Annoying things your work colleagues do all the time? #4

[Kelmum]

My husband died in the March of 2018 ( I nursed him at home as was his wish ) I was absolutely devastated and had 8 weeks off signed by my wonderful GP, I wasn’t ready to go back but knew if I didn’t go after eight weeks I would never return. Anyway I walked in the double doors and just wanted to cry because the last time I saw those doors he was alive, anyway, I walked to my desk and was greeted by my manager who was typing she looked at me and sort of huffed, I didn’t need her to ask me how I was because I knew she wasn’t interested anyway, I sat down and started doing my work. After about an hour the supervisor called me to “ have a chat “ off we went to the empty office and I was told my sickness was unreasonable ( I worked there for 3 yrs and never had a day off sick before ) and I was lucky because they were debating whether to give me a warning ! i sat in front of her and wanted to fold up and die I was so upset. And suddenly from within me I stood up and told her exactly what she and the manager could do with their job and how I pray nothing ever happens to their loved ones I was calm but very very direct, I walked back to my desk with arsehole face running behind me saying “ I got it all wrong and I might not even get a warning “ I grabbed my bag, and keys and walked out with my head high. I had numerous phone calls from both of them begging me to reconsider until I told them if I get one more call from either of them I would be taking out a grievance procedure on them. I haven’t worked since and slowly got a new life but I will never ever forget how I felt that day, I now enjoy being with my new grandchild and helping my gorgeous DIL with childcare and recently saw a colleague from the office who told me manager had been sacked and the supervisor was off long term sick after losing her mother. I am a strong believer in Karma !

 

[Black.bird]

Today is my first back since before Christmas - I had a stack of leave owing and January is usually a quiet time, so it was mutually agreeable that I would stay off until now.

Last week, I was asked if I could come because someone walked out and they were in a bit of a jam. I said I couldn't as I had plans (which I did, besides why are they throwing the problem to me when there are other people in the office quite capable of picking up the slack? I will add that I've said "yes" far too many times over the years to this place, including going in on the weekend to check someone has set the alarm properly after they've texted me doubting if they have [I live closest work out of everyone]).

I woke up today feeling nauseous but put it down to first day nerves; turns out I had a lot to be nervous about! Immediately after arriving into the office - I'd only just put my bag away in my cupboard - the GM came over and asked if he could have a word. As I walked through the office and smiled and greeted everyone, I just got frowns and mumbles in return. Very unusual considering our office is usually really friendly and if someone has been away for a while everyone usually gathers around wanting to know how their break was, etc. Once in the GM's office, I was hauled over the coals for letting the team down and losing a major account! Excuse me - but how is YOUR problem suddenly my fault?!

The person who walked out was under a huge amount of pressure and was meant to prepare a presentation for a client but they forgot about it until two days out from when it was meant to be delivered. Apparently they just freaked out and realised they couldn't deliver so walked out. If I had known the extent of the situation I may (or may not) have returned to work earlier. I threw it back to the GM and asked why one of the other team members couldn't do it ... his response was ridiculous - he said he wanted to ease the others into what will be a heavy year ahead. Super-ridiculous considering one of my work friends said things have been really quiet with all her clients so she's been taking extended lunch breaks.

Ugh. This, combined with the "suggestion" that we adopt a four-day working week but our base salaries get reduced to reflect that, just made me question what I'm even doing here. So, I gave my notice and will look for something else! I will happily go and work at one of my co-owned coffee carts for a few months if there's a need. I am going to eventually go and work with some other colleagues who set up in competition, but they're still in the process of getting things set up. This is all going to pan out well though, as I do have a six-month restraint of trade.

My boss started getting all desperate and saying he didn't want me to leave and although it was a major client and I'd made a serious mistake in judgement (!!!) it wasn't the end of the world, and he would be prepared to let me off with a warning which shouldn't impact too much in the scheme of things. Stuff him! How dare he try to make me the scapegoat!

I have given my two weeks' notice and said I'll be working it from home. If he doesn't like that, stuff him!

 

[TheGlossy]

People in my current team are insane.

Someone approached me at 12pm to ask me to do something urgently by COB today. The task itself can take days to finalize depending on complexity. I said I’m quite swamped as I’m OOO tomorrow and had multiple deliverables lined up for this afternoon. I’m also flying out to support an overseas project next week, so my own deliverables needed to be wrapped up today.

I said I didn’t have capacity and if my involvement was required, I wouldn’t be able to finish the task today. The person who approached me (who has never helped me on any project in two years) escalated to my manager’s manager complaining that I refused to help.

Then I got dragged into a call with this person, my manager’s manager and other people. As soon as they opened the call, the person said “we want to reiterate the urgency of the matter”. In the meantime, one person had volunteered to take this on but the person who approached me said I needed to handle.

Then I went on a big monologue explaining how this last minute request is unreasonable, that my workload was disclosed to the full team yesterday during our team call and that I had very clearly no capacity for to take on this last minute request. I reiterated how unreasonable it was to approach me at 12pm for a piece of work that takes days expecting me to finish it by 5pm the same day when I’m swamped and OOO tomorrow.

Then, my manager’s manager turned around and asked the person who approach me why this request is being sent at the last minute… It turns out someone had done the work completely wrong, a stakeholder complained and they wanted me to redo it because I’m “very diligent” (their words).

They must be having a laugh! I’m swamped and you’re asking me to drop my own work to redo someone else’s work because they screwed up?

Then the manager’s manager asked me to drop off after this info was disclosed because it’s obvious the person who approached me never shared this info with them when escalating. I dropped them into hot water and left them there lol.

This is the second time this person has tried an unjustified escalation against me and this is the second time it backfires because each time they didn’t have their facts straight when I’m all about facts. They didn’t learn their lesson the first time around it seems. I’m nice but don’t play with me!

I wasted two hours of my day on this nonsense and had to log off at 8pm instead of 6.

Praying to God these two weeks go fast so I can move on with my life.

 

[Hello Kitty]

people that type like this and dont use punctuation at all so then the message gets confusing and then you have to read the email about six times to work out what they are referring to as nothing makes sense as there are no commas or full stops so it takes up more time and annoys you even more

 

[Black.bird]

It certainly is astonishing what some people get away with.

I feel guilty after posting about Mr Slob (who I'm now going to call Mr Next-Desk-Over) the other day. Yesterday, while the usual suspects were wasting time, he was head down, bum up (so to speak), focusing on what he was doing. I didn't see him stop all morning, soI asked him if I could grab him a coffee while I was out getting one and he looked shocked, before telling me it's the first time anyone has ever offered him anything or spoken to him about anything other than work. That made me sad. After work when we all headed off to drinks I noticed he stayed behind so I grabbed one of the nice guys from my office and suggested that we go back and get him, which he thought was a good idea. Mr Next-Desk-Over was clearly happy at the gesture, albeit very nervous about coming. After a couple of drinks he was fine though, and when I left he was having great banter with a couple of the guys.

This workplace is very cliquey as it is, so anyone who's a bit different must find it a nightmare to work in. I hope MNDO feels a bit happier about coming to work in future.

 

[jawidjanqndn]

Not sure if anyone remembers my last posts about my boss/inappropriate colleagues but I now have a new job!! I start next Monday and I am so happy to be out of my toxic workplace. They gave me an exit survey to fill out and I was completely honest and wrote down everything that has happened to me the past year.

when I handed my notice in my boss was absolutely vile. Very passive aggressive, her adrenaline was obviously very high, she took it extremely personally which I just find bizarre. She immediately started arguing with me and said I had given her no indication I was leaving (the whole point of 4 weeks notice) I could go on but it’s honestly just drained me, I can’t stand the bitch.

I didn’t actually get chance to tell anyone I was leaving before she shouted it out ifront of the entire office (multiple times), she held conversations about me where I could hear her going on about how she is already putting a new advert on indeed and just slagging me off every chance she got tbh.. some really nasty stuff said behind my back. She also mentioned how the future new hire needs to be more experienced than ‘HER’, referring to me. This only proves my point further as to why this is such an awful place to work so I don’t understand why she was so bitter as she hated me so much.

it came at a good time to be honest, I had a review meeting the day before I handed in my notice where she said I looked unprofessional and she wouldn’t want to introduce me to any stakeholders (keeping in mind I always look smart and she wears trainers and skinny jeans most days). She genuinely couldn’t even force herself to say anything nice about me, even though the work I’ve done is right infront of her she will of course take credit for it all.

I am now taking the rest of the week as holiday, I left with no card, no goodbye, no good luck. I am completely drained but so happy to be gone. Thanks for all your advice

 

[Emsie]

My work place was hybrid before the pandemic and it's now evolved to a "come in if you need to" type place. At any time there is about 40% of the office in. My team mostly WFH the whole time. 2 people in our team have started moaning saying we should all go in one day a week to connect and because they want some routine and they want to see the team.
Errr I don't want to see you so why are you trying to force me to come in? If you want to go in for your own reasons go in and sit with the 40% I don't see why I have to just to make them feel better. I'm okay. I'm connected.

 

[newaccount2022]

I used to work for a Swiss company such was their dedication to lunch they’d just leave the meeting at 12pm no matter what was going on.

I work with a lot of Swedish people and they are like this with their coffee/cake breaks. sometimes there’s things our office want to wrap up before end of the week and the Swedish guys just decline the meeting because they’re having a cake break in their office.

 

[Hello Kitty]

Lazy people asking things like 'what's the email address for this?' 'Can you find this for me etc'. We all have the same information on our systems, just find it yourself

 

[Sheeeet]

The latest 'break the ice' fad is to tell two truths and a lie (with the audience guessing which is what) ... at the last one I went to, one person's lie was, "I'm really excited to be here"

The best '2 truths and a lie' I heard was "I like you, John. I like you, Pauline. I like you, Steve"

 

[no-no]

When people join the company and are so set on getting ahead straightaway. I don’t begrudge their ambition but it’s usually the ones with serious flaws in their character who do this.

 

[CatCafe234]

How were they not told that the essence of their job description is actually to be physically at reception!
That is one of the daftest things I have ever heard.

To be fair, it’s become a thing to put ‘fully remote’ on any job advert. I’ve spent some time today rage job-hunting professionally looking for a new opportunity and apparently Nando’s in Aberdeen is looking for ‘fully remote’ kitchen staff. I’m not quite sure how that one would work with me down in the South-West but I’m almost tempted …

 

[Emsie]

When you pop out at lunchtime and ask if anyone wants anything to be polite and people want stuff

 

[Hello Kitty]

When you are cc'd into an email and the other person forwards it to you. I AM CC'D INTO THE EMAIL, I CAN SEE IT.

 

[Black.bird]

We have - or should I say HAD - 3 fancy schmancy coffee machines in our office (just plugged in, not plumbed in). Two went missing over the weekend; after a time-consuming witch-hunt, the offender was taken aside and questioned; turns out she's in a very bad way financially and sold them!!!!

Yes, she has been fired.

I have a feeling there are others stealing ... We seem to go through a horrendously high volume of stationery, cleaning supplies and biscuits.

 

[petitspois]

On the subject of training I hate the dreaded ice breaker. I don't want to tell the person next to me three interesting facts thanks. I've started making them up, much more interesting.

 

[DA Stella]

The ubiquitous "pizza party" as a reward for hours and hours of hard work. At my previous company we worked five 11 hour shifts per week for two straight months to keep up with customer demand during the holiday season. And after it was over we got "hey, thanks for us being able to make hundreds of millions of dollars off of your extreme hard work and long hours! Here's a few $7 Domino's pizzas! Isn't it nice of us to do this for you??!!" Yeah, take your crappy cardboard pizza and shove it. How about a bonus on our paychecks, something that would actually do us some good? Oh, and as a reward for working 12 hours on Black Friday they gave us each a pumpkin pie. AFTER Thanksgiving. Thanks, jerks.

 

[Mamacita]

Breakout rooms in trainings!! Hate them lol. Absolute waste of time.

I hate this. I go on a course to learn something from someone who knows about the topic, not to discuss random shite with people who also need the training. Most of the time the group doesn't even discuss the right things but someone goes on a tangent about their specific issue/situation that's vaguely relevant to the topic. And everyone usually says a lot of dumb shit. Then after that someone has to report the discussion back to the whole group. I never volunteer for that as it's embarrassing.

Can you tell I really hate breakout groups

 

[soph30]

“Did you have a nice lunch”? Ugh shut up I just shoved some itsu into my gob and read tattle
“Doing anything nice this evening”? I’d tell you if I was and it would interest you, most working people’s evenings are boring esp if hours are long

 

[Tree_]

Someone not in my team said the other day at the coffee bar in work they think it looks bad if you leave on time. As it seems you don't have enough work to do. Omg Hun. We're not in the 90s anymore. I just said I'm out the minute my paid hours are done