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

[Onthehop]

When you know how to do certain aspects of the job and save everyone time and effort to get an early finish but your know it all trying to impress each other colleagues want to do everything in a very over involved time consuming way to achieve the same result . We recently have a new batch of 20 somethings in my work place who know everything and yet seem to spend all day phoning their parents about any and every little problem whether at work or personal life . I just don’t get it I know people in their 20s who are married with kids yet the ones I work with seem to need micro managed and babied all day it’s so draining . They also can’t do anything alone everything’s got to be arranged like they are at school and only booking training or meetings if they can go together .
this isn’t a dig at all 20 somethings it’s just these ones I work with seem so bloody immature to have the responsibility of making decisions about other peoples lives .

I work with someone like this in her 50s. She phones her elderly mum daily whenever something goes wrong.
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One of my colleagues writes ridiculously long emails and can ever just give a straightforward quick response. I think he thinks it makes him look clever, but it makes him look like a twat. He’s also a complete work dodger! I am sure my manager would love to get rid of him if he could.

Long emails with no paragraphs

 

[Norfolking Good]

This fits nicely in here, I think. (From the memes thread)

View attachment 2070725

If I could like this meme 100x I would!

 

[lanathebest]

I need to talk about this time I had an internship for Harper’s Bazaar. I need to make the story short but I had a big boss then my manager. The big boss was already a bit toxic, think Miranda Priestly but what I liked about her was how she would ask for results and let u handle it on ur own. Then come back days later to see what uve done. My manager micro managed to me to the max. She checked how my table was. She’d analyse it every morning and tell me « u need to clean up this left area more ». If I was 1 min late she would rant about it to me. She also demanded to see my notebook and asked me to do a specific to do list, which didn’t work for me because I have ADHD and my way of organising is different. I told her many times that her way doesn’t work for me and makes me confused, she insisted her ways was the best.
she’d go so far as to tell me abusive things like telling me she could replace me easily, that my brain isn’t working properly and i should get a brain scan. that i dont speak properly and should get a doctor to check it our. except i had so much fear i started stuttering. i wasnt myself anymore. think reek in game of thrones lol. just a shadow of who i was,no self esteem left. everything i did, even throwing out the trash was badly done. every single day she let me know that I cantdo anything right. one time she asked « can u give me resume please? ». I obeyed. She scanned it quickly and told me each and every experience ive had is utterly useless, even laughing about it.That day i came back home crying and sobbing, to the point of suicidal thoughts (I was already dealing with OCD issues). My self esteem was lower than it already was, I felt broken. And everytime I was near that building in the morning I wanted to vomit.
Until that moment when she started shouting at me and saying I can never do anything right in my life. I got so mad that I got up and took my bag and left and she rushed after me, crying! I was like this bitch is insane… she started confessing another intern did the same to her last year. So it’s when my anger came out telling her AND IR NEVER CROSSED UR MIND THAT UR THE PROBLEM AND U SHOULD CHANGE?
Another colleague came out to watch the scée and defend her. I said why dont u leave urself out of it. You have no idea what it’s like to have been abused psychologically. And my manager started crying in front of everyone. I couldn’t stop telling her that Im not her dog, not her slave and she should talk to me differently. She started promising she would.
But months went by and she continued. So I again, went up to her, looked her in the eyes and said you are an awful person. You abuse, you verbally abuse. You need to shut the fuck up. From now on when I come here u dont ask me about my to do list, I dont wanna hear any of ur comments. You shut up and stay at ur place.
she got up and started ranting to her colleague and then i could hear her cry.

you know what’s insane. she started guilt tripping me into having lunch with her and a colleague and started asking about my sexual life. suggesting im lesbian and laughing about it. I said even if i was whats ur problem? She made me feel then that i never laugh and have no sense of humor. But again I had to be dead serious to her and tell her listen im not ur friend we r not friends. U dont talk to me this way. From now on i dont eat lunch with u. I come here i do my work and thats it.
And whenever she’d try to be more, to be that rude person I had to stop her and say « you need therapy and u need help, you are awful » and she kept crying almost like she felt guilty or something. I didn’t care at all: she then realized she needed a new job after staying in this one for a decade. When my internship was over she said thank u for changing my life. I said nothing. She ruined mine, couldnt find myself to find mt first job for years and had to find confidence again in myself. Still traumatized by it all

and yes i did say u need to shut the fuck up to her face thats how done I was

 

[TheGlossy]

My manager. I don’t know if it’s a passive aggressive thing or if I’m reading too much into this but..every single time she writes my first name after other people’s first names, she makes sure to always write the first letter as a small letter/minuscule instead of using a capital letter. Yet, for everyone else’s first name, she uses a capital letter as you should. Example:

‘Hi Mary, Olivia, theglossy’.

She does it all the time. She never does it with anyone’s first name but mine. It’s really rude! If you can add a capital letter to everyone’s first name, you can give me the same courtesy.
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I also need to add:

Clingy coworkers who want to do everything together (breakfast together, coffee together, lunch together and afternoon tea together). They are so clingy that they do all of the above together every time we’re in the office.

If I’m on a serious Zoom call with one of them, Person A randomly shows up on screen to say ‘Hi’. If I’m in the office and I’m off with one of team for a scheduled catch-up/meeting
in the cafeteria, Person A again literally follows us downstairs and randomly shows up pretending to be passing by to say ‘Hi’. A coworker walked to my desk the other day to ask me a work related question and Person A again walked up to us saying ‘I have FOMO, saw you guys talking, what are you guys talking about?’. I literally said nothing and gave her the side eye.

Literally, no two coworkers can do anything or talk without this person showing up.

 

[ChastityDingle]

Speaking of ooo, you know what grinds my gears. When you're the named person on the ooo and the sender just forwards it on without so much as a "hi emsie can you pick this up whilst such and such is out". Just a blank forward

Exactly.
A little bit of politeness goes a long way imo.

 

[Popcornshovel]

Oh I completely agree.
As though they are getting one over on you, or something.

Yup definitely think some people have power trip thing and relish giving menial tasks to others.

 

[JustmeKC]

Thank you. I already started looking but finding a suitable job takes time. I’m still stuck in the role in the meantime.

I was on sick leave half this week and it was the only time I felt like myself again ever since she started her shenanigans towards me.

On another note, earlier this week, someone proactively approached me randomly asking if I was ‘OK’ because they overheard the conversation where she basically told an entire report I did was crap based on one sentence at the beginning. They said that they overheard her tone during the call and according to them, nothing justifies speaking to someone that way. They said it was really bad. I wasn’t aware anyone had paid attention at all.

She was in the office that day with tons of people around her. It didn’t go unnoticed.

What’s your notice period? My own is strongly anticompetitive and with a number of issues bubbling in my firm I’m close to resigning myself. I know the fear of not having a job, financial commitments etc but if my place continues the way it is my sanity is worth the risk of ending up out of work for a short while. There’s also a certain advantage in being immediately available when competing for a role against someone else with similar skills.

 

[newaccount2022]

@princessmaire80 omg I can’t believe her behaviour!!

 

[emmer_moans]

I've spent the past three days working from someone's home office in their house - as in, they have a large room set up (I guess it was a gym / rumpus room at some point?), as an office complete with workstations (10 in total; all were being used).

The awkward thing was, to use the bathroom you had to go through their house. To get a glass of water or to make a cup of tea you had to go through their house. It felt rude and awkward. They should just install a bathroom off the room and a kitchenette at the end of the room if it's going to be a long-term thing ... there's enough space.

It was fine for most of the day ... it felt very much like an office with all-white walls, grey carpet and a very good - ergonomic - set-up ... but when the homeowner's spouse and kids came home it felt as if we were intruding on their home life. The spouse kept coming in to talk to their partner, and at one point they had a bit of a barney ... I couldn't work like this all the time; no way.

Wow that's awkward. How come the office is at someone's home?

 

[Popcornshovel]

Poor girl. I hope she escaped that toxic environment.

In the end the boss got moved to another department because of all his toxic behaviour! Shame he didn't get sacked, but at least it solved the problem for our team.

 

[bcfc999]

Constantly putting the heater on. It's November and I'm boiling in a t shirt!

 

[ChastityDingle]

It sounds like he was good at looking busy, rather than actually doing much. I've worked with several people who always say how busy they are and I just think "with what?" and wish I could have their workloads (or lack thereof).

I've managed people who are the same. I remember one guy who was on one fairly small project and when I caught up with him about his progress he told me he was overloaded. Thankfully it was over Teams without webcams so he couldn't see my "WTF?" reaction. I looked in his Outlook calendar and he only had about 3 - 4 meetings most weeks. He didn't last very long - he resigned saying it wasn't the right role for him. I suppose if someone expects not to work then it wasn't the right role.

My rant for the day... Project Managers. I sometimes wonder what they do. All they seem to do is send emails and set meetings up asking what's going on and bugging me for dates - even when I've told them I need a bit more time to plan, due to some unanswered questions. I sometimes feel like saying "I can bring the date in if you wanna help me with the work?" Sorry to any PMs out there - some are good, some less so.

He was probably good at looking busy although most people knew what he was like, once they had any dealings with him.
And he held quite a senior position into the bargain.

He is probably still there, still climbing the ladder effortlessly.

 

[Mamacita]

Sometimes I log into a meeting early and stay muted and camera off to confuse people. They come in eager to chat and just get a blank screen whilst I watch them it makes my day better

Oohh I like it, introducing a sense of unease from the start to increase your power in the meeting. Not sure I have the nerves for this

 

[earlgrey]

Would your manager have taken the credit? That happened to me in the past.

Her manager at a meeting of just the three of us then mentioned the great piece of work SHE did. Because I was sitting there, she had to mumble that it was me who had done it.

Nah he’s a good manager, I don’t think he’s even noticed that he’s getting the credit as he missed the presentation and could have easily missed the shout out at the bottom of a weekly email. This is why I’m not sure if it’s worth bringing it up or letting it go

 

[blahblahboring]

Ugh, how exhausting!

One of my colleagues is irritating the crap out of me at the moment. She has massive FOMO and insists on being invited to everything that anyone anywhere in the office does. Example: I have a teams group chat with a couple of people I went on a course with and when she found out she insisted we invite her to the group chat, instead we made a new one with her in, so when we are both in the office she will stare at my screen and try and read the messages in the other chat. She constantly asks people to go out with her outside work and then tells everyone they are "friends outside work" as if it makes her special. She will then post photos of them at the pub on our teams channel so that everyone can see that they went out together, and talk about what a great time they had in the weekly team meeting for 20 minutes.

She's also annoying me because she is buying a house at the moment. She makes constant digs about how "people my age" (42) had it so easy with cheap houses, despite the fact that my first 'house' was a 1 bed flat and even now I can only afford a tiny terraced ex-council house. She is buying a huge house in a fancy part of town for £400k!! As her first home!! I've literally never had that budget or a house as big. She also texted me at home in the evening to tell me as soon as the offer was accepted. Girl I don't care and if I go to work somewhere else I will never speak to you again.

 

[NoBruv]

The new starters sending documents for checking without self checking first... please just read it, don’t ignore the red underlines and run a poxy spell check. Ahhhh

 

[Mollywobbles]

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!

In my last office everyone who didn’t have a permanent desk had a box (old paper box) to store items such as pens, stationery, mug, cuppa soup, photo of pet dog, etc.
There was a cupboard to store the box and it meant you did have to lug stuff about but could personalise your desk.

 

[ChastityDingle]

The one I mentioned was an absolute dose.
Her colleagues were probably glad of the peace but they had to pick up the slack.

She is the only one I ever knew who did anything like that.
Most people wouldn't dream of doing it.

 

[Curiouscupcake]

No shade at you but this is my beef. People who insist on speaking on the phone or in person when an email would do.

They had an initiative at a previous place of work to reduce emails and encouraged people to talk or phone rather than send an email. There was a crazy amount of emails being sent daily

 

[OmgObsessed]

"jokingly" tell me to quit

Or when my manager gossiped about me twice thinking I can't understand her mother's tongue

I'm pretty sure that same manage also left shit in the toilet today too

Just ready to go home today. Ignore me.