Fun with coworkers

"RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht" (ramblininexile)
02/27/2017 at 14:03 • Filed to: None

Coworker in the role of getting me information keeps creatively interpreting requests for information in the stupidest way possible. By which I mean, “assuming that I have requested something idiotic”, rather than trying to understand what I wrote.

DISCUSSION (11)

WilliamsSW > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
02/27/2017 at 14:11

Ah, aren’t co-workers fun? I have this issue constantly, but it’s generally due to language barriers. Question is whether this person is truly as thick as a brick, or is working overtime in order to avoid working. I have a little patience for the former, and have no issues going scorched earth on the latter...

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > WilliamsSW
02/27/2017 at 14:30

Coworker does have something of a language barrier, but that’s not the key to this as such. He skims what I wrote, doesn’t immediately understand, then doesn’t spend any time at all thinking about what *he* doesn’t understand, but immediately imagines in his rotten brain that I have said something completely insane.

Me: *lays out a series of issues*

Him: *offers related topic, not immediately germane*

Me: *asks clarifying question - should I include X in drawing I’ve been working on*

Him: “Of course you should have a drawing of X”

Me: “Not what I asked. Providing a drawing of X is normal procedure that we never deviate from You know this. Stop assuming that I’m a stroke victim. I was asking if X should be *in this*. What the fuck, man”

Him: Ok.

Me: *question about room size*

Him (following up on other question): “The room size is supposed to be this” *attaches drawing I’ve just been circulating*

Me: “I know that, numbnuts, my question had nothing to do with what’s in that drawing. You’d know that if you read what I sent”

Him: “Well, you weren’t clear, you need to send a bulleted list, as short as possible, and I didn’t see where you mentioned that”

Me: “You mean a short bulleted list describing these things LIKE I OPENED THIS WHOLE CONVERSATION WITH YOU IMBECILE HOW ABOUT THESE EXACT BULLET POINTS I’M QUOTING FROM MYSELF GAAAHHHH”

WilliamsSW > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
02/27/2017 at 14:43

Ugh - fun times. Doesn’t sound like he’s doing it intentionally, but he seriously needs to be coached to READ THROUGH THINGS before going off half-assed.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > WilliamsSW
02/27/2017 at 14:55

I have said, expressly to him, more than once, and in so many words: If you think I have said something unaccountably stupid (like example), STOP. Either I do not have info you’re taking for granted, or, WHAT YOU KEEP DOING, you are assuming I have said something that is so stupid it is literally an insult to me to think I could have said it.

Back up, reread, and please do not insult me. That thing you think I said? I didn’t.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > WilliamsSW
02/27/2017 at 14:58

And the best part? He got backed up on “too many words”, because one of the people on engineering on the project is trying to participate VIA PHONE EMAIL.

Either I am extremely short (and get creatively misinterpreted/ “why didn’t you just say”), or I spend the time to explain, get ignored, and then creatively misinterpreted.

Kinja'd!!!

WilliamsSW > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
02/27/2017 at 15:04

Arrgh... That ’ s effing insane. Phone email can serve a purpose, using it to review detailed info requests is JUST. NOT. USEFUL.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > WilliamsSW
02/27/2017 at 15:09

Said email-by-phone colleague then requested a “story pole view” of what was at question, because of course I had one of those drawn, not. This after saying that an email of six short sentences was “too many words, sorry”.

There are at least three ways to resolve the issue and I have sufficient info to choose and/or draw NONE OF THEM. Go me. I have now wasted over two hours on writing emails on this project and conducting research independently to find dimensions on things, because lolnope we didn’t get that from the customer. And what I *can* get is hazy on the exact point I need clarity. Fuck me running.

WilliamsSW > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
02/27/2017 at 15:18

Good luck - it now seems like my next couple of days will be spent dealing with stuff that a co-worker didn’t finish before bailing for a 2 week vacation. I can do it, but was hoping it would be done already...

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > WilliamsSW
02/27/2017 at 15:23

WHEEEEEE.

On my end, Email Phone Guy has managed to cobble together enough information that I should be able to get what I need before the sun goes out. Maybe.

promoted by the color red > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
02/27/2017 at 15:43

My coworker, by some miracle, is absent today. She is literally incapable of doing every conceivable task. Two weeks is what it took for her to understand what showing up to work on time meant. Coincidentally it’s also how long it took her to pick a health plan.

Read emails? Nope. You can bet she’s going to run to our boss to explain the contents to her. Literally. Every. Single. Email. God forbid she emails you, because then she’ll ask for a response every five minutes.

Follow instructions? Good luck. She won’t appreciate you “yelling at her” nor does she like answering questions. Expect a huge meltdown and to be filed under her “mean people” list.

Call people on the phone? She’s still not mastered the idea that you should give your first and last name when you call up strangers. Or not orate your entire life story on a voicemail.

My job has become unnecessarily trying since I have to act like a father to her and give her these pep talks in the dad voice. I have only used this voice with other people’s children and, fun fact, most of them are more self-sufficient than her.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > promoted by the color red
02/27/2017 at 15:53

My coworker is a German, which means he not only convinces himself he knows more about what’s going on than he does, but he has the “culture of precision” thing going on. Which is a problem, because he never knows which precision to apply to things and often favors the appearance of order over the actual thing.

He’s not incompetent, he just has no idea how to get me anything I need or understand a word I write.