Well, actually, you’re ahead of my brother in law. Because you have all that money that you DIDN’T spend on lotto tickets, whereas he has a lot of trash.
I have no idea how some people are able to continue breathing.
Someone just emailed one of my actuaries about a template spreadsheet she put together for them. Several *years *ago. For a client that she does not currently support and has never supported. Because–and this is the great part–they made a new version of the template that changed around the order of the columns, and before they paste the formulas back in, they want to know if it will still work, or if they’ll need to update the formulas.
Really? You need to email an *actuary *to ask this? When she’s absolutely swamped with work for clients she’s actually on the team for? You can’t just go find someone in your office who knows *anything at all *about Excel, which you apparently don’t, and ask them?
I really admire her restraint, because her response was to pass it on to me to answer, instead of just coming back with, “No, I don’t have time to help you, because I’m busy pulling together a deliverable that’s about to go to print for a client I actually support.”
Ugh.
Well, today was my last day at the assignment. No more workplace griping for me. 
Awwwwwwwww. Quick, get a new assignment with morons! I demand amusement at the retardedness of people I’m not forced to be around personally.
Oh, I don’t doubt my next assignment will have its fair share of morons. That’s one of the great things about temping - being amazed by the depth and breadth of variety in workplace morons.
In my experience, no coffee is pretty much shorthand for “we couldn’t possibly care less about our employees”. Even the shitty call center job I worked for had coffee, for crying out loud.
The latest job with no coffee? I’ve never respected a company less, nor been lied to by my employer more. Between the suffocating culture of overmanagement and backstabbing and the near-constant layoffs and contract losses, I wish I’d asked about the damn coffee up front. 
No office supplies? Also a good sign, definitely. The call center had that problem during many lean times, but the no-coffee job was worse – the only way I could get office supplies was making friends with the admin of one of the executives. In general, if you asked for a pen, you’d be asked why you needed it.
Hell, I work at a processing and distribution facility for the USPS, and I have to get my coffee from a freakin’ vending machine.
Its amazing. they’re EVERYWHERE!
Is there any possible answer they could reasonably expect to hear besides “to write shit down with?” (Smartass comebacks aside, of course.)
My office mate of the last few years was recently moved to an office by himself, as he is now working full-time as an assistant to a project engineer. As a result, I am now sharing an office with the latest hire.
Bless. His. Little. Heart.
He claims to have attended the same university I did, yet it is painfully obvious that he has never set foot inside a physics class. (While he is an electrical engineer, the university I attended made sure that all engineers took a core set of courses…he should have seen this stuff at least once.) It took me several minutes today to explain the concept of a bolt head – he seemed to think a “bolt head” is separate from the bolt itself. He wants detailed explanations of things that are already explained by industry standards. He thinks that the process of tightening a bolted connection with a bolt and nut results in compression of the bolt rather than expansion, even though detailed diagrams of bolted connections have been shown to him (my supervisor provided him with the department’s only hard copy of Machinery’s Handbook). He is convinced that screws are “better” than bolts, and continually challenges me as to why my company uses so many bolts for our applications. My attempts to help him are continually met with sarcastic remarks or questions that just lead me around in circles…I’m not sure why I’m bothering anymore, since nothing I say actually sinks in. He accused me of putting statements based on “untested theory” in reports; the statements in question are boilerplate language that were developed long before I was hired, and are used by my department when a part doesn’t require testing. The statements are based assumptions formed from a combination of mechanical engineering knowledge and past testing experience.
I am seriously starting to have trouble getting my work done because of this guy’s bullshit. I’m dreading Monday, because my supervisor won’t be there…it’s likely that this guy will bring all of his questions to me. On the plus side, he was four hours late for work Wednesday, and 15 minutes late for work today. Maybe he will make that a habit.
To be honest about the no coffee thing, I work with people who will take the coffee, filters, creamer and sugar home. Which is why my workplace no longer keeps ibuprofen or aspirin in the first aid cabinet.
At the last place I worked, they had a Flavia drinks system. Coffee-pilfering was not a problem.
Heh. Is there any way you can get HR to check out his education claims? I know that a lot of people will claim education/degrees that they don’t have.
Or possibly he DID take physics, but it never penetrated his thick skull.
Thats my plan as well. I guess that we will both fail.
The good thing about shredder guy is that he cleans out the work fridge every Friday. He eats/takes everything that is left over. He used to just eat anything that was left from yesterday (like the stuff that I’d keep around for snacking for ME) He’s “po” and can’t afford to buy snacks, afterall. It took a lot of yelling, but now he waits until Friday. This is prolly my fault. Back when I had other people working for me, some food would go bad and I said that anything left on Friday would get tossed.
My location does not actually have an HR department on site, so I’m not familiar enough with anyone in that department to start asking questions. At the time I was hired, the department manager did look at college transcripts; I got a call from him regarding a few of my courses shortly before I was offered the job.
Is there any way that you can tell your boss or SOMEBODY that his skill set does not match his claimed credentials/education? Or tell someone that you are basically having to do his job as well as your own, plus provide on the job training for him? I mean, I think that maybe you could make a case for a raise or bonus, because of your extra workload.
I work for a Fortune 100 company that also does not supply coffee to the employees. The Dunkin’ Donuts franchise next door to our office must be worth millions.
Our office does provide coffee and yet almost everyone I see is carrying a Tim’s or Starbucks cup.
I’m definitely having a talk with my supervisor when he gets back on Tuesday…I really think telling him about this in terms of not being able to get my project work done will take care of things.
Our office provides coffee: but they get more “expensive” coffee for the managers. That is made and put in a separate pot just for them. My coworker has to make it every day. I go with the rest of the group and get the normal stuff. I grew up on Nescafe Instant - brewed Maxwell House is livin’ high on the hawg for me. 