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

[ChastityDingle]

I rarely go into my office anymore - probably once a month, if that - but this past week I have been in almost every day. We're supposed to hot desk but nearly everyone seems to have found their new favourite desk so sits there, myself included. This means I've been sat near people who I knew from passing in the office etc, but have never properly worked alongside.
Anyway, this one colleague who I've been sat with for most of the past week is one of those people who can't just say bye at the end of a call. Its always "bye! Bye bye bye bye bye bye..." super quickly but gradually fading away. Does anyone else know someone that does this? How annoying is it!!
I can't even tell you how many times he has been on the phone today and its always the "bye! Bye bye bye...." at the end of every. single. call.

After today I'll be wfh until further notice and I cannot bloody wait

I used to sit near a sales team in a company I worked for ages ago. All very nice people, in fairness. But OMG, one guy used to finish (loud) calls with 'okeldey dokeldy'... his own version of OK, I presume.

Urge to kill used to rise every time I heard it.

 

[Grillyguy]

I rarely go into my office anymore - probably once a month, if that - but this past week I have been in almost every day. We're supposed to hot desk but nearly everyone seems to have found their new favourite desk so sits there, myself included. This means I've been sat near people who I knew from passing in the office etc, but have never properly worked alongside.
Anyway, this one colleague who I've been sat with for most of the past week is one of those people who can't just say bye at the end of a call. Its always "bye! Bye bye bye bye bye bye..." super quickly but gradually fading away. Does anyone else know someone that does this? How annoying is it!!
I can't even tell you how many times he has been on the phone today and its always the "bye! Bye bye bye...." at the end of every. single. call.

After today I'll be wfh until further notice and I cannot bloody wait

Omg I do the bye bye bye bye thing. I’m ashamed of myself.

 

[Lalla]

My son's dad does the 'bye, bye bye' x 10 thing - he's an electrician working on building sites; there are builders next door currently and I hear them outside on the phone all the time and they ALL do it. I have a little chuckle to myself every time 'yeah pal, drop it off at 8am. Alright cheers, bye byebyebyebye bye'

I have a colleague who before meetings calls and updates me on what's going to be discussed, then after meetings calls me to follow up the discussion. And each call takes 30 mins. Plus the hour long meeting. It makes me want to stick pins in my eyes!

 

[Bhatforlashes]

I have a colleague who before meetings calls and updates me on what's going to be discussed, then after meetings calls me to follow up the discussion. And each call takes 30 mins. Plus the hour long meeting. It makes me want to stick pins in my eyes!
[/QUOTE]

I'd definitely have a word about that and try to nip it in the bud. I work in an industry where people just love to talk and every meeting always goes over. It can be soul destroying if the meeting is already 2 hours long. There's one or two suspects that fill ms with dread when I see them on the participants list, as I know they'll take over and speak for an inordinate amount of time and generally just drone on and on and on

Going back to the other posts about colleagues being late - years ago I worked in a company that would pull you up for being 3 mins late back from your break or 5 mins late in the morning but would conveniently forget the late evenings they expect you to do without overtime. When I moved into more corporate environment I couldn't believe how no one cared when people come and go, once they do their core hours, attend their meetings and close out their tasks. I found that so motivating.

 

[square_spoon]

Ask for my guidance/input on something and then totally disregard it anyway. Or when people who are not direct reports of mine (I manage a specific area of the business as opposed to managing them) ask something and when they don’t like my answer they either keep asking hoping the answer changes or go round me to my boss and ask them like they’d never asked me at all! I’m the most senior I’ve ever been in my career and I don’t think I’ve ever felt as disrespected and disregarded as I do in my job lately.

 

[CatCafe234]

I was talking about this with a colleague recently and we couldn’t work out if it was a gender thing or a seniority thing, but we both agreed it is really, really annoying when you make a suggestion or comment in a meeting and it is almost completely disregarded, only for someone else (usually a more senior bloke) to make the same comment or suggestion a few minutes later and for it to be treated like the second coming of Christ. I’m not one of life’s competitive people but I have had to bite my tongue quite a bit to stop myself pointing out that someone already made that suggestion.

 

[rosemarina]

It's a sex thing, it's known as hepeating. It's extremely common. Point it out.

 

[StephenTJackson]

I'm glad we manage to get through meetings fairly quickly. Had a H&S meeting last week, took 10 minutes. We spent longer than that after the meeting discussing few other bits.

 

[ChastityDingle]

Reading this thread is bringing back memories I thought I had buried. One place I worked, our roles rotated, which was fine. But there was one person we used to all dread her taking over a role after us. Or say going on holiday and she was rostered to fill in for a week or two.

She would spend the whole time doing the bare minimum while loudly telling everyone how the role was such a doss, and how does everyone else fill their day with this. Then when the other person would get back, they would have to clear up the mess she left and all the boring bits that she left undone because the role was such a doss, you know! Lazy witch. And she got away with it.

 

[Bhatforlashes]

I was talking about this with a colleague recently and we couldn’t work out if it was a gender thing or a seniority thing, but we both agreed it is really, really annoying when you make a suggestion or comment in a meeting and it is almost completely disregarded, only for someone else (usually a more senior bloke) to make the same comment or suggestion a few minutes later and for it to be treated like the second coming of Christ. I’m not one of life’s competitive people but I have had to bite my tongue quite a bit to stop myself pointing out that someone already made that suggestion.

Whilst I've seen men do this, women do it too. I have first hand experience with a slightly more senior woman who would piggy back on any comment I ever made in a meeting. She would expand on it and flex her seniority to make it bigger and better and go away flesh it out and ultimately pass it off as her own idea. She couldn't stand me getting any platform with the management team and she would exclude me from meetings, micro manage work that had nothing to do with her but that she knew she could get away with because she a slightly higher level. Ive never known a colleague as competitive. I left the company partly because of her and I've not been able to shake it 2 years later... even though most people I work with now in my current company are amazing colleagues, I still struggle to trust people's motives when they are most likely completely innocent.

 

[square_spoon]

It’s largely women who do it in my job. I respect we all have different roles and they might be an expert on something that I’m not, but they really don’t extend me the same courtesy. It is so frustrating!

 

[Pesky Tarian]

It’s largely women who do it in my job. I respect we all have different roles and they might be an expert on something that I’m not, but they really don’t extend me the same courtesy. It is so frustrating!

I find it's mainly women in power who don't want to pass the baton back down.

We had a women in the workplace workshop... it ended up descending in to just plain old man bashing . We were then paired off and my partner parroted something I had said to her back to the group as her own idea literally a minute after I had said it. I really wish I'd walked out as it felt like we were all doing ourselves a disservice.

 

[Bhatforlashes]

I find it's mainly women in power who don't want to pass the baton back down.

We had a women in the workplace workshop... it ended up descending in to just plain old man bashing . We were then paired off and my partner parroted something I had said to her back to the group as her own idea literally a minute after I had said it. I really wish I'd walked out as it felt like we were all doing ourselves a disservice.

I've attended a few of those women in the workplace events and in all cases they have been a tick box exercise for the company, ran by the most controlling women in the workplace.

To your point about senior women not wanting to pass on the baton, I wholeheartedly agree. It's also middle level women looking to move to the next level blocking anyone she percieves a treat from progressing. I've largely found the senior men I've worked alongside to be better mentor's, more direct, move quicker on from issues without holding grudges and haven't blocked other people's opportunities for growth.

 

[rosemarina]

I've very rarely seen that from women but I do think there's a cultural narrative that pits younger women against older women. Most of my workplace problems are entirely the fault of men (mostly white men).

 

[Scarlet4U]

I've very rarely seen that from women but I do think there's a cultural narrative that pits younger women against older women. Most of my workplace problems are entirely the fault of men (mostly white men).

Oh I definitely have. I had a colleague the same level as me except she had two direct reports and I didn't manage people. The young man she adored couldn't do enough for his development and then she blitzed through about 4 female PAs in 18 months. She could never give a tangible reason why they hadn't worked out and I could only deduce that she felt threatened by them. She was generally very controlling about work and holds grudges over petty mistakes. That woman fits every point the other posts outlined. I would personally prefer to report directly into a man too. Of course there will always be exceptions.

 

[Ensay]

My son's dad does the 'bye, bye bye' x 10 thing - he's an electrician working on building sites; there are builders next door currently and I hear them outside on the phone all the time and they ALL do it. I have a little chuckle to myself every time 'yeah pal, drop it off at 8am. Alright cheers, bye byebyebyebye bye'

I have a colleague who before meetings calls and updates me on what's going to be discussed, then after meetings calls me to follow up the discussion. And each call takes 30 mins. Plus the hour long meeting. It makes me want to stick pins in my eyes!

I hate that too. I found that working from home reduced it because it took more effort, whereas in the office it’s easier for people to launch themselves at you as you stand up to leave a meeting room, following you all the way back to your desk while babbling on.

I get that it’s sometimes useful but usually it’s not. I tend to want some peace after a meeting rather than more talking.

 

[Lalla]

I hate that too. I found that working from home reduced it because it took more effort, whereas in the office it’s easier for people to launch themselves at you as you stand up to leave a meeting room, following you all the way back to your desk while babbling on.

I get that it’s sometimes useful but usually it’s not. I tend to want some peace after a meeting rather than more talking.

Oh it was definitely worse in the office...this particular colleague (on more than one occasion) followed people out of a meeting room, not only to their desk but to the kitchen area or at least once into the loo.

It was better at first WFH til people cottoned on to calling on Teams. Now I can't get rid of them! Still, long weekend coming up!

 

[TheGlossy]

When someone asks you to do something absolutely stupid, you try to push back and they still insist on you doing that stupid ask. Except, given you're acting on their behalf, you're the one who is going to look bad, not them.

**I was asked to ask project leads to provide comments on each one of their upcoming projects for reporting purposes. My take is to send all of them an email to collect this information to a) have a written trace b) save time for everyone. My manager instead asked me to set up a call with all of them. Utter waste of time, because each project lead is going to speak for 5 minutes about their project then spend the rest of the call listening to comments on projects they're not involved in? Stupid. **

 

[Scarlet4U]

Colleagues who feel the need to constantly fill the air with inane chatter. My team are going through a particularly busy period and we're all working longer hours to get through the worst of it. We share a floor with another team who are also busy, but their tasks are very repetitive and they can do them on autopilot. Two members of the team just kept trying to engage us in idle shite talk all day, buzz around humming or making noises, reading their emails and responses aloud and going "ooooh did you hear that" about the radio in the background it's so frustrating. I get nothing done on my days in the office and you just have to tolerate it, cause you know, collaboration and team spirit and all that

 

[TheGlossy]

This guy in my team is obsessed with becoming the new TL. The role has been vacant for the last 6 months and he has been focusing on it so much, it is getting on my nerves. Every single time I talk to him, he keeps saying "If I were the TL" or "If I become the TL". He didn't even ask whether I applied for not as he's under the assumption I haven't (true I haven't) and thinks he's gonna get the role. He is already acting as though he is the TL when he hasn't even been approached for an interview and his application has been pending for two months.

On Friday, the manager's manager left and someone else was appointed. The structure is such as all TLs report to this director in the system and anyone under TLs report to the TLs. They made the changes in the system to have all 3 existing TLs report to the director in the system and added me into the list of people reporting into him. So, it's the TLs + me. This desperate guy saw this in the system this morning and pinged me telling me why I'm directly reporting to the director and how strange it is and how he's not reporting to the director in the system.

Like mind your own business. It could be they're slowly migrating everyone in our team under the director until they find a TL. Calm down. He is making assumptions and exhausting me.