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

[cowtastrophe]

IKWYM.

And from time to time, I actually don't mind a tedious task, if all truth be known.
Something I can do almost on autopilot.

Yes, exactly. I can put my headphones in and crack on with it. But when it’s presented to me in the manner of ‘hee hee hee, here’s this crap job for you to do, sorreeeeee!’ it makes me resent doing it.

 

[TheGlossy]

I don’t know if I’m being overly negative or reading too much into this, but:

This morning the manager sent me an email the importance of some random ‘relationship cultivating’ training and how I need to take it because learning how to build relationships will help me with ‘my current role and overall career.’

I mean I have a decade experience in the industry including client facing experience. I don’t see the relevance of this training at this point of my career. I’ll take it to make sure I meet her requirements but I find it odd she’s sending me this after the ridiculous lecture.

She’s making it sound as though I’ve no interpersonal skills and need training or am the ‘bad seed’ in the team. She has access to my past feedbacks from prior role in the company and it’s 100% not the case. I think she’s just adding more fuel to the fire.

 

[ChastityDingle]

This! I can full do all aspects of my job from home but we have a mandatory amount of days we have to come in and if we're covering someones annual leave we have to come in for the full cover.
Yet during all the lockdowns we all worked and covered from home fine. It's baffling!
We also have to many staff for desks which means we have to have a rota for desks.
I'd happily wfh full time but no, they need to see me physically instead of paying attention to all the work I do...

BIB - What genius came up with that!

 

[TheGlossy]

That is awful. Given this person who left the positive feedback is more senior and your manager is questioning this feedback could you report your manager to HR for undermining your work? How did you find out about your manager questioning the validity of the feedback?

Do you mind unquoting please? I might want to remove my post later. Thanks.

I can’t escalate this because it’s all verbal. I don’t have physical evidence.

 

[Norfolking Good]

Are the comments anonymous like my 360s are because if you make the comment but try to keep it general so you’re not obviously identifiable.
Could you put something like needs to work on constructive feedback with key points or ensure praise is given where applicable as this helps team morale.

 

[Black.bird]

New thread:

Annoying things your work colleagues do all the time? #5

... Plus, feel free to post things about your job that you loathe, or which annoy you .. anything you'd like to get off your chest :)

tattle.life

 

[TheDragonWithAFlagon]

It's nice to sound appreciative of the myriad highly specialised and higher level tasks that have been taken on, but when the entire appraisal system has been roundly ignored by management because they can't be fucked with doing it for the minions (but God help the higher management if they don't get their progression each year) so that none of the minions even get normal progression, never mind have an opportunity to make a case for regrading - and without a decision being made, there's nothing to submit an appeal against - well, those nice words are of precisely fuck all use to the minions, aren't they?

 

[Kinderbelle]

Perfect place to rant about my OLD boss!!!

I work in healthcare, a very small company. My boss and I were the only workers, but she works part time and I was the only full time worker. Essentially I made all the money and she did f all.

I called in sick one day, the next day she called a meeting and said “okay I’m getting straight to the point, this isn’t working out”. Her reasons were not only ridiculous, but she never even discussed these with me prior.

• she said the thing that made her decide was that “I was off sick”. And I “let her know too late by email and didn’t even call”. She literally told me before that email was fine. And it was only a little later in the morning because I tried to come in, but still told her before my shift. And I had a doctors note.
• She said it’s not just this though, but other things:
• She said “you moan that you have too much work on, and no time to do anything, but you really don’t have that much on”. She saw 2-3 clients a day when she’s in. I saw 5-6 and have to do notes/report/admin/answering the phone.
• She told me I need to communicate with her that I’m struggling, so one morning I did call her saying I had struggled to find the time to prepare for a session. She said it was ridiculous, and that I “can’t be ringing her at all hours for fun” (it was 9:30am).
• I told her my housemate had covid. She said I need to pay for my own tests if I want to test as I don’t have symptoms. A few days later I came in coughing my guts out. She didn’t ask if I was ok, no concern, nothing. So I had to pay for my own tests even though I work in healthcare. She said it’s “because I didn’t come to her and ask”. She said she didn’t ask if I was ok because “I was running a team meeting at the time, and I’m currently moving house, it wasn’t on my mind”. I told her I had a problem with that and she said “yeah whatever”.
• She said I’m “not very good at winging my sessions”. Basically telling me I don’t need time to prepare - as long as I’m earning her money I shouldn’t be putting time to prepare or plan good sessions. She said she puts her family first.

AND IT GOT WORSE.

I go to write a note on the work phone, and there’s a note about all the things I’ve done wrong for me to find. This is SO unprofessional. But also there’s LOADS of things she’s never even brought up with me. Such as

• “leaving covid tests all over the table” I left one used test on one occasion by accident while I was in a session
• “Leaving the cabinet keys too close to the cabinet” fine, but she never told me this. And I came in the other day and SHE’D LEFT THEM IN THERE
• “Requesting she works from home one day while I was away” I literally should not be getting sacked for asking this??? The answer was no and I said okay fine??
• “Looking scruffy at work” again NEVER mentioned this and I know I do not look scruffy at work ever. Sometimes I don’t wear make up??
• “Heating at full blast” never told me to turn it down, and the office is freezing???
• “Not responding to clients emails” one time when I was off sick.
• “Not replying to my email asking if she was returning to work” she had emailed me at 7pm when I was sick, and I replied early the next morning???

I couldn’t be happier to be out of there!!

Have you ever posted this elsewhere? I am sure I've read it before. If so, I am very glad you got out of that situation!

 

[Mums84]

Calling people back. Don't do that Linda, you want to seem mysterious.

 

[JustmeKC]

I love this thread. Been rrading it all day while in a worl grump.

We have a spread sheet that we use for contracts to keep track. Everyone writes the date day-mon-year. One colleague ALWAYS writes it day-number instead of mon- year and it makes it look awful. Like WHY!?

She also repeatedly emails me with the wrong name even though its on everywhere. Sends work my eay which i bounce back and then loudly claims that I am "difficult" in the office, other staff have reported back to me.

Can I ask, is this on share point or teams? Ive noticed that the formatting seems to change on a shared spreadsheet depending on who opens it & I know they cba going through it to mess it up

 

[JustmeKC]

I track my annual leave to the T and check the system once a week. The fault does not lie with me but with my previous manager who gave me the wrong information on the carryover policy, not with me forgetting to take the days.

I asked my manager how many days were allowed to be carried into 2023 and he said 10. I had 6 when I asked, so I thought I was fine to carry those into 2023. That was in November when I asked.

I checked my carryover from 2022 today and saw I’d lost a day. I asked my new manager how many days were actually allowed to be carried into 2023 and they said it’s 5 not 10. SMH.

My previous manager is to blame for overstating the amount of days allowed. I believed what he said. How was I supposed to know he was wrong?

That’s fair enough but surely you have some recourse if it’s not down to you? Our carryover policy is a bit wishy washy but needs to be used by end of March and that’s pretty much the only clarity there is over it.

 

[TheGlossy]

Don't you have a policy outlining the carry overs allowed etc?

We do, but the company had temporarily amended the policy due to COVID (for 2020/2021). Either way, if my manager gives me a piece of information, unless it seems completely unreasonable, I don’t always second-guess everything they say to double check with the employee handbook. I had asked someone else and they too thought it was 10 days.

The day is gone now, so I’m annoyed, but I’ll get over it.

 

[Ensay]

Not so much an annoyance, but a question. Can someone remain off sick indefinitely?

A colleague of mine has been off sick for a long time. I checked today and Teams says he was last online 602 days ago. I knew it was well over a year, but I didn't realise it was that long.

He clearly hasn't resigned because he's still on the system, but if someone can't work for that length of time, they're clearly very ill and I can't see him returning. I suppose he has to choose to resign, the company can't fire him for being off so long. I expect he's only getting statutory sick pay/ESA anyway, so it's not like the company is 'losing' money.

 

[TheGlossy]

Is there someone you can speak with in your Talent team about the lack of anonymity? 360 feedback is so annoying. I had over 50 requests for feedback from people I have worked loosely with and I think completed half of them!

The company provides the option for the requestor to request either anonymous or identifiable 360 feedback. It’s up to the requestor or to pick their preference. There’s no company restriction in this regard.

My manager voluntarily chose the non-anonymous option.

Luckily, no random person asked me. Some people are over the top with these feedback requests.

 

[OmgObsessed]

That's what I'm saying about them being lazy AF lmao. Imagine not doing YOUR job when you get back from holiday.


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Y'all my manager tried to make me seem like a POS for not remembering all the students name within 6 months. I had just moved here from overseas and the kids all wore mask. Along with other personal stuff.


Now two years in I know 80% of the whole school. Yet, this cunt doesn't know anyone's name. Tell me why she had the audacity to try and say I don't care because I couldn't remember at the start.

None of the managers even knows the kids name. I just asked if other foreigner's kid were here. She said she doesn't know them. THEYRE THE ONLY "WHITE" CHILDREN HERE!!!!!

 

[TheDragonWithAFlagon]

Four people, trained up from NMW to full time, reasonably paid, secure roles that also make them far more marketable outside if they choose to leave. Could have rejected and stuck with people who already had experience but pushed strongly for them to have the opportunity. As it was an insane workload pre-lockdowns, massive amounts of tasks have been removed and they don't get treated like shit/told they're crap or any of the shitty things that used to happen.


I identified and was asked to plan, design and implement a new process in an existing system that should reduce a particular task down from 300+ hours a year each just in passing things along for somebody else to deal with for another 500+ hours to a 5-15s look and click, everything completed, no more than 2.5 hours' work for them in a year. It also recognises them as the people best placed to make the decision yes or no, with no negative consequences for either decision; if it's no and has to be referred on in 1/100 times, thank you, that's the right thing, you're trusted to make that call as you have the on the ground knowledge nobody else has. It's also using an existing system with inbuilt and carefully thought out security. They were aware that it was being looked into because the previous system had collapsed due to a bone idle manager differences of opinion about whether the work to plan and implement it was an effective use of time.

It could also have been the thousands of hours of work alternative that the previous lazy bastard person had tried to make them do and had started off a massive row in the background because dropping these people in the shit was simply not going to be allowed to happen. Yes, I stamped my feet and said it simply wasn't going to happen, which the big bosses agreed was absolutely the right position to take.

I paid careful attention to how they'd be informed it was happening so that they didn't feel ordered around and it was explained (albeit not in quite so much detail) that it is only being done because the research and tests had established it was likely to be far less work for them (and if something went wrong, it could easily be withdrawn, improved or abandoned).


I personally think that preventing a resignation-level event and then creating an alternative that takes less than 1% of their time AND acknowledges their worth/knowledge is something that should be met with an 'Oh, Okay, that sounds like it might be easier?'. Wouldn't have had a problem with 'Q. Is this going to take us more time? A. No' I wasn't expecting 'OMG, that's amazing, thank you so much for spending hours trying to reduce our workload and once the procedure happens, our day to day so much easier', although it would have been nice. I even did a soft rollout so they wouldn't get lumbered with the entire two hours' work at once, so they're looking at about 3-5 minutes a week. Less time than it takes to answer the phone and type a single email.


Let's just say the response was not as neutral as I had hoped. They interpreted 'you have control and it's quicker for you than you having to pass it to somebody else' as 'you're going to be doing more work'. And needed the precise mathematics explained to them before they stopped bristling with righteous indignation.












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@Redrose97 I've reported your post and asked if the bit that I think could potentially identify him and you is deleted (the BBC stuff).

You don't sound to be doing anything wrong - it sounds as though he's trying to bully you and your colleagues and manager are aware of this. If you can, email your manager each time there's a concern and mention if you feel he's picking on you because of your Autism. It might be helpful if you need to submit a grievance and is another record of your disability/protected characteristic.