Things about your co-workers that annoy you

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Rhumbline said:
As for the trucks, I worked with a large subcontractor that had the policy that trucks were assigned to a person and after 5 years the truck was given to them. You never saw one of these guys with a beat up truck looking like a Dairy Queen exploded inside it. It was also an excellent retention tool and after five years it was fully depreciated, so of no value to the company.
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LOL. Dairy Queen. I know EXACTLY what you are talking about there. That's an interesting policy. I might have to think about that one, there is some validity to doing that.

Rhumbline said:
Another employer of mine, a geotech firm, had all the guys come back to the shop an hour before shift end to clean their trucks. One of the EIT's inspected them and if it took them 30 minutes to pass, they went home early, if it took them two hours, they went home late.
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meh...that one i'm not sure would fly these days. Most of the time our drillers are barely able to walk to the hotel room at the end of the day. But I know what you mean with those trucks. They get the ones I take out of rotation, so they are less than perfect. When I first started here, not one truck had a decent set of lights. Now, I don't put a vehicle into service without first being properly outfitted for safety. That way, the geotechs then have a fully lighted truck, seeing that half the time they are on the side of the road as well.

Rhumbline said:
Lastly, a company I worked for assigned trucks to their guys and made them responsible for all regular maintenance on them. Tires, brakes, oil changes etc. Our vehicles were the scariest, filthiest POS's on the road. This was the same employer that demanded that I sign an agreement that if I left the company for any reason, even if fired, I would repay them for all training that I received as well as all my time spent in training. I refused, and they backed down.
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My guys are responsible for the maintenance, but it's all paid for by the company. Again, they have to take care of them, or there are consequences. I can check any maintenance via receipts/vendors. Don't you DARE go over 6-7 thousand miles on one of my trucks before oil change. Yeah, I know that's a lot, and I should crack it down closer to 5, but that's just lazy on my part.
As far as the training. HA! When I started, if you didn't pay for training, and take vacation to get it, it didn't happen. I don't ask any more. My people get trained on a regular basis on things NEEDED. Now, there is a sliding scale of payback if you ask for an unnecessary/wanted (as opposed to a need) training. If you take some training class, and you leave within months, you are on the hook for 100%, if you leave after 2 years, you owe nothing.
 
beernbourbon said:
My guys keep their trucks and all necessary equipment at home/with them. At times it can be a major PITA, but since I send them all over the state, and have multiple offices that they are based out of, it works better. Point being, they are completely responsible for all care and maintenance of the equipment. I do random checks, and give them a ration of **** about this or that, so they know, I'll buck them down to a damn POS Topcon sitting in the equipment room, and oh, by the way, YOU WILL be just as productive. I WILL write your a$$ up (or fire you if you are a repeat offender) for equipment neglect. Yeah, I am kind of an a$$hole boss, but I did NOT spend half a million on new equipment for you to f-it up. It better last the duration of the lease, at least.
What is with the mentality of these guys that think it's ok to use a prism pole like a machete, or to put away a $40k robot without wiping it down when it's wet?
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I was just reminded of another annoyance you'd probably be familiar with/understand:

Our GPS equipment has always been somewhat of a mix - in our office, we've got three Topcon HiperLiteII+ systems, and a Spectra Precision (Don't remember the model, I've only used it twice). Our other Iowa office has a couple Topcons, and a Trimble R8, which they recently traded for an R10. The head of the survey department made the decision about a year ago that from then forward, all new GPS units would be Trimble - which is fine, I rather like the way the systems set up and such. But now, in order to use a Trimble GPS, you HAVE to use Trimble Business Center as your survey and office software... We've used Survey Pro for YEARS, and the head surveyor here REFUSES to change. So instead of upgrading equipment on a timely schedule, we're going to patch the old HiperLites back together until they physically won't work anymore. (My unit, which is probably 8 years old, just got back from getting sent in to replace the main control board inside one of the heads. I think that repair cost $3k, on a unit that's only worth about $4k anymore.)

We're going to get forced into making the switch eventually. I don't see the point in fighting it now, and delaying the inevitable. It's only a matter of time before we start running into problems sharing jobs between offices because we're hanging on to old software.
 
dkwolf said:
I was just reminded of another annoyance you'd probably be familiar with/understand:

Our GPS equipment has always been somewhat of a mix - in our office, we've got three Topcon HiperLiteII+ systems, and a Spectra Precision (Don't remember the model, I've only used it twice). Our other Iowa office has a couple Topcons, and a Trimble R8, which they recently traded for an R10. The head of the survey department made the decision about a year ago that from then forward, all new GPS units would be Trimble - which is fine, I rather like the way the systems set up and such. But now, in order to use a Trimble GPS, you HAVE to use Trimble Business Center as your survey and office software... We've used Survey Pro for YEARS, and the head surveyor here REFUSES to change. So instead of upgrading equipment on a timely schedule, we're going to patch the old HiperLites back together until they physically won't work anymore. (My unit, which is probably 8 years old, just got back from getting sent in to replace the main control board inside one of the heads. I think that repair cost $3k, on a unit that's only worth about $4k anymore.)

We're going to get forced into making the switch eventually. I don't see the point in fighting it now, and delaying the inevitable. It's only a matter of time before we start running into problems sharing jobs between offices because we're hanging on to old software.
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right there is the difference in yesterday's surveyors and today's. I may be now one of the 'old guys' (i just turned 50), but I insist on being on the cutting edge. You absolutely cannot be competitive in today's market without staying at least semi-current in the equipment/software arena. See those idiots at the conferences all the time "I got no problem doin' my boundary surveys with a transit and tape, that fancy 'lectronics is all well and good til y'all lose yer batt'ries"
Yeah, well, I am also not a freakin basement surveyor prostituting myself for $250 for a damn lot survey that carries a giant liability with it. What's that, you don't carry liability insurance? Well, good luck finding a homeless shelter that will let you work out of when you f**k up that survey and lose every damn thing you have ever worked for in your entire life. Yeah, I charge a minimum of $1500-$2000 for a small survey, but I also, by virtue of my license and liability insurance guarantee that it's as right as I can possibly make it. And if someone challenges it, I will willingly share my information and discuss the issue with another surveyor and allow him to review my work to make sure everyone comes to some sort of agreement. GRRAHHHHH...... sorry *rant over*

No, I don't like that Trimble went all proprietary on us, but, they are the big yellow bullies on the block, so we have to play their game. Also arguably the best, so....there ya have it. ODOT doesn't spend millions to switch wholesale from Leica to Trimble for no reason.

But, what you talk about switching back and forth is exactly why i went full tilt Trimble; GPS, Robots, software. Any one of my team can step up and do what needs done any time needed, with very little learning curve. Only about the project.
 
We regularly ship 35 gallon drums of hazardous material. For these drums to be legal to ship they need to have the proper number and type of bolts. When packaging today, I noticed that some of the bolts were missing that needed to be there so I reported it to my supervisor. He chewed me out for not inspecting the packages more carefully when they came in. He claims that he has asked for inspections to occur several times. This is not standard operating procedure, nor has it ever been and I have never received these instructions. Considering I'm the number two guy, these instructions should go through me, or I should at least be aware of them. Why am I not? Because he never gave them and he's making it all up as usual.

You have got to love a supervisor that goes to bat for the other team when they are the ones that screwed up in the first place. Nothing kills team morale faster than knowing your supervisor never has your back
 
Just got an email sent to the ENTIRE company that was titled "Save your work" and the body said "Just a friendly reminder to save your work" with no other information. This person is not a member of the IT department either.
 
The talk about emails brought up another thing.

People who open an email attachment and work on it without savings it locally. I'm not even an IT guy, but I get a thousand questions about why the computer didn't save his changes.
 
Grannyknot said:
Bossman's computer picked up a virus this morning.
At lunch, another guys computer started acting weird.

My boss starts running through the office like Paul Revere yelling "everyone shut down your computers because the virus is spreading!!!!!"

Genius.
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Update:
The IT guy was here today to help keep the sky from falling.
Surprisingly (sarcasm), he found some malware on my bosses computer, but everyone else was safe, and we lost a half day of productivity for no reason.
My boss immediately went on the defensive about how he never goes on any non-work related websites (sure thing boss).

The IT guy says:
"The internet is a dark & scary place with terrorists everywhere".
Now I know why we hired this guy.
 
Grannyknot said:
Update:

The IT guy was here today to help keep the sky from falling.

Surprisingly (sarcasm), he found some malware on my bosses computer, but everyone else was safe, and we lost a half day of productivity for no reason.

My boss immediately went on the defensive about how he never goes on any non-work related websites (sure thing boss).



The IT guy says:

"The internet is a dark & scary place with terrorists everywhere".

Now I know why we hired this guy.
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IT guys can make or break an organization. The respect given to them, and in turn positive/negative interaction between them and the rest of an organization is a good indicator of how healthy an organization as a whole's morale is. The workplaces that test the unit guys like "disposable hourly nerds" are generally miserable for everyone else too.
 
One of my coworkers just interrupted my lunch and asked me to come downstairs to "help her deal with an emergency". I get there, and she tells me there's a bird flying around in the main hall. She asked me to make the bird leave.

Dafuq do you want me to do about it? It's perched on a light fixture 50 feet up in the air. I sure as hell ain't flying up there to shoo it away. Unless you got a pellet gun handy, open a door until it leaves.
 
hunter_la5 said:
One of my coworkers just interrupted my lunch and asked me to come downstairs to "help her deal with an emergency". I get there, and she tells me there's a bird flying around in the main hall. She asked me to make the bird leave.

Dafuq do you want me to do about it? It's perched on a light fixture 50 feet up in the air. I sure as hell ain't flying up there to shoo it away. Unless you got a pellet gun handy, open a door until it leaves.
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Ebirdgency.
 
hunter_la5 said:
One of my coworkers just interrupted my lunch and asked me to come downstairs to "help her deal with an emergency". I get there, and she tells me there's a bird flying around in the main hall. She asked me to make the bird leave.

Dafuq do you want me to do about it? It's perched on a light fixture 50 feet up in the air. I sure as hell ain't flying up there to shoo it away. Unless you got a pellet gun handy, open a door until it leaves.
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Why you...are you the new guy?
 
At least once a week a co-worker decides to microwave fish in the break room. So gross.

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BrewerBrad82 said:
At least once a week a co-worker decides to microwave fish in the break room. So gross.

3faa97ae028cad90b45d0b59f9ea8693.jpg
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Could they at least ****ing try with these damn e-cards?

Tell me how that picture relates to the subject matter, at all.

Flies mean "stinky?" Oh, sure... gotcha. Probably a moth anyway. Stupid.

hunter_la5 said:
Negative.
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Oh, alright then. No harm, no foul. Except post deleted.
 
hunter_la5 said:
One of my coworkers just interrupted my lunch and asked me to come downstairs to "help her deal with an emergency". I get there, and she tells me there's a bird flying around in the main hall. She asked me to make the bird leave.

Dafuq do you want me to do about it? It's perched on a light fixture 50 feet up in the air. I sure as hell ain't flying up there to shoo it away. Unless you got a pellet gun handy, open a door until it leaves.
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If she was hot I would have put on my Superman cape and flown up there.
 
when you are using the microwave to heat up your lunch, and you set it for 3 mins, walk away to get silverware and napkins to come back to find your lunch on top of the microwave, cold, and a co workers lunch inside the microwave, they are lucky i didn't throw it against the wall...

there are about 10 microwaves in cafe also... he walked by and gave me a dirty look, i laughed while walking to another microwave-
 
CliffMongoloid said:
when you are using the microwave to heat up your lunch, and you set it for 3 mins, walk away to get silverware and napkins to come back to find your lunch on top of the microwave, cold, and a co workers lunch inside the microwave, they are lucky i didn't throw it against the wall...

there are about 10 microwaves in cafe also... he walked by and gave me a dirty look, i laughed while walking to another microwave-
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I would have beat his a$$... well, maybe not as it is nice to be employed.
 
...when you are using the microwave to heat up your lunch, and you set it for 3 mins, walk away to get silverware and napkins to come back to find your lunch on top of the microwave, cold, and a co workers lunch inside wthe microwave, they are lucky i didn't throw it against the wall...
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Next time you get the chance, pecker-whip his coffee mug...
 
CliffMongoloid said:
when you are using the microwave to heat up your lunch, and you set it for 3 mins, walk away to get silverware and napkins to come back to find your lunch on top of the microwave, cold, and a co workers lunch inside the microwave, they are lucky i didn't throw it against the wall...

there are about 10 microwaves in cafe also... he walked by and gave me a dirty look, i laughed while walking to another microwave-
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A little bit of Everclear into his food!
 
CliffMongoloid said:
when you are using the microwave to heat up your lunch, and you set it for 3 mins, walk away to get silverware and napkins to come back to find your lunch on top of the microwave, cold, and a co workers lunch inside the microwave, they are lucky i didn't throw it against the wall...
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I'm on the other side of a variant or your situation. We have two microwaves and some people start their dish and then decide to walk away, use the bathroom, take a call, who knows what else while others wait in line to use the remaining one. Fortunately it's only occasional as the main abuser often works from home.
 
bwarbiany said:
@DrunkleJon

FYI I just wanted to say thanks again on this one...
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Always happy to share my knowledge. And as a bonus are you aware of the "Oh Flocc" button combination? the windows key and the letter D will minimize the entire screen to desktop background (press it again to restore everything again) whenever someone walks up behind you and you dont want them to be reading over your shoulder.
 
Thinking your mom/wife works here to clean up the break room after you. If you're a mgmt type and buy bagels for "employee spirit" or bring in a b'day cake for a mgmt types, appoint someone to clean up (or in Navy parlance, field day) the area when all is said and done. Put a napkin over your food when you nuke it, put foil down when you use the toaster oven (and not the other way around). When you go to put your 3 gallon lunch bag in the fridge, don't just cram everyone else's stuff to the back. I recently found my leftover spare ribs container from DECEMBER against the back wall of the fridge. Write your name and the date on the package when you stick your schist in the fridge . Don't make me open a "science project" to find out if it's bad or not. Glass containers or not, it's trash bound. When I first started the job we had six crews. Each week it was a different crews' responsibility to clean the break room. Over the years, we had people whine... complain to mgmt that since they didn't use the break room, they shouldn't have to help clean it up. The same people who won't contribute to the SAT TV fund, because they don't watch TV at work, who are always in the break room watching TV. Seriously though, besides that my coworkers aren't that bad. Once we got rid of the "cheese eaters" (rats) that is.
Okay, deep breath, slow exhale. Rant over. Thanks for playing...
 
Anytime I have to pull my wallet out. For anything. Find a spare $1 in my pocket and attempt to move it to wallet or have to get my password hint sheet out of it, I get the somehow unavoidable "How much you giving me?" or "Oh, mr. moneybags, buying us lunch?" comments.
 
DrunkleJon said:
Anytime I have to pull my wallet out. For anything. Find a spare $1 in my pocket and attempt to move it to wallet or have to get my password hint sheet out of it, I get the somehow unavoidable "How much you giving me?" or "Oh, mr. moneybags, buying us lunch?" comments.
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I have a coworker who is a professed "foodie".
So every day when I eat lunch at my desk while working he leans in and asks "what you got"?

I cant imagine the thrill of finding out that I have a tuna wrap or chunky soup!
Then he goes back to his desk for his bologna sandwich and coleslaw!
it has become so annoying that last time he said "soup"? I responded with "Ham sandwich"!
 
hunter_la5 said:
How about that asshoke that requests a "read receipt" in every email, no matter how trivial or unimportant?

I hit "no" every time, even if I do actually decide to read it.
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My favorite is when some idiot sends out an All company email and requests a read receipt. I hit yes and just laugh and laugh about how many stupid confirmations that moron just got.
 
Venari said:
my boss will actually get upset with us if we don't use Reply-All.
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I can understand it in some cases, but this isn't one of them.

A woman sent out an email requesting status reports after the storms we had yesterday. She meant to send it to a particular position in each office, but instead she sent it to the whole mailing list. Instead of applying a little common sense and realizing "ok, this obviously isn't meant for me" and ignoring it, people have to start replying (to everyone, of course) asking what is going on.

The message originator responds explaining her mistake and asking the non-relevant people not to respond. Someone else then chimes in complaining about the apology. SMH...
 
hunter_la5 said:
How about that asshoke that requests a "read receipt" in every email, no matter how trivial or unimportant?

I hit "no" every time, even if I do actually decide to read it.
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We have an employee who requests a read receipt for every email he sends.
He then goes the extra mile by saving a print out of each and every read receipt in a job file. The amount of time & paper he has wasted over the years is astronomical.
 
When I worked for Bear Stearns (yikes) about 13 years ago (yikes) someone somehow sent a rather unimportant email to the entire company. I think at the time there were @15,500 employees. That was bad enough, but then everyone and his brother sent a reply-all "I don't think I am an intended recipient" email back.
 
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