I’ve worked ever since I was about 13 and throughout that time, I’ve encountered several “wtf” moments that tested my sanity and made look at people in a completely different light.
In no particular order….you might find these individuals in your work place:
The anti-social worker. You know this person. Never speaks, never says hi. You’ll say hi and good morning for a week in a row and they’ll just keep walking by. You can sneeze for days and they’ll stare at you blankly.
The overly-social worker. This person is a little too friendly. All up in the kool-aid, doesn’t know the flavor. With this person those rhetoric questions of, “hey how are you?” or “how was your weekend?” turn into long-winded over-shares that make you feel a little less like yourself. Sometimes you turn into the anti-social worker after a few days of this crap.
People who ask questions that answer themselves. My favorite is, “hey did you have a chance to send blah blah file?” To which I want to reply, “ did you receive blah blah file from me? If I had a chance to send it I would have and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
The “are you busy –poop face people” I hate when people ask you, “hey are you busy?” You say, ‘yes” and they make a face as if they’re taking a shit. The face is usually followed by an “ooohh, do you think I can bother you when you have a chance?” Now I appreciate you asking if i’m busy before you bombard me with stupid questions that probably answer themselves, however what did you expect me to say? No, i’m not busy, I’m sitting here with my thumb up my butt waiting for someone to ask me if i’m busy. Why the poop face when I tell you that i’m actually doing my job??
The “I’m on lunch” people. (These can also be people who are “off the clock”). I appreciate lunch time. I usually try to have my lunch elsewhere so that people recognize that i’m not working. The one thing I do hate though is when people don’t want to answer simple questions because they’re on lunch. If the question requires a yes or no answer and little to no physical exertion, I will answer it and you should too. Anything that involves me looking for something is off limits.
The happy hour/company party drunks. Selecting your friends for happy hour is a very important decision. Your selecting people who will see how you really are. Now usually you have fun and let loose with this select group of people, not everyone that invites you to happy hour. Definitely not at the company party (unless you work for a company that repays their workers in liquor *cough fireball, Jess and Amy). I never understand why people are drunk grinding on each other at the company party. If you do that at night at the club you might not have to see those people until the next weekend (if at all). if you do that at work you have to see them tomorrow, and the next day and the day after that (if you still have a job).
The people who have personal conversations with reckless abandon. A few years ago i shared a 4 person cube. The girl in the far corner used to have long conversations about all kinds of foolishness, boys she was dating (how i don’t know), her gyno, job interviews she was going on. Dwight has long conversations too sometimes in our office other times he will leave and go into a conference room. I thought the workday was for actual work. I usually don’t talk on the phone unless it’s an emergency or lunch of for about five minutes or so max. No 1.5-2 hour long conversations.
The people who have no time for work stuff but plenty of time for fun stuff. We are all guilty of sneaking some time to check facebook or hop on google chat but that can’t be how you spend the majority of your day. That definitely can’t be what you’re “busy” doing all day.
The long-winded explainer. Usually when I ask what happened with xyz, I want a concrete answer of what specifically happened. I don’t care about how the sky looked, the air temp, how you were feeling when it happened. Just the facts please. This also happens when they’re asking you to do something. I usually say, “let me know which items you need and i’ll get them.” They respond by reading the paper verbatim and telling me a little story about it. Look dude, I’m an adult and I can read. Let’s save some time here.
The indecisive pausers. I hate when people are indecisive in general. It’s even more annoying when they’re indecisive and the add that long pause where they expect you to fill in what they should do. Sometimes I counter their pause with an even longer pause. This leads to absolutely nothing getting done.
The people who ignore what you say then get mad when they don’t get what they want. Example. Co-worker asks you what a reasonable deadline is for a job. You tell him. He disregards what you says and shrinks your deadline. You tell him, ummm that’s not going work. He tells you make it work. Guess what, it doesn’t work and turns into a big old argument.
That person with crazy-eye. I have been fortunate enough to only experience crazy-eye at one place. I suggest everyone experience crazy-eye to better prepare you future jobs. How to spot crazy eye? Usually crazy-eye is completely irrational. You cannot win no matter what you do. If you send something to be approved you’ll be yelled at for not taking initiative. If you approve it yourself you’ll be yelled at for not having it approved. Sometimes with crazy-eye confrontations you feel the same way you did after a parent or relative yelled at you. Lastly, crazy-eye is usually passive aggressive and will draw up past issues from months prior as evidence of your bad behavior. You can’t win with crazy eye but what doesn’t kill you definitely makes you stronger!
Brian Shift. Ok this is specific to one place but I feel like the type of behavior can be applicable to different situations. At one of my jobs I had a coworker named Brian who didn’t want to come to work during regular hours. He devised his own shift called Brian Shift where he would come in late, stay late, and work on a few jobs after the work day was over. What ended up happening was he would come in late, leave early, and nothing would get done. This carried on for a few weeks. How he got away with it for so long is beyond me.
Tomorrow I talk about clients…..
