Annoying things your work colleagues do all the time? #3

[Mrs Moon]

I worked with a woman like that. The first building we were in, she would open up the windows, one of which was right beside my desk. I would close it because I was the one sitting in a draught when it was open.

The second building had air con and she would set it to the lowest possible setting. The rest of us would just turn it back up. She still kept doing it anyway. Luckily she was a decent workmate otherwise!

She was a control freak

 

[Ensay]

Some senior stakeholder who just started in the company visited our office last week and asked me to send her an email to provide a breakdown of who handles each task for a particular portfolio. I did and a week later (today), she scheduled an "organizational meeting" with the team where she asked: "So I want to know who handles what for this particular portfolio.

She basically disregarded the email she asked me to send her last week (and I copied the whole team) and asked the same question during the call only to get the exact same answer from the team.

Absolute time waster.

Some people don't like reading.

I had a similar scenario recently. A manager sent me a question via an email, I started to reply about 15 mins after he sent it, then noticed he sent me a Teams message asking the same question and also a calendar invite to discuss the same thing... all while I was replying to his email.

So I finished typing my email and sent it, thinking he'd thank me and cancel the meeting but nope, he just replied "I still want the meeting, as want to just double check things". I came close to declining with no reason, but I'm too nice!

 

[Gossgirl12]

My job involves answering over 2000 calls a day as a team. We're a very busy environment and we have a stats board on the wall which shows how many calls we've taken, how many calls each individual has taken etc, I work with a lady who will do absolutely anything to avoid answering phone calls, she doesn't stop talking about how much money she has (completely ignores the fact the majority of us that work there are single parents guiding our way through the cost of living crisis) she just talks absolute shit all day and goes on and on, what should be a 1 minute conversation turns in to a 10 minute conversation. She can easily sit there for an hour and not answer a phone call, yet within that hour, the majority of us have answered 15+ calls each. She's so lazy and it's really starting to grind my gears her husband is the one who really earns the money as he works away Monday-Friday which I would too if I had to be around her mouth all day. Here's the best bit, she preciously accused an ex colleague of bullying, yet this ex colleague did nothing wrong. Therefore, when we bring all of this up with management, nothing gets done about it, because she works overtime yeah she works overtime because she has zero priorities, no kids, no husband through the week. So her lazy behaviour is excused because she's an extra body in short staff periods!!

 

[rosemarina]

Can you just leave the chat?

 

[TheGlossy]

The way you wrote it sounded like you thought it was mandatory, and since I know you're in Ireland, I thought I'd mention that even if it is the law there, it's not here. Your words left no room for nuance.

" Technically, if a company sponsors a course or a degree, you have to remain in the company for a specific amount of time otherwise you have to refund a portion or the full fee to the company on your way out. It’s policy in most companies so whether you offer it as a gesture or not, the company is entitled to ask for their money back anyways "

The company is not entitled to ask for its money back if you haven't entered into an agreement with them first.

I think you’re reading too much into what I wrote. I never said it was a legal requirement and of course, OP has to check their contract. OP made it sound like they already entered into an agreement. So yes, if they entered into an agreement and her contract requires her to refund the fee, the company has grounds to request a refund.

I never said it was a legal requirement so we’re clear. I clarified this stating it is dependent on the company. Ireland or UK or US is irrelevant in this context. Company policy trumps.

OP knows her company policy better than we do in any case.

 

[Timz]

Everyone talks over each other constantly in Teams meetings, it's horrendous. I am so sick of having to fight to be heard in meetings.
You never get to speak unless you butt in whilst someone else is speaking.
It's rude AF.
Occasionally I am on calls with other business areas and it's a joy that everyone raises their virtual hand before speaking, or if they want to add something after the curret speaker has finished.

You put your hand up in our calls and it gets ignored every time.

Also men mainsplaining constantly in meetings, or going into unnecessary detail. I don't need the minutiae, just be brief!

Sounds chaos. That’s why I put my two cents in the chat so they all read it

 

[Rodneytrotter]

Is she like this with everyone or just you?

Definitely everyone (but we are in pairs and I'm paired with her so I can't get away from it).

 

[CheshireLove]

My colleague takes personal calls at her desk. She’ll leave if other people are in the office but not if it’s just me and her.

 

[Timz]

There has to be a policy that stipulates this, though. There's no law that says that they can just do it.

It’s likely in the employer’s contract, and HR policy. However, if not had a training agreement for the course then perhaps harder to enforce, and usually the cost of repayment tails off after 1-2 years following completion.

I had someone on my uni course leave her job after completing her diploma because her employer wanted her to pay back €10k so she had no option but to leave, but at least she got a better job elsewhere. They didn’t do a training agreement. She was from Germany border but working in Switzerland so had the option of working in two countries but the employment law is different in each country…

 

[Heidi88]

Thanks. I work as an accountant in industry. One day I had one day of annual leave and came back to 200 so it can vary.

I need to manage my time better but I just feel swamped.

 

[rosemarina]

I know, but I think you can decline being added to new conversations?

 

[Messychaotic - one word]

This is a random question but on a weekly basis how many emails do you come back to in work if you had a weeks annual leave?

I recently had 3 sick days due to Covid and I told my manager how many emails I had when I came back (approx 250) as it took me a couple of days to get through them and her reaction is that she gets twice that many and that she didnt think it was excessive.

We have a big culture of ccing someone and then if you dont read it being given out to for missing something even though it wasnt addressed to you. I feel so much of my day is spent reading emailings rather than doing anything.

I have spoken to colleagues at similar levels and they have said they dont get nearly as much.

It depends on what sort of work you do, I guess.

When I worked in project management, I was admitted to hospital and had no web access; after about five days away I returned to 100 emails which I thought was excessive. But 250 in the space of three days is far worse!

Could you create rules to handle the emails - so anything you're just copied into goes to a 'read later' folder?

 

[rosemarina]

Do you ever read Ask A Manager? She’s American, but a lot of the advice she gives can also be used in the UK. She has a number of articles about micromanagers, and they might help you come up with an approach.

Maybe have a look here:https://www.askamanager.org/search-results?q=Micromanager

 

[Mojojojo67]

Thank you, everyone! I really appreciate the kind advice.

The situation went from bad to worse:

• After the non-sense escalation took place, I discussed with my manager who said they will respond to the project lead's escalation but it appears this individual kept replying back to my manager saying this is unacceptable.
• In the meantime, I realized someone else on the project was also due to deliver their work on Thursday. We worked on a similar task with today as deadline and oddly enough, their "delay" was not the object of an escalation. If mine is subject to an escalation, so should theirs.
• Yesterday, I sent an email to the person who initiated the escalation against me asking for some information to quickly finalize my deliverable and send it across on the same day...No response all day. Yet in the meantime they keep feeding into the escalation from what my manager told me. I approached my manager about this lack of response and they told me to stay late at night and wait for this person to respond to finish the work. I waited until midnight, then logged off, no response from this individual.
• When I logged in this morning, another party reached out and said the information I was provided with by the project lead was completely outdated and no longer relevant which meant I had to redo the work of an entire week in one day because the deadline was today. The project lead has known about this for weeks and failed to inform me. According to policy, we can only use up to date information for this piece of work. I had to drop whatever deliverable I was about to finalize and re-do the work with the updated information which the project lead failed to provide at the start. The work of an entire week had to be redone in one day. When I sent it across to the project lead's support team I was told: "Why did you do the work with the updated information. We are asking you to work with the outdated information". This is not the process - anything outdated cannot be used period. It's against policy. This was also confirmed by my manager. When I asked for clarification to the project lead on why I am being asked to use obsolete information - again, I was met with no response. My manager then just told me to just deliver whatever I had already done with the outdated information and leave it at that.

The worst part of it all is that three weeks ago I had asked for this piece of work to get re-assigned because of various factors including covering for a person on sick leave and I was met with a hard "NO". I was diligent enough to ensure the work would get delivered one day before the deadline and even that wasn't good enough to the point where it was escalated and then I was clearly sabotaged by the project lead who put in place silent treatment like a kid who is being told "NO" at the candy store.

This is absolutely insane behaviour. I've never seen this anywhere else.

So did you take the advice above?

 

[rosemarina]

It’s so fucking rude.

 

[Rxt156]

This is very true. I'm a teacher and the other teacher is in the parallel class to me. She is a senior leader and im just a regular teacher, so there is a bit of a difference in rank. She picks holes in everything I do and although she does it with everyone I have to work with her closely.

That’s definitley enough of a reason to have a chat with her and say how you feel. These things can spiral so quickly and you will end up feeling worse and worse. The only real options are to discuss it and hopefully move on peacefully or ignore it and feel worse. I’m also a teacher, there’s something about teachers particularly… I think the nature of the job requires a certain personality as you have to make decisions quickly, be able to control behaviour etc and people treat adults the way they teach pupils ‍. I hope you come to a positive conclusion with this

 

[no-no]

There's a promotion coming up at work, a backfill for a colleague who's moving into a more senior role. There's a couple of people internally who have expressed an interest in going for it and one of them is making me feel frankly nauseous while he's been hiding at home since the pandemic, he's now showing up in person at every meeting senior leaders attend. He sat there in a meeting today in this arrogant tone reminding his superiors that he's at their disposal for this project coming up He is renowned for ignoring emails and fobbing people off with weak responses, but lately he couldn't be more motivated. It's a HR role and he's taken it upon himself to offer 2 new hires some mentoring. All great for the company but hes so smarmy and he's doing my head in.

Frustrating and makes you want to heave, I have one of those at my job. He’s an absolute wet wipe.

I’m done with the manager of my team (there’s one beneath him). If I was a hairdresser, he’s basically decided I don’t need scissors to do my job and hasn’t even had the decency to speak to me about it. He just agreed to it in a meeting before. It was meant to be signed off but now they’ve u-turned. I didn’t react, I’m going to get serious about job hunting instead. His need for petty politics will hurt them more than me

 

[If you say so...]

Haha. We're very different. No, I don't like people calling me randomly, especially not at early hours of the work day. Unless it is absolutely necessary, random calls really irritate me. It's a severe lack of boundaries. I worked a job where people used to call randomly and did not like it at all.

I think my issue is not about pinging to schedule a call. My issue is saying the issue is "urgent" and pinging me right away at 9am when it's not even an issue to begin with and certainly does not require a call. People need to assess the importance they give to certain issues and whether it really requires a call or for it to be given a sense of "urgency". The issue this person mentioned does not require a call at all let alone call it an "urgency".

One of my work besties is similar to you! I get it, we all work differently I suppose what's top on their priority list is completely at odd with your list of priorities - frustrating! Did you have a interview today btw? or am I getting you mixed up with someone else? Hope it went well if it was you!

 

[StephenTJackson]

When our manager is asked to do something by our MD, or its in the monthly internal audit as a observation to be completed. And me and the other supervisor work to do the jobs we have to do, but the manager just says the jobs the MD has asked to be done don't need doing, or whinges about it.

He's the boss, just fucking do it!