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

[TheDragonWithAFlagon]

Deleted for fear of outing.

But I wish there was a way to bat off "well meaning" advice from colleagues

'Thank you' and then ignoring anything they've said tends to be the most useful thing in y experience - they get to wander off feeling all pleased with themselves, you get some peace.



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Latest advice to colleagues - don't lie in front of the big boss. People communicate, you know. And some of us are clearly more honest than you.

 

[mee43]

Absolutely sick to the back teeth of the management, who earn roughly 10 times more than us minions, and the petty, pedantic demands that they make.
They’ve literally made our jobs harder, more time consuming and miserable, just to save themselves dotting an I, or crossing a t more than they should.
Because heaven forbid that they should actually do any work for their pay when the rabble can do it for next to nothing

 

[horsey1234]

People who message me on Teams asking me non-urgent questions first thing in the morning

Today’s: “Please can I book a day off in June as Annual leave” sent 8.03am. Piss off and leave me to my morning in peace

 

[glitter&sparkle]

We have a manager that sends emails with poor grammar and spelling mistakes. Like awfully and these go out to customers. Not only that she’s sent it out at home so past working hours!
I also got out late today because same manager doesn’t understand time management and finishing off what we need to do get out on time half an hour early! When she isn’t in we always get out on time so I have no idea what she does but it’s so annoying!

 

[Vroomvroom]

I work with a cherry picker. She always leaves the shitty stuff for everyone else, because she comes in super early, settles in, takes a few items that have come in overnight, and coasts on those for the day. It has been raised to the manager a couple of times, they say they will have a word but nothing changes.

It’s so annoying isn’t it! And you raise it and the manager says it’s being addressed but nothing changes.

 

[no-no]

Be nice when they’re after 360 feedback.

 

[ChastityDingle]

Previous posters have given great advice so all I’ll add is something I’ve said before. I worked in a horrendous environment about 20 years ago and got a new job. Once everything was signed and sealed I made a point of telling a bullying bitch from hell to fuck off on my last day. The euphoria I felt was off the charts. I strongly recommend this.

Oh I would so love to have done that. The bullying bastard I worked with went onwards and upwards. When it was announced he was leaving (he was no longer my manager at this point) I took pleasure in not once congratulating him or asking him about the new job, like I would have done with anyone else.

I would meet him by chance say when grabbing a cup of coffee and smile into his face and talk about the weather and the weekend and how were his kids . On the day he left, he did a kind of swagger down the office saying goodbye to everyone but I made sure to be missing from my desk.

I will never forgive him as long as I live, for what he put me through, but as the saying goes what doesn't kill you makes you strong.

 

[Heidi88]

People who only respond to the part of the email that suits me and ignores everything else.

I work in Finance and another team is doing something which is completely wrong from an accounting point of view. I contacted the manager as they are messing up my numbers. I've had so many calls and emails to her but she cherry picks what points to respond to. She said the controls team ok'ed this. I contacted the controls team and they said they didnt. So we all had a call and went through everything and we agreed before she does anything that would impact my numbers they would let me know and also stick to deadlines for making any changes. She also said she would fix everything but two months later its still a mess and then this week they are back to their old tricks by not sticking to deadlines and using the wrong numbers.

My manager and even his manager are involved in the last few weeks and I learned this week that it is also impacting another team. If I had made these mistakes I would be expected to correct them immeadiately and for it never to happen again. This has been escalated up really high and still nothing done. She is getting away with murder.

 

[Rxt156]

I actually dont mind going in but at the moment so few people go in that it is pointless. I end up doing all calls on Zoom anyway. If exceptions are made for others I will be in the office and still doing Zoom calls with others wfh.

The company is quite nice to work for and people dont realise how good they have it. They complain about trivial things like we recently got a voucher issued to all staff for a nice amount of money but you had to collect it in the office and people complained about this. I've worked in a good few companies on both ends of the spectrum and turnover is for the most part very low in the company so you have people there 10 to 20 years. They complain about everything not realising its one of the nicer companies out there.

Sad when this is the case but they will never realise til it gets worse or they leave and go somewhere that’s awful 🫣

 

[Ensay]

Not looking forward to going back today. The holiday went too quickly!

As others have said, there will be endless happy new year greetings and asking how Christmas was, plus I know today and the next few days will be busy because the amount of things people didn’t want to do before the Christmas break, hence pushed them out to this week. Joy.

 

[MediumLoad]

We have someone like this but she will add random people into it who I don't know. Like, she will be talking about her shopping in Aldi and then will say "and then I said to George" and I'm like "who is George" and it will be the security guard or something. Just say the security guard how would I know his name is George. Drives me insane!!
She also says "I said to dad...." It's "I said to my dad" your dad isn't my dad. Stop itttttttttt

We have someone like that as well. She's lovely but, with the best will in the world, she uses her sexual orientation as a stand-in for having a personality. That and every single mention is of her partner. I'm an evil-minded bastard so I can't help but smile at yet another anecdote of how her partner encountered someone who "rubbed her up the wrong way." Honestly, her partner is a living example of the "If you meet an arsehole every day....." meme.

 

[TheGlossy]

My manager is driving me up the wall.

I am overseas for a project and I had a schedule conflict. One of my meetings for this overseas project was conflicting with another. I tried to get the meeting for the other project moved but the stakeholder was having none of it. I escalated to my manager to see if they could intervene.

Then the stakeholder said “TheGlossy accepted the invite so I thought she was available”.

It turns out I had unknowingly accepted the invite together with a batch of other meeting invites while asking to reschedule. Then my manager said “You accepted the invite, you deal with this. You made me look stupid”.

I tried to tell them I had accepted the invite without realizing and it was a human error. I wasn’t even aware I’d accepted the invite until the stakeholder mentioned it. Then my manager said: “I’m not getting into this, I don’t care”.

They sent me off overseas for a project and gave me zero to do. I don’t even know why I’m here. Then when I have an unreasonable stakeholder who doesn’t want to move any meeting and I escalate, I’m told to deal with it over a petty calendar mistake.

I feel I’m being set up for failure on purpose. Two years and a half, never had an issue. Suddenly I’m leaving this team and have my year end appraisal soon and I’m having these sudden issues. Not a coincidence.

 

[no-no]

Act like children when they have an issue instead of addressing it. Passive aggressive messages to others and cam + audio off not interacting when they always have it on like they’ve stormed off to their work bedroom Mentioned the tension when asked by my manager and he made excuses about personal life. We all have shit going on, doesn’t give you carte blanche to be shitty to others. And why ask This is the second colleague to go rogue teenager in as many weeks. This one is just sulking because they didn’t get what they felt entitled to and should be told to grow up.

 

[ChastityDingle]

I would 1:1 message him and ask him to knock it off. You don’t have to explain yourself, just tell him it’s getting old and he needs to move on. Pointless letting it go on any longer, I hate it when people think they’re funny calling people out in front of a group - does nothing but make you feel like crap and them look like a total dickhead.

I agree.
Knowing me, I would give him an almighty sarcastic putdown though which might not be ideal. Oops.

And I hope that you are doing okay @shadowcat5 that's the most important thing.

 

[TheGlossy]

How much more evidence do you need?? Stevie Wonder can see it's a toxic environment. Get yourself out of there.

I’m just venting. It is toxic but finding a new job is unfortunately not that speedy of a process. I wish it were

 

[JustmeKC]

I understand your frustration but think about why it's usually managers who did this. Yes, it could be a power thing or sheer laziness on their part but it could also be that that manager has been in back to back meetings all day. Or they've been firefighting urgent problems. They may not have had a minute all day to even look at their emails. I speak from bitter experience, I really do my best for my team but some days I just can't get anywhere near my emails until the end of the day.

I see both sides of it here - reality is, if a manager can’t commit to giving a piece of work to someone in a timely manner they should not expect it back same day
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I've said this one before, but it needs saying again. People who book meetings in when my diary clearly shows I've already got a meeting.

It's getting to the point where I think one colleague in particular is doing it deliberately. He's put in a 30 minute meeting on Thursday with me and one other person and it's over another meeting. I've checked and all three of us are free several times throughout the day, but no, he's picked one of the few times we're not.

So it's either deliberate, or he's too stupid to even check availability. Neither one is good.

It's taking me a lot of effort not to send him a snotty message. I'm not going to rise to it, though.

I don’t even suggest alternate times to these meetings, just decline - they get the message eventually

 

[ChastityDingle]

Exactly, most of us have lives outside of work and traffic jams to avoid. Luckily most of my team get up and put our coats on at the same time come 5pm so noone bats an eyelid.

One place I worked that malarkey of being seen to 'work' long hours was an absolute thing.
I had a bus to catch so I was up and out every evening at 5 pm.

The manager I worked with there was in at the crack of dawn, as she never tired of reminding everyone. She was still there when everyone else was leaving (or so I was told ) but what nobody noticed - until it was pointed out - she used to disappear for hours on end during the day on personal errands.

There's an expression about 'once you get the reputation for rising early, you can stay in bed all day' that suits her perfectly. 'OMG she works such long hours.' She didn't really though.

 

[Ensay]

I wouldn’t say anything, purely because they will be doing this for a financial reason (most likely) and times are tough right now.

Agreed. Plus it's up to the company to investigate if they think toner is being used too quickly. I'm sure they can check out which UserID is sending the most print requests...

 

[Black.bird]

I got a text from someone before asking if I can go and check that they set the alarm at work because they think they may have forgotten to do it and only realised when they arrived back at home.

They've texted me, as I'm the closest to work. It's annoying because this happens nearly every weekend and everyone assumes I'll always drop whatever I'm doing to go and do it. I need to start saying "no".

People that find simple tasks difficult. I am not doing their work for them anymore.

I think people get lazy and take advantage of those who are always willing to go the extra mile ... especially at this time of year.

I genuinely love all of my workmates with the exception of one person, but the behaviour of some of them at the moment is grating. Every year around this time, people start wandering into the office at whatever time they feel like, and typically leave early ... meaning things slip, and others have to pick up the slack.

 

[Hellofish]

I hate not having my “own” desk. I waste so much time logging on and off of scrrrns and setting up first in one place then in another.
Equipment is at such a bare minimum that you’re forever playing musical chairs so that everyone has a spell of access to what they need.
Makes me feel like a spare part rather than a valued employee.

Agreed. We hit desk with a laptop each and I hate it. I don't even have any draws so constantly lugging shit about because I've nowhere for pens or notes. Drives me mad and I feel like a floating person without a space!