You know it’s time to change jobs when just thinking about going in to work makes your stomach hurt. If only it were that easy.
The fun is starting early this morning. I embedded a bunch of videos in web pages, and my supervisor asked me to make them small. I made them small but not too small, but of course now she thinks they’re too small and I have to redo at least a dozen videos. Sure, let me do that again, on top of the ton of other stuff I already have to do! We could get more done if I didn’t have to redo so many things that are really perfectly fine already.
I’m sorry to hear that Dunkelheit. I remember how long it took you to get that job, and how excited you were when you started.
I can honestly say I never hated any job I had since 1993
You seem to be a bit lost. This is the workplace griping thread. If you have good things to say about your job, you’ll have to start your own, because strangely there isn’t a "My job is awesome! thread.
My Annoying Coworker was at her best today. When she asks me to do something for her, she wants it now, now, now, and she’ll hound me until it’s done. This week, I asked her to help me with something, and she whined about how haaaaard it is and she can’t possibly finish it any time soon. I’ll remember that next time she asks me to do something. Also, her tune will change when I tell my supervisor, who wants this project to be done like yesterday.
Also today, she: got a bit wound up over something that doesn’t concern her at all–we had a contractor in for an installation, they removed something that left some paint damage, and we have already arranged for it to be fixed. She just would not shut up about it. I said we’ve already talked to the people who will be fixing it, they’re on it, and she started fussing about how they’re going to do and how she thinks it’s not even possible, and it’s not even any of her business. Shut up shut up shut up!!! :mad: And then I was talking to someone in my office, and she overhead me say something that sounded like it might be in her area, and she thought she needed to interrupt us, and I had to find a nice way to say go away, I’m not totally incompetent and I do know what I’m doing and this doesn’t concern you anyway. I really hate working with her. I have never in my life known someone that I dislike as much as I dislike her. She’s trying to have a baby, and I’m really hoping she’ll take a very long maternity (and maybe not ever come back).
Someone said they hated their job. That’s what I was responding to
That’s a lot of people in this thread. You’ll have to be more specific. 
Besides, not everybody hates their job, but aren’t there some things about it that just tick you off?
Yes, moody female coworkers
What about the moody male co-workers?
And please re-read the title of this thread. And then read the thread. And then…
That’s my gripe, women who are one way on Monday and another way on Tuesday
GET ME???
No.
What are you on about?
Dear Assorted Members of Management:
I HATE the way that you treat members of my department as though we only do useful stuff when you’ve got us doing projects or helping out the cashiers and then fuss at us because things aren’t as pretty on the sales floor as you want them.
We have NO hours this week. (Note: Individually we are fine-- it’s not like they cut our hours, but we’ve got so many people not in our store this week that we are HURTING big time).
Dear Co-worker:
Really, you don’t know what I’m cranky at our employer about? I’m surprised. I think everyone else knows. (Co-worker is severely part-time-- maybe he just doesn’t know what went on. But griping in detail would have made me cry, and I just wasn’t in the mood to cry in front of co-worker tonight).
I think he’s coming on to you.
Let me clue you in diplomatically, because even though this is the Pit, people are pitting their workplaces and commiserating with each other and not bitching at each other. You could call it a support group. You apparently responded to Dunkelheit, who said:
Which is the more supportive, non-douchebaggy reply?
A:
Or B:
?
Which statement do you think that someone who hates going into work so badly and is looking for a little sympathy would most like to hear? Which statement does not sound like insensitive bragging?
Hint: it ain’t B.
I’m sorry to hear that your job is making you so unhappy, Dunkelheit. I don’t have any specific advice to give you, but I do hope things get better for you real soon.
Hey, that’s me apparently. It turns out I’m an asshole.
I have now been at my current job for one year. Over the course of that one year, I have never missed a day of work (i.e. I’ve never called in sick, and I’ve never asked for a day off), nor have I ever been late for a shift. I have also come in early and stayed late on many occasions.
On top of that, I’ve worked far more than my share of shifts.
When I was hired, I put in my two-week’s notice at my previous job, so I didn’t have any days off for those first two weeks (working my shifts at the new job, and working at the old job on my days off). But that wasn’t the current job’s fault. No biggie.
I was hired to replace a cook who was leaving. No sooner was I hired than a second cook put in his notice. His two-week’s notice coincided with my two-week’s notice at my previous job. So by the time I was finished with the old job, this other cook was gone from the new job … and his replacement wasn’t able to start immediately, so I ended up with only one day off over the course of the next two weeks.
That guy’s replacement was finally able to start … just in time for the kitchen manager to take off on a two-week vacation that he’d already planned, complete with non-refundable plane tickets and hotel reservations. So over those two weeks I again had no days off. A cook from our branch in the next town was supposed to come help out, to give me and the other new cook at least one day off each, but he ended up making excuses and never showed.
So the kitchen manager came back from his vacation, and things settled down.
Then, in January of this year, kitchen manager was fired (he deserved it), and the guy who was hired after me, Bob, was promoted to take his place. (I had no problem with this; he was 15 years my senior, with more experience than me and more than the previous manager, and he met the specific job requirements where I did not.
Bob was the kitchen manager for less than two months, but everybody loved the guy. Coworkers loved him, upper management loved him, the customers loved him. Then, one day, our corporate overlords sent representatives around for our annual inspection. These inspectors decided that the kitchen wasn’t quite as shiny as it should be and, knowing nothing about Bob, fired him out of hand.
Fired him while not knowing that our newest cook was Bob’s daughter. Naturally, she left with him, leaving me as the one and only cook in this place. I was so enraged by Bob’s firing that I was thiiiiiis close to quitting on the spot. But, this isn’t a restaurant, this is a retirement home, and my own ethics and sense of responsibility would not let me quit. The old folks needed to be fed, and I was not about to leave them to the tender mercies of the Executive Director and the Office Manager trying to cook for them. And, besides, it wasn’t the local management’s fault.
The end result of this situation was that I ended up working 24 consecutive days, including 17 consecutive 13-hour shifts in which I prepared all three meals, every day, for about 180 old people. And had to do all the ordering, with no training whatsoever. Upper management was scrambling to hire both a new kitchen manager and another cook. It took a while to find a new manager, but we tried out three cooks. The first cook worked for one day and said, “I’m sorry, I can’t keep up with this.” The second cook we tried was awesome. He was so good that, after only one day, I was prepared to let him open the kitchen the next day, by himself. But he failed the drug test. We tried a third cook: a graduate of the Cordon Bleu culinary school … who graduated four years ago but who had never actually cooked professionally. She worked one day and, like the first guy, decided it was too much for her. So it was back to just me, doing everything.
We finally got a new kitchen manager and another cook hired. New kitchen manager is excellent and easy to get along with. New cook is a 20-year-old kid who is pretty darned good for his age (I’d already been in this business for 11 years when he was born, but his dad is a chef so he had a good headstart). But of course, 20-year-old kid is a 20-year-old kid. Calls in sick, wants days off for whatever, and I get to cover those shifts. Including one where he called in sick on a day when I was the morning cook, and nobody can get the kitchen manager on the phone, so I got stuck with another 13-hour shift.
It should come as no surprise that I am completely burned out.
It should also be no surprise that I might be kind of cranky sometimes.
What comes as a surprise is that, over the last couple months, everybody has decided that I’m an asshole … and it didn’t occur to a single manager to bring this to my attention. I mean, I’m an easygoing guy and can get along with just about anybody. I certainly don’t set out to deliberately be an asshole and antagonize everybody around me. In this case, I guess it just kind of sneaked up on me gradually, and I didn’t notice how I was acting.
Did I mention that nobody said a word to me? Like, “Hey, Rik, some of your coworkers are complaining that you’re being short with them. Can you maybe knock that off?”
The first I learned that I was coming across this way was when the kitchen manager had a talk with me a couple days after our corporate freaking Regional Director of Operations came by and had a meeting with all of the managers. Apparently, every single department manager had some complaint about my “attitude”. So, of course, Regional Director of Operations, who doesn’t know me, turns to my manager and says, “Well, if you think you need to fire him, do it.” (Mind you, she was one of those inspectors who fired Bob.)
Thankfully, my manager said, “No, I don’t think I need to do that. I’ll have a talk with him.” And thank God for that. Because I seriously, honestly had no idea that I was coming across like that. Because Nobody told me. To quote from the medieval history book I’ve been reading, “When the house is on fire, it’s a bit late to start talking about fire prevention.” So why did management let me get to the point where everybody was so annoyed with me that they’d complain directly to some out-of-town corporate overlord who knows nothing about me?
Mind you, I’m not trying to excuse my behavior/attitude. I’m appalled at myself. But I also admit that I’m socially inept, and I’m very slow to pick up on people’s reactions to me. So I’m not lying when I say, “I had no idea”. I had even said to our current senior management person (the Office Manager; our Executive Director quit a couple weeks ago, so the OM is in charge until we get a new ED, and we’re all hoping that the OM will get the job, because she’s awesome and we love her), a week before this meeting with the Regional Director, “I’m burned out and desperately need a vacation.” And now I’m thinking that that would have been a good time to mention that people were getting annoyed with me (but then again, maybe nobody had said anything to her). Or that my statement might have been a cue for the OM to speak in my defense at that meeting with the Regional Director.
In any case, now that the problem has actually been brought to my attention, I’m able to actually take steps to correct it. I’m making an effort to be more friendly, and I’m checking my attitude. But the fact is that it should never have gotten as far as it did. Because I hate the idea that people think I’m an asshole.
I’m planning, at the next monthly staff meeting, to stand up and make a public apology to my coworkers.
Good luck, Mister Rik. I hope that goes well for you, and mends some fences.
Based on his responses to other threads, his inability to get laid in a brothel.
Good luck, Mister Rik. “The first thing we need to do in order to improve is know where we have problems”. Now that you know there is a problem, you can fix it. And hopefully there will be less stress in your future!
Now why would you say something so silly?
That’s a long time to be out of work.
The job itself isn’t so bad, it’s rewarding and the bits that are difficult for me wouldn’t be insurmountable with proper support. The problem is the toxic work environment, mainly down to one person who has all the power and is never held accountable for their behaviour. Their extremely unprofessional, inappropriate behaviour.