Job Swill

Hi. I have a co-worker that makes my job a living hell. I hate him. I honestly do. I work for a firm that usually hires one person fresh out of college each year. This year my boss hired a new guy. We will call him "Timmy". Timmy has got to be the dumbest guy I have ever come into contact with. First things first. Timmy has a stuttering/mumbling problem. I cannot understand what he is saying. Ever. And its not just me. We have started calling him "re-run" behind his back, because when we says something, the person he is talking to will say "what?" or "huh?", and then Timmy will have to repeat what he just said.

Also, our job is 75% computer related. Guess what? Timmy cannot type. At all. You put him in front of a computer, and it will take him up to 2 minutes to type a single sentence. To further piss me off. Timmy has joked about this by saying "guess I should have taken a typing class instead of a bowling class in college". This makes my blood boil. I didn't even know you could graduate from college not knowing how to type! Furthermore, Timmy is one of those people, who when I am working on a project will come over, lean on your desk, and STATE THE OBVIOUS about any task at hand. THIS KILLS ME! For instance, if I am typing on my computer, he will come over and say "Hey bud, what you doing there? Typing?". I mean...give me a break. I really hate him. And I'm thinking about changing jobs, just because I hate him so much.

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

(Posted by Will)

I 'clockwatch' from 9AM-6PM while surfing the Net surrounded by my unsuspecting 'Cube Family'. Email is my weapon of choice to hound vendors into a sales submission. I love my job.

(Posted by Alex)

Last year I had my knee replaced because of a bone tumor that had previously destroyed my femur and knee. I was 37 at that time, many healthy years ahead after this set back, but not to my "company". 2 weeks after my surgery when I was at home recovering, I get a "Friday" morning call saying they didn't need me any longer and that they were phasing out my position. So, on top of recovering, PT on my leg, and no job I had to fret on how I was going to find a new job when I couldn't even drive myself anywhere. Thank God for unemployment and my family. 3 months later I landed a wonderful job with wonderful folks and hope my other company burns in tax hell somewhere.

(Posted by T.L.)

I am ashamed to admit that while I have my Master's degree, I spend 8 hours a day sharing a 1/2 cubicle with the world's most aggregating co-worker. That's right - 1/2 cubicle, not even a whole one.

My working days start off at 7:50 am a 20 minute serenade of her slurping her coffee, followed by the downing of her first bag of hoops (a sort of stinky corn-nut / ring ding chip). This is mixed in with the latest news of her children's potty training stories - apparently these kids are not toilet trained at 2 and 4 years old.

Luckily for me, her husband - who is 10 years younger than her and barely over the age of 24, just was released 2 weeks early from rehab, where he was curing himself of a cocaine addiction. Amazingly, he beat this habit in 2 weeks and was released early - he found God, so now they are religious. As he is not "able" to work, I get to hear about how she chose to buy live mice (that's right, you read correctly) for their pet boa constrictor, dog food for the bison frische dog and crickets for their dragon lizard, in lieu of fresh fruit for the kids. She truly believes that fruit roll ups are a good substitute.

So when I am not hearing about hubby's rehab or the irritating habits of her offspring, I can listen to her crack every joint in her body. She speaks in this hushed whisper and love to lean in close to you. My skin crawls when this happens but I cannot escape - she blocks the opening of our cubicle and I am literally trapped listening. Two weeks ago I actually yelled at her to stop telling me a story about how her one kid made four accidents that morning so she had to change - even the yelling did not deter her. She would do well as a telemarketer.

I have a co-worker named "Lola" who is nice to my face but as soon as I leave she is nothing but mean. She talks about me behind my back and used to crank call me in the middle of the night when she found out I was dating another co worker she had a thing for. But when I confronted her she always says she does not have any problems with me.

I also have another co wokrer named "Christine" who makes up stories about me to my boss. Fortunately my boss does not believe them. She also "cries" when confronted about anything & can stop crying on command. She wanted me to work in this office with her & agreed to everything I suggested, then tries to get me fired every other day.

(Posted by T.S.)

I do not simply hate my co-worker Tom, I loathe him. We work in a bank together and he seems to think it's funny to make my life a living hell. Although we are the same age, he will actually revert back to grade school and say things to our manager like "Who do you like better, me or Becky?" He also loves to talk about how much of a bonus payout he gets from referring friends to the bank to open checking accounts. He makes it seem like the bank would be nothing without him bringing in business, but what's truly funny is, his friends close their accounts within two weeks.

On top of this, Tom burps in our faces, makes fun of the way people look (apparently I look too skinny and probably throw up all my meals or don't eat at all, according to him) and calls myself and the other women "stupid fucking morons" behind our backs. Once when I was helping a customer, Tom stepped in, called a banker and take them from me in order to get referral points-even though it wasn't his customer and he had one of his own.

He also loves to call me a racist and tells everyone I hate Mexicans (he is Mexican) even though I am friends with the other Mexican people who work there. He claims I am a Nazi who wants to kill his people, despite the fact that I am made up of mixed race myself and get along fine with my other co-workers. He has even once talked to me about how ignorant I am for not speaking Polish and how I need lessons in speaking my "native language", then was unable to pronounce my last name...which is actually a common polish surname where I live. He also likes getting in my way, poking me, and crying out that I've infected him with my germs, and sitting at my favorite spot...simply because he knows I love to sit there and for no reason other than that. That's ok though, because as soon as I put my two weeks notice in, I'm speed dialing HR and I'll give him a firing to remember!

I had a boss that had a pretty healthy cocaine habit. When he wasn't on it (rarely), he would fall asleep at his desk with his hands on his keyboard. I had enough one day and walked out. He ran after me yelling for me to come back that he needed me, and chased my car until I left the parking lot.

(Posted by R.)

Back during the last gasp of the dot com era, the company I worked for hired a very pricey "Program Manager", even though the company was bleeding money, she appeared to know nothing about the Web or how software worked or how humans worked. She was in the office for about 2 months before rumors started circulating about layoffs. The official management position was that we were as lean as we could be without compromising customer support.

One Friday morning, I come into work and see that I've been invited to a meeting at 11:00AM. I go into the meeting along with the rest of the office and this Program Manager comes into the room. She's all smiles and energy and I'm thinking "hey, maybe we get to find out what this woman actually does."

She says "Hi, my name is E.C., and if you have not met me yet (which none of us had), I'm the Program Manager for the US office. The reason why I've called this meeting is to tell you that if you are here in this room, you still have a job."

I worked in a cubicle farm with low cubicles: only about 4 feet tall. All noise from anywhere in the large room carried far and wide. I sat next to a man with, shall we say, volume control issues. He spoke loudly in general, but when he was on the phone he seemed incapable of talking below a shout.

This was annoying enough. But he spoke to his wife 2 times a day, and always in the most patronizing way. He would lecture her about everything: the clothes she wore, her friends, the way she went to the supermarket, the errands she needed to run. He wasn't much of a looker, but the photo on his desk showed her to be drop dead gorgeous. I wanted to grab the receiver and tell her that she could do so, so much better.

The worst is yet to come. They would have very long very involved conversations about meat. About what meat they had for dinner last night, and what meat they were going to have for dinner tonight. Beef, ham, pork... always meat. Odd, but it wasn't until one day when I had to hear a conversation that went something like: "I really enjoyed bacon last night. I really, really enjoyed it. I mean, REALLY liked bacon. We should have bacon more often." And then he sort of growled, and it hit me: they weren't talking about meat, they were talking about sex acts! Their conversations about meat were thinly veiled discussions of their sex life! From then on, I just wanted to die every time their conversation turned to "dinner."

(Posted by Anonymous)

This is what I deal with everyday and somehow, either by the pure grace of God or by his sick sense of humor (depending on how you see it), I haven't lost my mind. My story is not about a lowly co-worker, but the president of the small company I work for. Let's call him... Douche bag Don. DD inherited the company from his father (who closely resembles/sounds/acts like a child molester) although he has no experience in the field whatsoever. DD still lives in the 80s and even has Glamour Shots of his wife (who he met when he was still an employee under his father and she was the receptionist. They were both married. Infidelity ensued and now they're married).

He constantly blames me for things I haven't done. On one particularly bad occasion, he called me into his office, closed the door, let me know "the walls are thin," and demanded that I stop talking about our temp receptionist. Needless to say, I sat mouth agape because I had never said a word about her. I tried to defend myself but he wouldn't have it. He let me know that I was depressing my co-workers and bringing everyone down. He ended with, "If someone isn't happy, they should leave." Pause. "If someone wants to leave, they should. Do you understand?" Out of principle alone, I haven't left.

DD is confident and cocky for all of the wrong reasons. He has a tendency to walk into offices, unannounced, stand and stare for 10 or 15 seconds at a time, and walk out without saying a word. He clicks his tongue on the roof of his mouth when he's "thinking." He has gone through employees' trash cans. He wears flannel shirts tucked into jeans with white high-top sneakers. DD is going to be the death of me.

Back to work!