I am very sorry to hear that your cat is ill. Truly. I know that many people have very close relationships with their pets, and it’s hard to see them suffer.
But I have a broken toe myself that’s causing low-grade pain more or less all the time, and a child with a broken arm with whom I spent the entire weekend in the hospital, and I’m managing a chronic condition in said child that is flaring up right now and causing us a great deal of stress and worry. You know who else it’s hard to see suffer? Your children.
And you know where I am? AT MY DESK. Doing my work, and now yours as well. And I’ll manage to be a mom to my kids, too. Because I’m a grown-up, despite being young enough to be your daughter.
If you wonder why I got promoted ahead of you with so much less tenure, maybe think about today, and our respective behaviors.
ETA: This is not an isolated incident. It’s the first time it’s been the pet. Sometimes it’s a feeling of malaise, as far as I can tell. I’m not really a cold-hearted animal hater. I miss my dog.
The crazy is running rampant amongst my team today. There WILL be a “Come to Jesus” meeting in the very near future. And yes, you ALL will be excoriated. You are about to feel my wrath. And it won’t be pretty.
Fair enough question. Mostly I’m irritated because Old Guy is working on stuff for my service area, and he’s doing it wrong or, in some (too many) cases, not doing it at all. I probably shouldn’t be angry per se, but this has been going on for a LOOOOOONG time. I’ve spent so much time today (and previously) smoothing things over after he sends goofy-ass emails that I can’t get certain other things done, which makes me look bad.
I’m one of those lucky souls who is in a position of responsibility with no authority, so I literally can’t do anything about it. Meanwhile, the problem just keeps compounding because Manager (who actually has authority) “feels bad” about his complete and utter inability to perform the basic job functions that he was hired to do, and she won’t do anything about it. And of course if I mention anything about it, then I’m the one who looks like an asshole. Personally, I kind of think he’s aware that Manager has some kind of bizarre soft spot for him, and he’s using that to milk all the human kindness out of this place.
But, you know, dinosaur posters are way more dangerous to morale than addressing the fact that one of us is so incompetent that the rest of us have to do more than double the work to clean up after him (because first we have to undo whatever he did, and then we have to do it the way it should have been done in the first place).
I like my job, and I like you a lot. I really do. Perhaps you’re wondering, then, why I sort of snapped at you the other day.
It’s because, once again, you commented on my coughing. Now look. When I do things like coughing in public, I usually get a little embarrassed. I get infinitely more embarrassed when someone comments on my coughing! Why you feel the need to say something about it every time I just happen to cough, I don’t know, but it bothers the shit out of me.
OK, co-worker. I realize that you were not hired to answer the phone. I realize that wasn’t part of your original job description, but your manager has spoken to you and told you that you need to answer the phone when it rings to you from the support line. We in support are short-staffed, and sometimes all of us are on the phone. We would like our customers to speak to a person if at all possible.
You do NOT get the option of deciding on your own that, because you don’t want to answer the phone, you’re not going to. I’ve watched you ignore it. Repeatedly. Your manager has spoken to you about this. Repeatedly.
I really like you as a person but you’re starting to piss me off.
Gripe #1: My team got moved at the beginning of the year to a new building which, while nearly doubling my (admittedly short by DFW standards) commute, now gives us a 20th-floor view. Lovely when a storm is rolling in, or when the local hawk flies by.
For reasons that make no sense to me, our entire (100+ people) floor is being moved down to the 6th floor. Then, sometime next year, we’re moving to yet ANOTHER building. One which has not yet been built, hence the “sometime next year” timeline.
This makes financial sense … how? Also, wah-wah, I’m losing my pretty view, which was literally the last thing I genuinely enjoyed about my job. Gripe #2: One of my co-workers is all amped up on life? I guess? and jumped the gun and is all packed up, offline, ready to move. Now. When we’re supposed to move drumroll tomorrow.
My boss (the one I trained, for those who have been following my sad little sagas) is all amped up on caffeine and nicotine, as per usual, and is just generally about to give me a heart attack.
Hypothetical Solution: Xanax and/or Prozac all around!
Seriously, I really want to start spiking their respective water bottles. Also, my own.
I Pit customers who pay for 3 days’ worth but want material that would take about two weeks to write.
I Pit consultants who are so used to going above and beyond that we keep trying to give them what we have no physical time to do.
And no, you idiot, I am NOT going to fucking explain in the goddamned manual every possible way things can go wrong, or the meaning of every single field. You’re paying me to teach you how to use the Thing in the way that’s best for your job, not to have a big longass paragraph and ten screenies followed by “but we’re not going to do it this way because it wouldn’t work”, then another big longass paragraph and ten more screenies followed by “we’re not doing this way either because it wouldn’t work”, then another big longass paragraph with its ten screenies and this one bolded because “it is the method we use” and a final big longass paragraph with ten more screenies which by the way “we’re not going to do this because it wouldn’t. Fucking. Work.”
Sadly, I’m not allowed the use of four-letter words in manuals.
Oh, and I’m an engineer. My writing and presentation have always been engineer-like, since I was a little kid who would never have entertained the notion of drawing lilacs on a poster about WWII extermination camps so it wouldn’t look so gloomy (I might have drawn a few anatomically-correct skeletons, but then, I wouldn’t have choosen such a gloomy subject in the first place; my poster was about a Velazquez painting, “the surrender of Breda”). All this “no tables, just explain” stuff chaps my ass.
Aah, the coworkers who love promising to do things for customers that would violate the laws of physics, thermodynamics, space-time, and 38 states. I love those guys! My favorite hobby is daydreaming about sending those guys toxic spiders through interoffice mail.
I pit myself for letting the delivery guy use a pallet jack to bring stuff in through the lobby. He didn’t raise the jack up high enough and left a scratch in the floor tiles running from the front door all the way to the janitor’s closet. :smack:
I used to work with a woman who would clear her throat every few minutes, only it wasn’t normal throat-clearing. It sounded like she was hacking up body parts, and she knew she had a problem and was seeing an allergist to no avail. One day, it was driving me crazy and I came VERY close to telling her that she either had to stop doing it or go home, but then I realized that it bothered her a lot more than it bothered me.
I was told later by someone who knows a little about this that the woman probably has undiagnosed Tourette’s syndrome.
“Well actually, I have some man hands in one of my drawers here”
(reaches for lower drawer)
“Wanna see? They might be a bit dessicated. In fact I may need to find some new ones…” (evil look)
Sounds like a Bill for the delivery company for damages caused. After getting two estimates, of course.
Many years ago the delivery guys for a furniture place scratched the ever loving fuck out of some friend’s new wood floors - and ended up paying to replace them.
