Annoying things your work colleagues do all the time? #9

[BoogleC]

We have loads like this. Moan about how long it takes to get to work, did they not check it before they took the job?

we had someone recently who after starting in the job asked to move back to their old one as they hadn’t realised how far away the office was from their home! Why wouldn’t you look that up, location is one of the first things I check on a job advert

 

[ChastityDingle]

I'm admin - my team say it all turns to shit if I'm not there, one calls me their secret weapon!

Anywhere I worked, the admin were top class, and I have nothing but fond memories of them.
I have said about more than one of them that they could run the country with one hand tied behind their backs.

 

[TheDragonWithAFlagon]

Headed off another bright idea from management that would have led to us breaking the law this week. It gets really tiresome when they decide something's a great idea and send out the instructions without asking somebody who knows what they're doing for their opinion/suggestions first. Although there was also another instruction that was also a 'consultant's' genius idea that wasn't physically possible, but I got around that by pointing out what we already have in place that just needs to be out of approval limbo/the black hole of never wanting to make a decision meant it wasn't a problem in the first place.

Also - one manager pontificating over an analysis, stating that it clearly supported exactly the opposite of what it showed, one 'the consultant wants to know why you haven't done this' 'Umm, because it's already covered by this and their instruction is founded upon the complete absence of any knowledge?', one 'Here's the emails I sent you seven months ago requesting approval.' (can I assume by your ranting and shrieking email that this is approved now?), and two occasions of 'Can you just...now, I need it NOW' being answered with 'No. I can't, unless you wish to inform the chief exec that you've instructed me to drop everything? And whilst we're at it, it is not a 'just' anything, it requires <long technical explanation using as many big words as possible>. I need a week minimum, preferably ten days, to have any reasonable chance of doing it around everything else I'm on a deadline for.'



I've got a week off now. I'm not logging in at all - if the entire site is nuked from orbit in the next nine days, I guess I'll deal with it when I turn up to a smoking crater.

 

[it’s not been changed?!]

Lazy co worker was back in the office on Thursday last week after being on leave. He didn’t know the TL was on A/L Thursday and Friday. He kept asking if she was definitely off on the Friday (when we wfh).
Comes to Friday and he logs on after 9am when it’s meant to be 8am. Spends most of the day away rather than online. It was his birthday, so he was probably fucking about all day knowing he can get away with it. Why not just book it off?
Today it’s limited staff in the office and the TL is out all day. He’s spent all day so far on his phone or wandering about chatting to people. If someone walks by him, he puts his phone down or tilts it away from them.
Really beginning to lose my patience. He’s on more money than me, yet I seem to have more workload. Make it make sense. I’m eating my lunch in silence fuming. I’ve not heard him type on his keyboard once. Arghh.

 

[qqwertyy]

A woman who sits near me in the office must be flat footed and to go with it has all the grace of an elephant. She stomps around so much that the floorboards literally shake every time she goes back and forth.

 

[Darvos]

Ok this is going to sound bad but annoying things my colleagues do all the time…breathing.

Sitting next to my manager and the breathing sounds are so loud and distracting. It’s driving me mad.

Oh and the slurping of any hot drink.

Is… your manager my husband?

 

[Fillyjonk]

A guy I work with goes through about an hour of intense throat clearing every day after lunch. It’s like somebody trying to start a car.

 

[Norfolking Good]

I work with a very bitchy gay man at work and he just loves a bit of passive aggressive messaging if I pick up and email on our shared inbox that he wants to do. As he works remotely it’s not like you can just say out loud in the office is anyone answering this and he never flags what he is working on. Sadly my psychic abilities are not great. Just gets really boring and he also takes over meetings and interrupts constantly whilst saying he can’t help it due to his ADHD. It’s just pig ignorant and rude if you know you’re doing it and even announce you’re interrupting. Grr

 

[Samf2020]

We can log into the cameras to see who is at the front door when you are expecting people or working alone. So far this morning all 6 members of staff who came in have walked passed the milk delivery. It always arrives after I am at my desk which is why I dont bring it in and on the top floor as well.
Its Monday morning the week we get paid and they are all playing chicken to see who will cave first to get milk for the tea and coffee they have to make as no money to hit up the overpriced (very posh area) coffee shop on the corner.
Its 2 cartons of milk not a huge amount to carry but still they expect someone else to do it for them.
I dont use the milk so it doesnt bother me, I just love how predictable they are

 

[Fillyjonk]

That old "you're just an admin" mindset. I couldn't possibly know something that these people with their advanced degrees don't know, so they feel free to disregard everything I say. And it comes back to bite them in the butt every time.
I'm an admin because I'm good at it, not because I'm too stupid to get a "better" job.

I find this attitude absolutely bizarre. I went from being a teacher and managing a department to a role in admin, and honestly the admin work was 100 times harder. You cannot take your eye off the ball at all and you’re juggling a million and one different things that those higher up than you can’t do.

I feel too stupid for admin a lot of the time, it’s really hard!

 

[Samf2020]

I used to have a manager who would email to request something and then call before I'd even finished reading the email, like literally seconds later.
Why bother sending the email, why not just call?
In the end I got fed up with her helicopter micro managing everything - I'd just hang up mid-way through her calls and when she called back I'd just say the call had dropped out
Man, she was irritating...

There is a director in my place who does this with her team. If they dont answer the teams call immediately she rings their personal phone. I would block her on any phone the company doesnt pay for.

 

[qqwertyy]

I used to get asked to chase up X Y and Z on my team as they’d not completed the anonymous survey clearly SO private and SO anonymous.

 

[EvilJigglypuff]

Does anyone else have a workplace where all the male leadership refer to each other by their initials? “Thanks BD, handing over to TJ”. Makes me wanna be sick.

 

[Hollie Day]

When someone hasn't had time to read your email because they're 'immensely busy' yet they had time to spend 15 mins standing in the kitchen chatting and eating leftover food from a meeting.

 

[RainbowFuzz]

Eggs are very popular in my office so no-one really minds that, but one colleague will heat up fish soup in the microwave and it absolutely stinks!

 

[Ivegone]

Those anonymous surveys that companies send out. The surveys that aren’t actually anonymous. The surveys were we all rate our job satisfaction, how we rate our direct manager, what the company is getting right & wrong etc…

The results are in & my team scored rated me very high in terms of “does my direct manager value the importance of being supported in terms of mental health & well-being?” I was praised (via email) for taking the time to regularly check-in on my team. In fact, out of 2000 managers in the same role within the company worldwide, I scored in the top percentile..

How do they reward me? They add to my workload & basically tell me I have to train other managers on how to implement mental health well-being resources within their teams.

Infuriates me how if you do a great job at the company, they just add to your workload rather than giving you a bonus or taking the time to really thank you

See I've stopped doing them. We have to log in with our work email no way is it anonymous. I'm not blowing smoke up their arses

 

[it’s not been changed?!]

When you realise you and your TL are off at the same time. Ffs. IYKYK.

 

[Hollie Day]

When a colleague doesn't like the answer to a question they asked so they reframe the question hoping they'll bamboozle you and get a different answer, but you repeat the same answer.

It ended with me getting a look of disdain from them because their sly trick didn't work.

 

[EvilJigglypuff]

I worked for a global company and the head of HR, who was loved by everyone and wrote books on HR etc, used to tell anyone who asked that the purpose of HR is to protect the company from its employees.

Yep, HR is not your friend!

 

[April89]

Thanks all, very grateful for all your comments. I told area manager this morning, who knows what I might have started!