SMH@these petty motherfuckers. Tis the season I suppose, lol

Apparently the complaint was an anonymous letter to a DM that said the following:

-I don’t socialize with my coworkers. This is false, because I do. I just don’t do lunch, breaks or happy hours.

-I am often “short” when greeting this person in passing, and appear disinterested in talking.

-I often have my headphones on when walking through the office. Not the lobby, not where are customers are, which is an obvious and absolute no go to anyone with sense, but the back office, where it’s perfectly accepted, allowed, and common.

-I don’t appear willing to assist coworkers.

I was told to try to be more “sociable” and “accessible”.

Now…. I have a few suspects in mind, but even if it’s neither of them, this is hilarious. First, I answer questions all damn day. The problem I think people have is that I don’t solve their problem for them. If they ask a question I know for sure off top, I’ll answer.

Otherwise I ask the same two questions every time:

-Did you check the handbook?

-Are you current with the updated material?

Because I’m not going to do your research for you for your case, so if you didn’t do that, there’s no conversation for us to have.

Further, we have a resource department that literally exists in part to answer questions.

In terms of shortness, yeah, I am, because if I’m not every person I pass by wants updates on my wife, my kids, myself, or to discuss my weekend, the fight, the game, or what have you. People can’t just say “hey!” and KIM. They want to stop in the hallway and chat. They mean well, but it’s just impractical to allow every passing acknowledgment to turn into a chat, even a quick one.

So I told my boss I’d be happy to engage everyone about my life if I could put those discussions on my productivity. Otherwise, that’s not changing. I’ll continue to ask questions as asked with basic answers and KIM.

Anyhow I strongly suspect one person in particular. I can’t walk by her desk without her asking some very basic, 101 level question about a case OR some shit that requires a long, hard look and never seems to have done any research before asking. Inevitably she’ll say something about her “adult” ADD being the reason she doesn’t understand this stuff and how they won’t accommodate her disability.

Hate to be insensitive here but IMO anyone who needs as much hand holding as that one has no business doing this job. I always refer her to resource or her supervisors because she’s a minefield to walk past.

We’re setup in sort of a maze and it’s impossible not to bump into multiple people over the course of the day and I have no choice but to pass this woman’s desk to get to mine, so yeah. I try to cut down my time with her as much as possible.

Apparently I’m not in any kind of trouble but “be more friendly” is a “suggestion” going forward.

Kind of an annoying way to ring in the new year at the office if you ask me. I can’t wait for the next staff meeting where someone whines because nobody decorated her desk for her birthday.

http://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/assets/5017824/daffy_duck_giphy.gif

aka - many of us are here during work hours b/c we don't/can't socialize w/coworkers.

i'm not one of those ppl, btw. i socialize around the office. but you are among kindred spirits here.

i dunno how you do at work but based on how you post here (you tend to be confrontational - yeah, i do it too but we're talking about you) i can see what your coworkers are talking about.

but if they're not going after your money then fuck it.

>

the co-workers seem petty as shit but, we all know...it's not enough to do your work
and go home. they want conversations, entertainment, happy hours, sharing of
private information so they can judge, gossip, compare, and contrast.

where you have petty ass people that'll send bullshit like that to HR

and

where you'll have an HR department that'll entertain that typa bullshit

in either case, i had to gracefully bow out. y'all can have it, i don't fit in here...



***
I ain't lyin. This shit i'm making up is true...

I'm a team player about work shit. But fuck a break room or a potluck or a karaoke or a happy hour. I'm here to do work and be out.

When we’re trained, a good mentor teaches you to rely on the handbook, staying current on policy updates as well as any office mandates.

It’s a standing, unofficial rule: don’t bring a question that you didn’t first attempt to research yourself. Every action we take is rooted in handbook material and policy updates, which means anything you ask means the person helping you will ultimately have to do that research. So if you did your digging first and either couldn't find it or need clarification, I'm perfectly happy to help.

Most people are good with that.

One person in particular needs help all day, every day, for everything, all the time, and it’s never a quick one-off. She gets the “I’m not sure, I’d review the material and then consult resource for that” and she's never happy about it.

I’m also relatively social, but people don’t know how to just say “hey, what’s up, hello, hi” in passing. They want to chat. About everything. Anything. We’re told to keep visiting to a minimum and that’s what I do, and not with the “grunting” and “growling” that my stalker oddly and unreasonably assumes .

Im very transparent with not needing to socialize, but I understand how we spend so much of our lives at work that people think it's necessary

I dont like my job enough, and Im one of the oldest people here so Im definitely not trying to deal with celebrity gossip and the like in our work chatroom

> I just don’t do lunch, breaks or happy hours.

tell the coworkers how much you really don't like to do them. Buy everybody a round before dropping on them that can't stand the fact that somebody dropped on a dime on you for being antisocial at work.

And then laugh like it's a joke on some passive aggressive shit. Then, see how they respond. I've done it. And found out who it was that snitched. They'll all start buying drinks.

Be the Shark! be the Godfather! Just don't get Barzini'd!

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/godfather/images/1/1c/Vlcsnap-2010-02-24-17h26m09s80.png/revision/latest?cb=20110303203354

-My commute is an hour to an hour and a half each way, depending on traffic.

-We have 9.5 hour work days as it is and I typicaly work 1.5 hours of OT.

So if I leave my house at 6 it’s usually an hour drive to work. I start at 7, get off at 4:30 and typically do the 1.5 hours of OT. I get off at 6, which means my drive is 1 to 1.5 hours on any given night and I get home between 7 and 7:30. I have every other Friday off, but those off days I work 8 hours of OT. Then 6 hours on Saturdays

Seeing as how I have a wife, a five year old, an 18 month old and I would like to be a halfway decent husband and father who gives them priority with his free time, not to mention sleep, my own social life away from work and the need for some actual downtime here and there… I’m not sure how reasonable it is for anyone to expect me to hang out for so much as an hour afterward.

It’s just not practical for me to do it unless it’s an event, like someone leaving.

You don't have to do it EVERY week. But just 2x a year would be sufficient.

Or do you have no interesting in "getting ahead" there even if it were required?

I ask out of curiosity because I haven't had a job in a while where getting along with co-workers or maybe shot callers wasn't a pre-requisite for moving ahead (truthly it's a big part of just keeping a job in my work).

Or you could be like the TV Doctor House who is just so good at what you do that you can be anti-social and no one can really F with you.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

'getting ahead' is largely about seniority and maybe about numbers from annual evals. oh and maybe it's about certifications/degrees.

supervisors who play favorites when it comes to promoting ppl face repercussions - eventually. so it's rare for an office to play fast and loose like that. which is why now it's mostly about factors beyond the supervisor's control. it's about number crunching.

>'getting ahead' is largely about seniority and maybe about
>numbers from annual evals. oh and maybe it's about
>certifications/degrees.

That just determines the pool of people eligible for a given position, but I've actually seen the rules bent or even ignored to get certain people a position. They once hired a probationary worker for a temp sup position in the face of rules specifically prohibiting a probationary employee from any such position. He also, by his own proud admission, lacked any college units, another minimum requirement. He didn't know his head from his ass and his work wound up delegated to two workers he supervised. He used to ask me questions when he was reading cases and I was like, how do you not know this stuff?

We're pretty sure that guy is a warlock because he's an actual sup now. He's an extreme example, but that stuff goes on all the time here.

>supervisors who play favorites when it comes to promoting ppl
>face repercussions - eventually. so it's rare for an office
>to play fast and loose like that. which is why now it's
>mostly about factors beyond the supervisor's control. it's
>about number crunching.

Here the critical factor of getting into that management class is networking and the ability to interview well.

>Or do you have no interesting in "getting ahead" there even
>if it were required?

Networking is vital to getting ahead here, but it's definitely not with anyone who would have written an anonymous note. Had it been a supervisor the conversation would have gone differently, but this was a typed note left in anonymity with just enough specifics that I have a good guess about the culprit.

Thing is, it’s still a minefield because perception is considered gospel here and it boils down to whether or not you bosses believe what’s been said and this place is teaming with people who complain about every minor infraction.

If I had a dollar for every time I had to sit through staff meeting “others” consisting of a complaint about someone wearing something too tight/short or tattoos showing or cliques- yes, people here complain about “cliques” like it’s fucking high school- I’d have a nice lunch money budget for a few weeks.

In my old office I had a few situations where I had irrefutable evidence that proved the allegations were untrue, but was told “perception is everything, I’m just telling you how you’re being perceived, don’t shoot the messenger”when I went to prove my case.

Once I was told that I wasn’t answering my emails “timely” when the emails in question were less than 5 minutes old at the time of the complaint and were received while I was on break and had a journal timestamped to show the time I left my desk. Another time I was supposedly not paying attention during a training and waited until the end to answer questions on the packet despite having a physical hard copy of my packet that I had completed halfway through the training. I had the copy because I gave it to a coworker who left at the beginning because the trainer gave us a bad attitude when she didn’t have enough packets for us because she didn’t know we were scheduled.

Both times my supe didn’t even want to look at the evidence. I had another situation where I was given a memo about me raising my voice at a coworker that omitted pertinent details regarding the actions of my coworker and began at the point where I raised my voice as though I showed up on some Hulk Smash. I remain good friends with that worker to this day, actually, and we were arguing over the drive to switch unions during a rather heated and stressfull summer for all of us.

To hear my boss tell it though? I was a monster. I had to fight to get the memo corrected and the best she was willing to do was halfassed and still left a lot of information out. I had to take my issues with her all the way up to the director since her boss didn’t want to see or hear evidence to contradict his “perception” and I brought a manilla envelope full of statements from coworkers that echoed my contention of a hostile workplace to the dirctor. Things were fixed the next day and she got on her P’s and Q’s real quick before requesting a transfer.

Her boss wound up swimming in shit a year later because he refused to police the actions of his supervisors, but again…This had to go all the way to the top and I had to get a shit ton of statements, but the fact that I was able to get so many on such short notice was a testament to the quality of my rep among my coworkers.

It’s a tricky balancing act and it just boils down to who you know on the top half. I know enough to get through if I ever get enough college units to move up, but if that happens I’m moving out of this place and into something else anyways.

sorry not sorry

prolly the only reasons i still log in.

like SW said, if they aint comin 4 your munnies, fk em.

Completely unfair, in my case. But, I don't work there anymore, so fuck them niggas.

Message boards are antiquated but your gimmick doesn't have to be.

Is one or all of your suspected anonymous complainers white? Just curious?

You read that right.

According to her she's a retired social worker who took this job out of boredom. She says her husband makes a grip too.

Meanwhile she's been here for three years and needs extensive assistance on every case she touches, like ridiculously so.

Lets say she's finishing a case for another worker and I walk by.

She'll say "can you help me? So and so requested auto registration but that's only required if we don't have the name and model and we already had that. Why would so and so request that?"

I explain that they may have reported a new car. She says she called and verified that there is no new car and wants to know why another worker requested the registration.

I explained that she's already clarified the issue so she can proceed further. She wants to know if she can process the case now. I explain that I'd have to review the case in it's entirety to know if it was ready to process, but that she should rely on the redetermination process.

She says she's following up on another worker who already completed a full journal. I explained that the case was incomplete at the time...then she interupts to tell me that it wasn't really incomplete because the worker requested verification that wasn't required and wants to know if she has to do another journal.

I tell her we're staffed to do a full journal whether or not we're completing a previously incomplete journal. She says that doesn't make sense. At that point i refer her to her supervisor....at which point she complains about how they don't accomodate her adult add disability.

Does that sound exhausting?

Now let's say this really happened and is indicative of the vast majority of my interactions with her, which take place several times a week by virtue of having to walk by her desk due to the layout of our floor... Because it is.

Sometimes I go through the motions with her but the last few months I just refer her straight to resource or her supervisor. She's gotten upset with me a few times when I default to the supervisor response.

St Legs up there may have infinite time and patience to hold her hand through that multiple times a week but I damn sure don't.

that OP makes you sound like a real asshole but I think you take pride in that shit.

>that OP makes you sound like a real asshole but I think you
>take pride in that shit.

I take it you're the incessant visitor, the chatty guy who won't shut the fuck up all day, the guy who always needs help with the simplest shit and thinks everyone else should drop everything ten times a day to do your research for you.

That's about the only way your conclusion makes any sense at all.

Using short, pointless comments that don't actually say anything and then pretend you didn't create half of them?

It's a new year. Try and freshen up the act.

Smile nigga... lol.

Grunting at coworkers and shit and acting like everyone is bothering you when it's prolly part of your job to interact with coworkers.

It's always someone you don't expect.

Prolly the nigga down the hall who had one exchange and asked around and got the "who him? He's always mad...

Nah... It's prolly the IT department who has to replace his keyboard every 2 weeks. You know he wears those keyboards out.

Hmmmm

ten times a day, the whole place is headed to hell in a handbasket as we speak.

Because one letter from an anonymous coward who wanted to say what they had to say with zero accountability obviously equates to "bringing the office down".

It was an anonymous letter with a lot of generalizations.

Which means it’s not remotely actionable since anyone could say anything.

It also means that whoever wrote it clearly didn’t want a rebuttal. It’s like sending a mad message on facebook and blocking the other person so they can’t respond. It’s a cheap shot with no context.

I’m really not going to be mindful of anything that’s said by someone who makes those kinds of general statements while also shirking all accountability for their words.

This is hilarious and it reminds me of myself at my old job.

My boss sent staff an invite to a holiday wine bar gathering and noted that the outing was "not mandatory" and that we should not feel pressured to come.

A few months later during my mid-year review...

I'm told sternly that such events are actually "obligatory" for most folks.

Although I received a small 2 or 3% quasi-raise, I subsequently received a less-than-stellar score for "teamwork" for not attending most after-work social gatherings.

I hate workplace politics.

let's get this work...done.
anything outside of that?? i'm not interested or inclined...

"Get ready....for your blessing....."

...you are too ethnic and confident in your being.