Workplace shenanigans

[resonant]

When it gets frustrating to solve the same problems over and over, sometimes there's nothing you can do but make a bingo card.










(Yes, the one who spills her lunch is me.)

This is the polite version, the one that doesn't make fun of anybody who actually works there. The impolite version would have squares for:

The Head Monkey bitches about the White Sheep
The White Sheep bitches about the Head Monkey
The White Sheep bitches about her governing board representative
Little Trouble bitches about her governing board rep
Little Trouble makes a racist remark
Little Trouble disapproves of other people's work ethic
The Head Monkey sits at my desk and talks for more than thirty minutes
The Head Monkey loudly takes a phone call while sitting at my desk
The Head Monkey tells me at great length about: his collectible car, his granddaughter the state-champion athlete, how smart his adult son is, or how his daughter has a master's degree plus XX hours but no common sense.
The Spontaniator* sits at my desk and talks for more than thirty minutes
The Spontaniator leaves my desk and talks to someone else for more than thirty minutes
The Spontaniator gets halfway down the stairs and then comes back up to talk some more
The Spontaniator complains about how much work he has to do
The Spontaniator changes the music for Sunday any later than Thursday morning
The Hilarious Bastard** bitches about the White Sheep
The Hilarious Bastard bitches about his governing board rep
Generalized bitch session about Pastor Vague

* The Spontaniator is our music director. He's the bane of my existence partly because he can't bear to make a decision, as that would close off other possibilities, which seems to cause him actual pain (hence we're still learning our Easter anthem on Good Friday) and also because he does nothing but talk.

** The Hilarious Bastard is our organist. He's very hilarious, and I love to talk to him. He's also the same personality type as me (INTJ, if you follow that sort of thing), but he's ... immature, and doesn't believe that there's any good reason not to share your insights. He knows the better way to do everything, and He Will Tell You.

Comments

[sara]

I'm trying to think what would be on mine -- probably "Volunteer complains about not knowing what's happening, despite not having come to last three meetings," and "SemiCanadian has cat problems," and "City rep calls disavowing responsibility," and "Dead tree falls in parking lot."

(All the cedar trees have a fungus, this summer, which means we periodically have large branches thudding to the ground outside. If you're thinking this makes things a lot more exciting than I would like, you are correct.)

[resonant]

"Volunteer complains about not knowing what's happening, despite not having come to last three meetings," and "SemiCanadian has cat problems," and "City rep calls disavowing responsibility," and "Dead tree falls in parking lot."

I'm loving seeing everyone else's work problems! At least I don't have to deal with nature that doesn't come from a florist.

[sara]

Oh, I have an entirely different set of florist-related recurring work problems. *G*

[resonant]

... actually so do I, now that I think of it.

[princessofgeeks]

i should do one too, lol.... "Coworkers clog hall complaining at length about service learning component", "someone's boss talks about baseball for 45 minutes", "student asks for extension for NO GOOD REASON AT ALL", etc. :)

[resonant]

God, baseball. I think I'd rather hear 45 minutes of collectible cars than 45 minutes of baseball.

[reginagiraffe]

There's only supposed to be a very small percentage of INTJs, and I swear they're all in fandom!

*points to self*

[resonant]

Fandom plus my mother, but, yes, fandom is full of us. Full of N people in general, which is why I love it.

My mother's family is all very S, and my father is on that side of things, too (though not so far in that I can't relate to him). I asked my mother once, "How old were you before you had someone to talk to?" and she said, "When you were born."

[florahart]

Heh. INTP, reporting in; there is a reason my K1 and I get along so fabulously. Yes, lots of Ns and also lots of Is.

[resonant]

My best friend's an INTP! We do very well together except that making a lunch date is sometimes a bit of a challenge.

Res: How about we just meet at Schmancy Pizza every Thursday at 11:30?
The Tech Goddess: How about you just hop in the car and meet me now!

[tevere]

Me too!

[resonant]

We could take over the world, but we'd rather take over the internet; it's quieter.

[vickita]

Oh, man, I have to do this for my job. HEE.

The Spontaniator gets halfway down the stairs and then comes back up to talk some more

Okay, this made me laugh until my sides hurt.

[vickita]

I, btw, am an INFJ. So, so very.

[carolyn_claire]

Wait, what? I thought you were INTJ.

[vickita]

Nope. INFJ. I mean, I'm probably closer to the center on the T-F spectrum than the other three, but I fall solidly on the F side.

[carolyn_claire]

Huh, okay, I mis-remembered. The Virgo threw me off, maybe. *g*

[resonant]

The spouse is INFJ. I always seem to need to have F people in my life, even though y'all are like space aliens to me.

[carolyn_claire]

I feel a sort of kinship with The Hilarious Bastard. Oh, dear.

[resonant]

Oh, well, I do too -- he's always right. It's just that, you know, people have literally left the church because he went around being right at them, on their territory, over decisions that were theirs and not his to make, at the top of his voice, in a very condescending way.

I mean, why does the organist care how funeral luncheons are organized??

[carolyn_claire]

Because there's a right way to do everything, dammit! And some of us know what it is! Just ask us! No, don't, we'll find you and tell you! Sit down, this may take a while!

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

Oh my, do these ever sound familiar. Copier being the bane of everyone's existence and also quite possibly possessed. Congregational President skips worship for months at a time. Congregational President shows up to make an announcement blasting the bishop and then leaves church before worship starts. The Queen of Daycare using colorful metaphorical verbs like "hemorrhaging" and stirring up melodrama while sincerely trying to help. Music Director and the Various Organists having a longstanding feud as the MD only cares about the praise band the VOs have Views on praise music. The parking lot flooding. The parking lot being borrowed for somebody to sell corn out of the back of a pick up truck without asking us first, during a wedding rehearsal with a very twitchy Mother of the Bride....

[resonant]

The parking lot being borrowed for somebody to sell corn out of the back of a pick up truck without asking us first, during a wedding rehearsal with a very twitchy Mother of the Bride....

This made me laugh so hard. But the only thing that ever gets sold out of our parking lot is drugs, I'm afraid.

Congregational President shows up to make an announcement blasting the bishop and then leaves church before worship starts.

Your place seems a little more high-drama than mine! We tend to be apolitical to the point where people quietly sink out of sight rather than say, "I was disappointed at this decision and would like to see it reconsidered."

[sara]

...our parking lot flooded so bad earlier this year that there was a pair of DUCKS living in one of the potholes.

[giglet]

Res, I fear the only thing you can do at this point to relieve the frustration is write a liturgical comedy, and include all these characters. Make it a mystery (perhaps not a murder mystery, but that depends on how frustrating you find them). If your main character talks to her cats and you include someone eating good chocolate, you could have a best-seller on your hands.

Suggest you publish under a pseudonym.

[resonant]

If your main character talks to her cats and you include someone eating good chocolate, you could have a best-seller on your hands.

This was where I started laughing out loud.

Suggest you publish under a pseudonym.

This was where there might have been snorting.

[mad_maudlin]

INTJ represent, what what!

Hmm, I could probably do one of these for my actual place-of-getting-a-paycheck (a Restaurant) or for school. One would involve "entire line staff playing quarters in the drive-thru instead of cooking" and "customer hallucinating condiments."

[azurelunatic]

Hallucinating condiments.

[mad_maudlin]

Which covers "I didn't order it, but I wanted it," "I ordered it but I didn't want it," "I didn't read the menu and didn't know that came on it;" "I didn't read the menu and didn't know that cost extra;" "I am suddenly allergic to this thing that I didn't bother asking about when I ordered;" "My food tastes like X to me despite there being no Earthly reasons why it should." (Though the last applies just as often to drinks as to food--ie "This Coke tastes too syrupy/too weak/flat to me" despite the rest of the dining room having no problem with it.)

[resonant]

That's so funny! For some reason it makes me think of an interview I once read with one of the guys from Aerosmith, of all things -- talking about how in a music recording, there are things called "psychic acoustics," where everybody who listens to the song says, "I loved the dulcimer," and the band guys look at each other and go, "Um, there wasn't a dulcimer."

I'm afraid that recently I was a stupid person who ordered coconut shrimp and then didn't eat them because I tasted them and they were sweet and I found that disgusting. But I didn't send them back or refuse to pay for them or not leave a tip or anything!

[mad_maudlin]

See, I don't have a problem if someone just orders something and it turns out they don't like it. But when they insist that it's missing something that's there/has something in it that's not there, that's when it gets frustrating. I once personally watched my manager fry a customer a new hamburger, dress it, and bring it out to him; the customer swore up and down it was the same burger as before, microwaved.

Some folks is crazy, is what I'm saying.

[azurelunatic]

Word. Though I have tasted non-present cheese. It was a good thing! But it still wasn't there.

[azurelunatic]

I made one for my own workplace just now, based on this.

The highlights:

(multiple quibbles about account)
Possessed printer jams
New equipment to replace old possessed equipment; old equipment kept as backup
Emailed pictures of embarrassing moments from office events
Unintelligible voicemail
Your delay is our emergency
[partner company] overshared and/or gave bad information
Transfer from [partner company] for a program that we do not administrate

[resonant]

New equipment to replace old possessed equipment; old equipment kept as backup

Hey, we did finally get rid of the old possessed folding machine! It only took us fourteen months!

Unintelligible voicemail

We used to get one where the automated call-out started speaking before our voicemail message was finished, so about once a week there'd be a message that said, " ... -8350 to speak to Roberts Church Insurance today." I finally looked them up on the internet and sent them an e-mail asking to be taken off their calling list, but I wonder if they wonder why their phone tree isn't generating very many calls for them.

[azurelunatic]

Automatic calling machines are evil. Also, mildly illegal in California, unless there's a live person attached.

[ecaterin]

This. Is hilariously awesome :D

INFP reporting in....with all of my almost-no-companions :P

[resonant]

I've had some good friends who were INFPs, but it's lucky I don't have to live with any!

My mother was on a church governing board the first time she got MB tested. After testing, they had several sessions of discussion about how wonderful it was that everyone was different, with different strengths and different skills and different perspectives and all. And then they asked my mother's friend Catherine, "What did you learn from this process?" and Catherine said, "Not to be on any more committees with any more goddamned P people."

[ecaterin]

LOL!!! Yeah, I can appreciate that the J's make the world go 'round (I could never do what J's do!), but to the P's they're very harsh feeling. My sweetie vacillates between P and J (his work really demands J out of him, so some days he's really J!) On a J day I just nod and agree with everything :D I know that when he slips back over to the P side, we can have long enjoyable non-decision-making conversations :P

[resonant]

One of my P acquaintances once said, "And you know perfectly well that you people never think anything all the way through," and it took me aback because I realized that it was true!

On the other hand, my very J opinion is that of all the decisions you'll have to make in your lifetime, maybe only three or four of them will be worthy of the time and attention it will take to think them all the way through; mostly the J method of "think until you come to the first acceptable option, take that, and move on" works just fine.

[jennyagain.livejournal.com]

:: vigorously highlights 'junk fax' ::

[resonant]

I've got us down to only about one every two weeks, which I consider to be a great triumph!