Do you guys have coworkers who love to bitch bitch bitch and never actually do anything? I get along well enough with my coworkers but I’m tired of a couple of them who seem to get high on bitching about anything and everything, not that I don’t myself sometimes (like now) but not every day over stupid stuff that really has nothing to do with work or if it does is the same stuff over and over again?
I just want to shake them and tell them to calm the fuck down or go bitch somewhere else. I don’t need to hear the latest gossip from the floor, or that this person didn’t follow procedure despite the meeting a month ago about it which did not relate in any way to our department but we got pulled into attempting to refereeing and wasted most of a day because people couldn’t keep their mouth shut or deal with it without mouthing off to the whole damn office, or even about the latest road rage you perpetuated by trying to be the traffic police.
Last week I walked away, I had things to do, I STILL have plenty to do, you want to follow and bitch I’ll listen with half an ear unless work needs all my attention but let me get some work done at the same time if I can.
My favourite is co-workers who bitch bitch bitch about how overworked they are, and how stressed out they are because they have so much to do all the time. Hey, how about you go actually DO some work instead of standing around complaining about how much you have to do?
I also enjoy people who do that, but who also keep saying yes to taking on more projects. Stand up for your own damned selves, people. You’re not doing anyone else any favors by taking on more work than you can handle–especially when you’re just going to end up dumping it on someone else at the last second, when that person will be running up against a really nasty, short deadline, since you spent so long saying, “No, no, I can do it myself.”
Yeah, that’s another of my grandboss’s many bad habits. She knows she does this, too, but is not self-aware enough to learn from her own mistakes, apparently.
Part of our Performance Agreement (PA) is to look for training, learning and development opportunities for the next 12 months.
The problem is that the team I’m a part of is in a unique position in terms of the layout of the department. We are the only level 3s in the department, because we are the complaints registration team. We get data in, process it into the database, generate form correspondence and send files out. Everyone else is a level 4 or above, because they’re investigators or team leaders or legal or whatever.
The other problem is that all training and development available to anyone in this place is geared at inspectors and inspectors only. And even then, if you want to move up to an inspectorate position you still have to go through the external application process, but that’s another rant for another day.
But yeah, so we’re told we have to look for training and learning and development opportunities, and there are none for us. At least not internally. Oh, we can certainly see about doing external training, but we have to source and apply for any of that ourselves, we have to pay any fees associated with it up front, and then we have to apply for reimbursement - that may be declined if the training is deemed to not be relevant to our position within the department. And no, even within our own team we can’t move up. Every single team leader and assistant team leader we’ve had has been sourced from external teams, despite many attempts in the past to request training for one or more of us to be pushed up as a senior rep, assistant TL or anything else of the same.
Yet if I write “Fuck you” on my PA, I’M the one who’s going to get in trouble.
Co-worker has managed to negotiate for an annual 4-week absence - he’s an expat, so it’s time spent with friends and family, peace be upon that. Sure, we are (make that, “I am”) running ragged covering for him, but it’s not his decision to run with absolute minimum staff.
It’s the invariable, 100% certain “sick day” at both ends of his leave that ticks me off.
I hate, hate, hate performance review bullshit. Most of it is never geared toward the work I do. It’s completely irrelevant and a waste of my time. The best part is how I consistently meet the goals I set and get rave reviews from everyone, but my overall rating is always just “consistently meets expectations.” I decided after this last one, when I didn’t even get a tiny cost-of-living raise, that I just wasn’t going to give a shit anymore.
He could genuinely be sick. I’ve had this happen repeatedly myself, and I know it looks really bad, but it’s not like your body gives you much choice in the matter. I’ve found it especially obnoxious since it’s usually meant that I was sick for part of the end of my time off, too.
I just called a guy in NYC and his secretary said “Cleveland?” like I’d said “Cockroach.” It’s pretty nice, lady. I just looked out the window and saw the Lake Erie. I wonder how your view is.
I am getting incredibly sick-n-tired of having to put out second shift’s fires. Not only do I get to put these fires out, I have to put them out when they’ve been smoldering overnight. There are two people that are causing most of the problems. Since I can’t say this to them in person, I must type it out here to get it out of my system:
Perky: Stop being so goddamn perky and do you job right. Stop giving away all our shit. Head Maintenance Guy knows you were the one that gave away an entire box of AAA batteries that *we *need to keep the walkie-talkie going to communicate with the other departments. (Rather that *I *need, since I’m the one there when actual keep-the-place-running work is going on.) Stop flapping your gums and start paying attention to the information on the computer. Yes, you’ve been there longer than the women you’re working with in the afternoons. Doesn’t mean you know everything. Hell, I’ve been there the longest of all of us and I don’t know everything yet.
Hormonal: I hope your gyno appointment this week gets you the good drugs to control your menopause because goddamn, woman, your hormones are fucking it up for the rest of us. If you’re about to break down in tears, take a break. If you’re starting to freak out, take a break. In fact, it might be best if you pretend you smoke so you can take a break every couple of hours or so until your estrogen settles down. I totally understand where you’re coming from (I was a bitch on wheels every month for a few days until I got my Mirena), but you need to chill. Also, you need to start paying attention to the information on the computer as well. That stuff typed in the “Notes” box on the checkin page is not there just to fill up a blank box. It is vital information that you need to read before you start fucking it all up.
Mom: You’re cool. I’ve got no real problem with you. Just check the details is all.
Unfortunately they do specify it’s meant to be achievable training goals. Or I would play that game so hard: “Well, if you’d pay for it I’d like to do the diploma of project management with a side order of document controller training. Done? Thanks, I’m outta here!”
The one good part about our PA is that the CoL raise is built into our Enterprise Agreement, so it’s in there regardless, as long as you don’t get an unsat on your PA. The problem with the PA stuff is that it’s all a load of bollocks - we manage our performance on a day-to-day basis. If we didn’t, we’d be drowning in complaint forms and being yelled at from all angles. I find the “necessity” of a PA telling us how to do our jobs to be demeaning and infantilising. It’s like a report card but worse.
Today is Mr. Horseshoe’s one day off. Today I should get to see him on my lunch break and spend a little tiny bit of precious time with him.
Except that right at the tail end of the day yesterday, grandboss sent around this:
Subject: Team-Building Exercise
Text: Sorry for the short notice- tomorrow I will provide pizza and a task- bring your brain. Required.
Last time she pulled this, we did that thing where you stand around in a circle and grab hands and then untangle the group. :rolleyes: God the fuck only knows what we’re in for this time, but it’ll sure as shit not be as good as getting to spend what *should be my break time *with the only person on this earth I care about.
Instead, I get pizza. And no break from my co-workers.
God, I’m getting so sick of pizza.
I just want to hear my husband’s voice and see his face. Too much to ask? Really?
God, I wish I had done that. Really. I’m so friggin’ pissed off right now I can’t focus on work anyway. Plus, her birthday lunch is this Friday. I already clicked “accept” on the stupid Outlook invite she sent around, but now I’m thinking I’m going to back out.
Even though, Fridays, I still don’t get to see Mr. Horseshoe. Whatever. I’d rather spend my lunch all by myself.
Gah! Plus another co-worker’s b-day lunch on Monday. I can’t afford this shit. Mentally OR financially.
'Scuse me. Gonna go [del]drink[/del] cry in the bathroom for a bit.
I has a “livid on your behalf.” People like that should be fucking beaten. And then spat on. And then beaten again. Until they fucking learn.
What would happen if you just didn’t show up to the retarded teambuilding pizza bullshit? “Oh, grandboss, I’m so sorry! I thought you had cancelled the lunch so you could go be with your family–congratulations, by the way!–and today happened to be the one day I could have lunch with my husband, so I just headed out to meet him. So sorry!”
She just came around with a batch of slips of paper. “Draw one! It’s for our team-building exercise!” Mine says B-2. Start your bets, Dopers: are we playing bingo together on my lunch break? Yahtzee? Stay tuned for another update!
Not that she’s working or anything. Her son turns 2 this weekend so she’s in her office right next to ours trying out all the noises and electronic voices and crap on a zillion kid toys. I’m having a hard enough time concentrating without her squeeing over some goddamn Sesame Street wrapping paper.
When the fuck did I fall this deep into the rabbit hole?
A few weeks ago I came into my office, planning on plugging in and zoning out, only to discover my headphones (kept in a locked drawer) had disappeared.
Today I came in to discover my lovely vintage murano glass candy dish in shards in my trash can.
Of course no one saw / knows anything about it. Feh.
And purplehorseshoe? I am sending angst rays at your dumbass grandboss. What an asshat.
Grr on your behalf MissTake, drives me nuts to come in to work and find my desktop rifled through. I wouldn’t mind so much if it were cleaned, but I have to wipe down my own desk or else it is really dusty/dirty. Papers shuffled, and missing hand lotion here mostly.
That sucks. Our stuff doesn’t get touched OR cleaned. There’s still a few pieces of confetti on the carpet from a birthday last autumn. I’m pretty sure our building’s cleaning crew just empties the trash cans and then scurries back out.
Mutiny afoot. Much hushed whispering and furtive glances towards grandboss’s office. 100% of my survey sample so far feels as I do. Turns out, hey, we DO all have lives.
Now my suitemate - the most non-confrontational woman you can imagine - just came out of grandboss’s office. The door was closed. Nice sweet co-workers eyes are red. Mind you, this email was sent around at 6 p.m., a full HOUR after my suitemate should have already been gone, except that we’re all working late because we’re so snowed under. (Meaning, we don’t need to take time out of our day to play around with little strips of paper.)
