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

[Black.bird]

In the office we get eight pints of milk provided on a Monday morning to (supposedly) last us the week, along with free tea and coffee.
We're generally hybrid and there are rarely more than 10 people office based each day.

Generally by Tuesday lunchtime the milk is all gone because everyone's using it for their porridge/cereal/shakes in the mornings. I've never known anyone to go and buy more.

Selfish arseholes!

That used to happen in an office where I worked as people would either use the milk for hot chocolates/milos, or flog it! At the same place we were very fortunate to have cheese, crackers and biscuits but they too were flogged so they put a stop to them.

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I have to say, this thread is full of lovely, caring people! It's funny that no matter where we are in the world, many of our issues with co-workers are much the same.

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We decided to give all our staff Easter off (at our coffee carts and fish & chip shop). I had a call from one of our young workers this morning, asking if they'll get paid triple today because it's a holiday ... um no, because you're not working, I said ... to which they replied that their mum had said they absolutely should get it. So explaining to them how it all works on Tuesday will be fun

 

[redlorry_yellowlorry]

Omg yes, this keeps happening in my team. There’s one lady who just gets praised all the time, or is always first in the list of names etc. Everyone keeps eyerolling about it, we are all fed up. Problem is the Golden Child is a massive Pick-Meeeeeeeee and absolutely laps up the praise

We have one of these too. She’s been there forever, everyone loves her and she loves being loved by everyone.
Always complaining she has loads to do and not enough time to do it but she’s always running off after someone or something and hardly ever sat at her desk!
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My department has 3 receptionists and instead of making them god forbid cover a reception they’ve been allowed to hybrid work and for 2 out of the 3 days I’m in this week I’m covering it for them. As a senior staff member (sadly not management or that would be the first thing stopping) me and my colleagues are getting really annoyed. Trying to sit in a teams meeting is challenging with constant interruptions we keep bringing it up but they’re so soft

I used to manage a team of receptionists, the job advert explicitly stated that hybrid was not an option but after the first couple of months they were requesting to wfh. And one of them didn’t like the title receptionist

 

[Lola Ruby]

When people start a Teams meeting minutes early, e.g. at 10:57 when it's due to start at 11:00. Why are you so keen

 

[TheGlossy]

I hate to post this given this is a new role and I feel like I’m sounding like a chronic complainer at this point. However, I experienced some onboarding hiccups that could have been avoided with appropriate communication;”:

1. My new manager failed to inform me I needed to bring my laptop into work everyday. I moved internally and we didn’t use laptops in my previous role, just two desktop screens. I arrived on Monday and had to return home because I wasn’t informed they operated differently in this team and laptop was mandatory otherwise you can’t work.

2. No one requested my access to the floor I’m supposed to work on and I had to force the security team to grant me access after 3 days because people were sick and tired of playing door keepers. Access to the floor should have been requested by my team before I joined.

3. To top it all off, I was in the office this week and no one from my team showed up for various reasons so I was essentially on my own during my first week with no one to speak to in person.

 

[EleanorRigby]

To be clear: He was my manager, so I had to be “nice” to him and professional. I’m not his friend.

No, you absolutely do not need to be "nice" to a toxic ex-boss. You don't owe him anything, including respect.

 

[DA Stella]

I'm in a vile mood when I get home after my hour and 15 minute drive home from the office when there's literally no need for us to be sitting in there. I love my job but I'm seriously considering transferring to a closer location just because of the commute.
My manager keeps cancelling our 1:1 meetings but I'm going to insist on having our next scheduled meeting. And I'll tell him I'm considering transferring. He may or may not care and he may see it as a veiled threat, but I can't worry about that.
Having donuts provided to us one day a week doesn't make up for the awful commute.

 

[TheGlossy]

The ‘golden child’ annoyed me to the core today.

She pinged me at 12.59pm saying ‘Are you on this group call we have every Tuesday?’. Was like ‘No, never received an invite’. Mind you, this call has been going on for months! Then she’s like ‘Oh, I’ll forward you the invite’. I was like ‘Sure’. Once I got the invite, she was like: ‘I won’t be able to attend, can you attend on my behalf and tell me if anything major comes up?’. She wanted me to attend a call for a volunteering initiative and sacrifice my only spare hour of the day for lunch because she had ‘work to do’.

I was like wtf? First, I worked over time last night and was slammed with work today. Second, she wants me to not have a lunch break over this nonsense? Third, I don’t like the sneakiness of pretending to be interested in me joining the call only to ask me to be your secretary once you’ve trapped me with the invite.

I saw red and was like ‘I’m busy, I’ll attend the call but will need to drop after 15 minutes’. If I attended the full call, that would have meant I would have gone a full day without any break at all + overtime and overtime yesterday.

She’s acting better than thou with this whole ‘I’m busy with work’ when we work on the same project and have the same amount of work!!

 

[KindnessWins]

One of the worst things for me is when you are in an email conversation with one person and they respond and cc in loads of others who can then read your previous conversation (which you intended to be private).

The worst type of arseholes. This has happened to me before.

Or when you send an email out and they “reply all” telling you you’ve made a mistake or if you can double check xyz.

 

[Heidi88]

My company has been really flexible in that you only go in to the office if and when you want to. Now they are changing tack and there was an announcement from the CEO that we will be required to work 3 days in the office.

What annoys me is the people who are now saying "but I have kids" and "I have a massive commute" when these people worked in this company for years and had their kids when we were all in offices 5 days a week and their commute was the same then!

I know one of the team constantly logs off to drop kids to and from school and appointments and after school activities and then complains she is the only one working late but it's because she is offline for hours during the day. I IM'ed her one day with a question and asked could we have a call and she was down in her mother's house for a chat. Now I do adjust my time for appts but its one every now and again not constantly.

I dont have kids and my commute while not amazing isnt that bad but it still means getting up earlier. Everyone is already asking for exceptions and I think this defeats the entire purpose of a wfh policy. Just because I dont have kids doesnt mean I should have to go in more.

 

[Lola Ruby]

When you go to the toilet at work and not only has the person before you done a really stinky shit they've also left huge skid marks in the toilet... which I then obviously had to clean as I didn't want anyone thinking it was me! Fucking disgusting, you really do wonder what is wrong with some people! It's not the first time it's happened either so I suspect it's always the same person...

The second thing is when you feel pressured to come in to the office a certain number of days a week and then when you come in, NOONE from your team is in. What's the point? I should have stayed at home.

 

[DA Stella]

Someone I work with got fired for taking someone else's lunch. There are cameras EVERYWHERE so there was no denying. Someone else got fired for posting a vague threat on Facebook to the person who stole her lunch. I think the exact words were "R.I.P. to the associate who stole my lunch" and the company fired her for making threats. Of course they had been wanting to fire her anyway. She had taken and posted selfies from inside the building previously which is a big no no, so she was already on probation. Someone started a petition for the company to reinstate her which went nowhere, of course. (I never know why people think petitions will work.)
My boss's nephew stole my lunch a few times. I had even taped a note on top of the container with my name and DO NOT EAT in huge letters. I found the note in the fridge but the container of food was gone. When I confronted him he claimed he didn't know it was mine. I said "You had to remove the note in order to open the container!" And he said he didn't remembering doing that. Uh huh...My boss made him buy me a new lunch lol.

 

[petitspois]

We had to discuss minor issues we had in work once as part of a training day. I think it was some bollocks about ‘active listening’. I didn’t have any problems so made up that I felt my boss was stifling my creative and cultural true self by not allowing me to speak German whenever I wanted. I was really getting into it. By the end, everyone was like ‘the bastard! How dare he!’

 

[Mollywobbles]

The office expert. She (usually female but not always) is an expert in travel/ IT/anything medical/legal advice/ pet care because her husband/ daughter/sister/ etc works in those areas so she knows all about it.
It doesn’t matter if you have taken expert advice, she knows better.
And then tells the whole office why you have been given bad advice and should have listened to her

 

[HoGi]

In my experience bosses love it as it sounds modern and flexible (sorry, agile) but it doesn’t effect them as they have their own office.

Or if they don't have their own office because "I'm doing this too, I am one of you" it doesn't effect them as they are in meetings/calls all day so not using a desk anyway!

 

[Hello Kitty]

When you email someone a question and they call you straight after. I get it's easier/quicker to speak on the phone but just reply to my email please.

 

[Black.bird]

People who leave meeting rooms in a mess!

In my workplace it's the responsibility of whoever held the meeting to clean up after themselves, which seems to skip some peoples' mind. Most people are pretty good about doing it - or if they get busy asking someone to help - and if it happens at the end of the day, our fantastic cleaner will sort it. We never used to have this problem ... it's one of many things that seem to be falling over lately.

This morning I showed a new client into our boardroom, to be greeted with a right mess, plus the room smelt funny. Not a good first impression!

 

[rainbowlemon]

Dinners and frequent meet ups.

I honestly do like them but I've skipped the last three invites as they've been at restaurants late at night. I went along to something in Jan on a Friday. I did a shopping trip with two last Thursday. Someone said they were doing a lunch tomorrow at 3pm. I don't have an excuse except that I just don't want to go.

I've got my period and I'm always so much more tired. I really need my weekends to recover from the week. I want to stay at mine. Clean, sleep, watch Netflix and drink my coffee without the pressure of having to get ready and out the door.

I was feeling dread because I felt forced into going, before I realized that I always do have a choice. I can say no if it doesn't work for me despite how it might look.

 

[emmer_moans]

We have two managers in our team at the same level who are best friends and regularly go on holiday together and I know for a fact anything they’re told is spread like a rumour in a playground because I’ve told one a personal issue just as an FYI and it’s gone around our department like wildfire and was even joked about in a group email under the guise of an anonymous comment. They’re both awful and in my own supervisions have been told highly confidential information about other people in the teams health and personal life. They seem to think it’s fine to gossip but I now tell them nothing personal due to this and they hate it but I won’t be a subject of jokes or rumour.

That's awful, I'm sorry you've had to experience that, that's really unfair.


Similarly, I found out recently my boss will tell us team members' medical information One of my team members has been on-and-off-again sick for the past few months with a condition that keeps flaring up. I knew what the medical issue was because the team member themself told me last month when we had a walk at lunchtime. It's something personal and scary and not fully diagnosed yet, she doesn't want other people in the team to know what it is. Recently she was off again, and I asked my manager, oh, is (name) not in today? To which I expected to hear "ah, she's not working this week". Instead, my boss whispered to me exactly what had happened to my colleague, i.e. my colleague had collapsed at home and so must have told my boss the medical details. Boss told me all the details. I now think well, I'll never tell her anything super personal because she'll tell everyone. It's unfair really. Luckily I won't be telling anyone else about my colleague, but I don't think I needed to know that my colleague was due to go doctors, what day they collapsed, who was with them at the time, what to condition is etc. All that needed to be said was, "can you cover her inbox, she'll hopefully be back next week."

 

[TheGlossy]

People walking up to you within 5 minutes of you arriving at the office. Can you give me at least 30 minutes to regroup first?!

 

[TheDragonWithAFlagon]

When people start a Teams meeting minutes early, e.g. at 10:57 when it's due to start at 11:00. Why are you so keen

I start the meeting without expecting anybody to join 15 minutes early purely because

a) sometimes somebody wants to ask me something off the record before everybody else comes online,

b) if I'm in the office, once my headphones go on, most people know to stay the fuck out of my office since they were heard stomping in and bellowing at me about random shite whilst we were in the middle of confidential matters.

c) because there's always at least two technologically challenged people who are frantically posting 'What's the meeting link?' directly below where the meeting link has been shared in one of the three different places they've been given it and emailing on the work email I've closed down (because the computer needs all the free processor space it can get to run this fucking pointless exercise) that 'It's not working'. There are frequent emails to IT if he's working at that time saying 'Got a PICNIC error with Fred Bloggs and his Teams account'. One day, somebody else will realise it's an acronym for Problem in Chair Not in Computer.



Oh, and d) It adds another 0.5 to my overtime claim, as I'm paid in half hour blocks and it's reasonable in the eyes of payroll to be available 15mins before the start of a meeting.

I also rather enjoy looking at the names of the people I can't abide that are waiting to get into the meeting and leaving them until the very last second.



I'm in a particularly misanthropic mood today because I've only just finished work and was constantly interrupted from before 7.30am by multiple people, none of whom actually needed to speak at me at all. They just wanted to make noise and feel acknowledged.