of ice into her muscly maw? By picking up her bigass styrofoam cup and loudly rattling the fucking ice in it. It’s an endless serenade of crunching and amplified boulder Yahtzee. I have to wear headphones and earplugs to block out only the top notes, which leaves me in a weird auditory isolation booth that she can still pierce. Even though I’ve been off work and not heard this shit for five days, I still find myself pissed about it as soon as I realize I’m not hearing it. She’s iceboarding my fucking brain…

424

Hey, coworker – You’ve been walking around for the past six days announcing over and over you have a cold. Not just in those words, but by coughing and sneezing. Which is fine, well, not really, but our culture says you can come to work and spray cold germs around.

The thing is, you make such a drama out of it! It’s not enough to cough, you have to end each batch of coughs with pitiful little moans. Plus at random times – pretty much each time you stand up/sit down/walk across the office – do ANYTHING physical – you heave these massive sighs, like no one has EVER suffered under such a physical burden before.

Okay, I see two possibilities: you are indeed suffering so badly the moaning and sighs are called for. Then what you have ISN’T just a cold! Go to you doctor! Go to a Doc in a Box! Go to an emergency room! You need MEDICAL HELP.

(At the very least, GO HOME! Bed rest, yes? Warmth, time, recover, all that good stuff.)

However I think the other possibility is more likely, since your symptoms don’t seem to be getting any worse: you just have a cold and are the world’s worst baby/drama queen about it. All this sighing and moaning is intended to elicit concern/tlc/sympathy from us.

Well, guess what? This is an office. The rest of us are your coworkers. Not girlfriends, wives, lovers, best friends. ESPECIALLY not your mother. So after a couple of ‘Get well soon’ comments the well is empty.

You’re a man in your thirties, meaning you’ve undoubtedly had dozens of colds in your life. So stop being such a baby about it!

425

Oh, god. Oh, dear god. I think … I think I once dated Starving’s co-worker.

Slap him upside the head for me, willya?

426

Does it make you feel better at all to know that chewing ice can break your teeth? It sounds like she’ll be taking a lot of time off to visit the dentist. :slight_smile:

427

Passive-aggressive bonus points: Print out multiple copies of that article and start leaving them on the ice-chomper’s desk every day. You can also put copies in their drawers, under their keyboard, in their bag, in their coat pockets, in their hood, in their lunchbox…

428

…in the ice dispenser at 7-11…

429

I would, 'cept I think I’d be too tempted to use The Travelling Shovel of Death if I did.

430

Philanthropy-minded types: I appreciate that you’d love to give money to our department of the hospital. Just one tiny little gripe, though - perhaps next year, you could let us know earlier than a few days prior to the end of the year that 'OMG you need to get us this money now and we have to deposit it before the end of the year and…" hello, we’re not even here Friday.

This goes double for the guy who called today, only for us to find out that he’s actually got a few options in mind and is still “weighing” them. So we can’t even call to follow up because he might tell us to knock off the pressure. Thanks. Really.

431

Ugh, I’m in a supremely cranky mood. It’s the day before a long weekend and it’s been a short week, so I’m kinda on auto-pilot. Work is slow right now because of the season and I’m just not one of those people that’s motivated enough to find makework. Just give me something to do - tell me what we need.

Boss is also pretty stressed, we’ve gone this month without his second-in-command. This means I’ve become more of a sounding board for him. Thing is, he’s stressed about us having enough work and he’s all into marketing right now and I don’t know marketing. I can’t tell him what our strategy should be, or write up things without having a push in the right direction. He tells me vague things like ‘we need to find our niche’ and seems to expect me to know what it is. I’m a code monkey. Give me a project and say ‘here’s the specs, here’s what you need to know, now make it’. All this vague stuff is annoying. And I don’t know how to manage this client, I’m trying to push her back onto boss or the other coworker she knows. It’ll get better in the new year once we have subboss back, but right now boss has so much going on in his head that he can’t manage the worker bees and we’re buzzing around all confused.

432

Here’s an anecdote that pretty much sums up the Smoking Clique where I work - I got in at 8 am, I chitchatted for about a minute then started working. At 8:40, after talking about tv shows for 40 minutes, the Smoking Clique went out for a smoke break (they usually start at 8:00 or later too). The department just lost three experienced staff, it is catastrophically behind, they’re in period end right now and year end in five weeks, and these people can’t seem to stop smoking and talking and actually get to work.

433

For New Year’s Eve, we’re closing an hour early. Of course, we don’t get any sort of holiday pay for it, so those of us normally scheduled to work until the end of the day have to come in an hour early. Frankly, if I have to be here for eight hours, I’d rather wake up when there’s at least a little light in the sky; leaving an hour early doesn’t really do anything for me.

Also, the final requests for time off have come in. We’re only able to have one person off at a time. I put in one request for time off, and there’s a conflict, so we have to raffle off. But the times that would be best to reschedule for are ALSO already claimed, and I can’t raffle for them. So, if I don’t win the raffle, I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do. Possibly schedule anyway; I don’t really plan on being here six months from now, and it’s very likely that I won’t be. But doing that bucks every responsible bone in my body.

I’ve been here for six years, and I’ve always taken whatever hours they’ve needed me on, and I’ve been flexible in trading with other people when they need it. I’m really kind of fucking pissed. It’s not goddamn rocket science; you can be two people down for four days. It’s not the end of the fucking world.

And I can’t even be pissed at my boss, because it’s not his fault that he has to fight for whatever staff we get, and that we keep on getting additional responsibilities that we assume in order to cover the home office’s ass–er, cement our position as a vital part of the company.

434

One of the sales guys at my company did this once. Then it happened again in November–someone sent out an email offering some kind of exchange with other companies in the corporation and one, lone person (not our sales guy) accidentally hit “reply all.” Every.Bloody.One. of the people who corrected the guy for his mistake also hit “reply all”–including our sales guy. The email eventually got overloaded and shut down for a few hours. Sales guy and hundreds of other people had a little sit-down with their respective franchise owners and the corporation’s IT department took away the “reply all” function.

I have never been more happy that I don’t have a company email. One of the managers spent two hours deleting emails so he could get the ones that he actually needed and then his inbox filled up with “reply all” emails again. That went on for a week before the hand-slapping from TPTB started.

435

Thanks for NYE off, boss, but I would have preferred to not mess up my sleep pattern for the work week (and get the extra money :D).

436

Dear servers: must every last one of you be such impatient, whiny-ass goddamned bitches? Fuck you. Fucking crybabies. And you wonder why I get cranky.

Dear large groups: we’re in the middle of a Sunday lunch. Don’t be surprised when you come in unannounced if we don’t have anything open for you. Tough shit if you have to wait.

Dear neo-hippie bitch: why did you come in begging for a job when you’re just gonna call off all the goddamn time? At least be honest and tell me you’re too hung over to come in. The bullshit excuses just don’t cut it. BTW, do you know you’ve called off more in two months than I’ve called off in 25 years? And I’m the one with serious medical problems. Shit. Lay off the pot and/or alcohol and you’ll feel much better. Note: I like hippies. I’m practically one myself. But one must face reality eventually. I’m sure your landlord would love it if you paid your rent.

Note: the holidays are over. O-V-fucking-E-R. You even had an extra day - today - to enjoy them. Tomorrow I expect all of you to go back to work or school. Just leave me in fucking peace.

Happy New Year.

437

Now that I’ve had a week off from work, I don’t feel so stressed about being here and doing these menial tasks. Looking from the previous posts I was making… wow, I was about ready for homicide. At any rate, Cat Whisperer, I know these kinds of difficulties are something for the temp agency to handle, I’ve been with them for a little over two years and they’ve always been very accommodating when I said “I don’t think that’s an appropriate assignment for me” or “Here are some new skills I picked up, I hope they will be put to use on my next assignment”. But… that was before the manager went on maternity leave and they brought in someone who is geared towards making sure jobs are available than the happiness of the temp roster. C’est la vie. The old one will be back soon, though, so I’m just biding my time and not make waves until I know I have actual support.

438

Good plan, Grapefruit. Funnily enough, I’m having a bit of a problem with my current assignment, and my contact just went on maternity leave, too. I left a message for her replacement - we’ll see how that goes.

439

I am proud that after THREE YEARS of claiming not to know how to change the voicemail you, this past Thursday, changed our team it to indicate we were going to be closed Friday.

Of course it would have made much more sense to note that at the beginning of our message, as by the time our clients listen to the mandatory spiel, well, they haven’t listened to any of it.

I just finished returning 49 calls that accrued Thursday afternoon until yesterday morning. That number does not include the calls from yesterday, too. On a usual day I field maybe 25 calls, 35 on a busy day. Forty-nine plus the 22 from yesterday is ridiculous.

Much to TheKid’s delight, I am pretty much hoarse and emotionally drained. Pizza and TV is as all I can handle right now.

440

Dear fucker: you think you’re making fun of me but you’re actually proving you don’t understand the first thing about our product, and skirting a sexual harassment suit in the process.

So shut the fuck up already.