Work Peeves

If I ran my Agency, things would be a little different. I would give supervisors the right to send people home without pay for the day, for so many reasons. I would also fire about 1/4 of the work force who sit around all day on the internet, while claiming they don't have time to finish their projects. I'm going to go ahead and include my short commute time peeves on this one too.

1. It is never okay to trim your nails at your desk.

2. If you can't make a meeting/training in the first 15 minutes, don't go. Get the talking points from someone else who attended, or attend the next scheduled meeting on said topic.

3. If you are at a meeting on your iPhone/Blackberry texting and checking email the whole time, the team leader should be able to call you out by name, then cross your name off the sign in sheet. You weren't really there, if you were playing on your phone the whole time. Now I get some people have to check the occasional message while in a meeting, but you can tell those people from the ones that are just being jackholes. If you don't want to be at a meeting, don't be.

4. Clean up after yourself in shared workspace. If you removed staples, throw them out. If you used the microwave and things splattered, wipe it up. Your dirty dishes should not be left on the counter. It is not okay to bring a month's worth of food at a time, and take up all the room in the fridge.

5. I don't care how much you don't like a co-worker, you never have the right to be downright rude to someone, or belittling.

6. This is an office. Dress like it. We don't have a dress code but that doesn't mean sweats or leggings as pants are appropriate. Folks who dress like this are also the ones who complain they aren't promoting. Get this: the world is not fair, you are judged on your appearance. Dress for the job you want, not that job you have.

7. I won't mind your business if you don't mind mine. I don't care how late you come in, how long a lunch you take, how many personal phone calls you're on, or how early you leave. However, I am observant. If you try and throw me under the bus I will bring up that I find it hard for you to know how I filed something, since you were on a 2 1/2 hour personal phone call about how your daughter keeps skipping school.

8. Just because I eat lunch at my desk, does not mean I do not deserve the one hour lunch break that everyone else gets. At my old job I had a small white board where I wrote, "Lunch" or "Break." Here, I don't have that, but I do have a voice that will turn and say, "I'm actually on my lunch right now but if you shoot me an email I'll get to that when I'm back on the clock."

9. It is fine to decorate and make your cubicle your own. It is not a proper place to proclaim your love for the Lord Jesus, or put pictures up of your premature baby as a sad cry for attention. There was actually a woman who had a huge Jesus poster, and like 50 crosses at her desk. So we started genuflecting when we walked by. It seemed only appropriate.

10. If someone calls it is never okay to say, "That's not my job." You find out a contact and send the person along to who can help them. I have actually overheard people say, "Our division doesn't handle that" and hang up. Seriously?

11. It is not okay to text, eat, put on make up, or anything else while driving. Get up earlier and get what you need done before you get behind the wheel. NO ONE is good at texting and driving. I used to always call "drunk driver" but now half of the time it's "texting driver." Seriously, I kind of get just writing "driving" while at a stop sign or something, but that's it. No conversation is that important.

12. There is very little free parking space downtown. Park accordingly. Pull up close enough to the car in front of you to leave room for optimum parking, but leave enough room in case the asshat behind you parks on your bumper. I actually had that happen once and left a nice little note. "If you ever park that close to my car again, you're going to come back to a vehicle with no windows."

Okay, I'm done for now. I do super annoying things at work too I'm sure. For one, I'm really blunt and don't beat around the bush or sugar coat things. I also don't attend most work potlucks or parties. Especially if I don't know the person the party is for very well. I think that kind of stuff is weird.

Happy picture of the day: my knife magnet which houses two extraordinarily amazing knives, and one USS Enterprise pizza cutter.

Update: I came back from my power walk around the Capitol I do every day, to find this. I have a co-worker that reads my blog.

I do work with some people who aren't jackelopes. :)