Annoying MegaCorp people !!!!!

[skipro33]

Best Lunch Bob
This is the guy who awards contracts or authorizes purchases based on which rep bought him the best, or sometimes first, lunch. His best buddy at work is Freebie Frank. He awards based on best freebies. Anything from a hand full of pens to out of town junkets.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

These have been great to read...and yet another reminder why w*rking in an office environment SUCKS. Thankfully, I spent most days on an airplane, and while there were similar annoyances to deal with, almost all days in an airplane were much better than the days in the office.

Nonetheless, I would like to add Too Much Talking Ted You know this guy, he will talk, at length, about anything and EVERYTHING for a very extended period of time. Usually about subjects you didn't give a rat's ass about. And they would do it anywhere. They are also really good about taking the middle urinal in a row of three when no one is there. There was nothing like heading out for the day and seeing Ted walking towards you on the very large, expansive ramp that you had to traverse to get to your car. You knew what was coming, and there was no escape...it was like walking into the hell mouth.

 

[truenorth418]

Destroyer of Weekends

This is the boss that emails out a complicated assignment so underlings can prepare them for some lame Monday morning meeting so they can look good to their own boss.

Usually the assignment is communicated late Friday afternoon or evening - and often Saturday morning - and typically requires hours of number crunching and power point preparation. Of course this usually happens on a rare good weather weekend, sunny, 70 degrees out while we are stuck inside on the computer.

To make matters worse, when the boss sends out the assignment they will usually finish the email with "Enjoy the weekend!"

 

[JP.mpls]

I want in on this post.


Most of my co-workers are decent people. I typically have more problems with the management. I do have one co-worker who needs to be called out on this post.


Mr. Self Promoter.


Here are some of his behaviors:
- He is focused 100% on impressing the people above him. He is very obvious about it, and it makes all of his co-workers sick being around it.
- He actually isn't very good at his job, but the people above him truly enjoy their butts being kissed, and they don't seem to notice his below average technical performance level.
- He is the master at handing off work to his peers. (This skill should be a new category. Handoff Harry?)
- In the project meetings, he takes credit for all of the work being done.
- He talks down to his peers like he is their boss, and he isn't. He does this while handing off his work to them, because he is "so busy" and important.
- He shows up at the office every Saturday morning for about four hours. Sends out e-mails dated Saturday, and always copies the bosse, so they know how hard he is working. Spends most of the Saturday morning surfing the net, drinking coffee, and making sure anyone in the building knows he is there.


Argh!


JP

 

[MRG]

The mooch:

The guy always knows when food has been catered in and us there as soon as the guests are done.

There's plenty to share with your co-w*rkers but the sense of power had by hoarding food is overwhelming.

I watched a mooch get canned for being a mooch. He was at a site where after 6pm soft drinks were free. He'd stay to 6:05 pick up a six pack to take home!

He didn't understand when they sent him packing. I guess he didn't get the point we were tracking trillions of other people's dollars for them.

 

[Souschef]

Related to the Popcorn Burner, the person that burns popcorn in the microwave, whereby the resulting burn smell permeates every space within 200 ft of the microwave.

I had someone trying to make popcorn by putting the kernels in a metal pan and putting it inside a paper bag. Well the paper caught fire and melted the microwave.
It destroyed the microwave, so nobody in the building could reheat their lunch.
A few weeks later, I looked down the aisle just as he tripped and did a faceplant.
Karma is a bit*h

 

[bingybear]

It would be helpful if you identified which category your in when you put everyone else in their categories.

 

[robnplunder]

Psychopaths - those who do anything to get ahead at the expense of peers, underlings, and any others who they can exploit. E.g, Sauron.

Megalomaniacs - those who thing they are bigger than their position they hold. Often, they also happen to be psychopaths. E.g, Saruman.

Kissing machines - those who do anything and everything to please their boss or other influential types for a scrap. Wormtongue.

Survivors - those who just can't be laid off, fired, or quit.

 

[athena53]

Survivors - those who just can't be laid off, fired, or quit.

Well, there was Sam Slacker in my last job. Clearly a bright guy- he had a degree in Physics- but his heart wasn't in the work and he did very little of it. I actually started keeping stats of who was at their desk at given points and his disappearances were way above others'. (When confronted, he said he drank lots of water and took a lot of bathroom breaks.) Coworkers had seen him ordering shoes on-line at work, and he once took the afternoon off so he and his fiancee could select wedding bands. He was the son of a highly-placed, highly-respected executive in the company.

I finally got my boss and HR to back me up and I fired his a*s. Morale in the department improved immediately and when I was given access to his e-mail I learned a lot about his hobbies, his Dad's exasperation with his and his sister's financial irresponsibility, and the number of times he told people he was working on something that he hadn't even touched. Firing him was one of my major accomplishments in that job. His replacement turned out to be an absolute treasure.

 

[aja8888]

My short time in Corporate (no cubes) resulted in one guy who came back from a trip to Indonesia and had some clove cigarettes with him (office smoking was OK then). So he lights up in the hallway and proceeds to smoke this thing, creating a clove cloud all over the floor.

That got a lot of attention and there were no more clove smokes allowed.

 

[MRG]

The harrassers:

You know, those guys or gals that take things way beyond comfortable, or legal. They're tough to get rid of, you need some proof from sometimes unwilling witnesses.

I had one I had to get rid of. He was harassing one of the women who w*rked for me. HR was useless, the gal was upset about a poem he'd written and sent to her. The HR lady said it was pretty! OMG!

I wrote him up about his time management. Specifically time away from his desk, he was to inform me in any means available if he was not in the work area. The guy wasn't too bright, he went around Megacorp asking other employees to write nice things about him. He sent them to me with the explanation he'd walked around to get them.

Good for you, but you didn't let me know you weren't in your work area. You're fired.

I was pleased when they started to RIF people. The harrassers were first to go.

 

[Nomoresnow]

The Den Mother ... every company has one. A sweet, middle-aged busy body who knows everything from who ordered the cheese queso at lunch last week, to the boss' pin number: and everything in between. Often considered truly indispensable, she is the one go-to person who has an answer for everything, and knows everyone's business.

 

[JoeWras]

The ER Slacker.

Reads ER forum instead of working.

 

[travelover]

It would be helpful if you identified which category you're in when you put everyone else in their categories.

The ER Slacker.

Reads ER forum instead of working.

Guilty. This was me between when I got my early out package confirmed and the last day of work.

 

[FreeBear]

I had someone trying to make popcorn by putting the kernels in a metal pan and putting it inside a paper bag. Well the paper caught fire and melted the microwave.

Wow! I hope this guy wasn't from engineering!

 

[FreeBear]

Psychopaths - those who do anything to get ahead at the expense of peers, underlings, and any others who they can exploit. E.g, Sauron.

Megalomaniacs - those who thing they are bigger than their position they hold. Often, they also happen to be psychopaths. E.g, Saruman.

Kissing machines - those who do anything and everything to please their boss or other influential types for a scrap. Wormtongue.

Survivors - those who just can't be laid off, fired, or quit.

Wow! This cuts close, maybe too close, to my old w*rk "home".

These were a distinct minority in the company, but they did damage disproportionate to their numbers since they all occupied elevated or key functional positions.

I was a very unhappy camper. I've been FIRE'd three years and I'm still coming to terms with how miserable I was back then. I just soldiered onward, avoiding facing the depth of my unhappiness.

Now, from the safety of FIRE, I'm still decompressing and w*rking through the emotional wreckage. I'm glad the sun is now shining and I'm in a good place.

 

[target2019]

And then there is Learing Lecherous Lothario. He is a rare breed, God's gift to women.

Lothario could not stop pestering women in the office at megacorp. Somehow he avoided harassment charge left over from his days as a contractor, and made it to employee status. Got so bad in his first working group, that women openly mocked him, driving him to another group. It actually got worse in the second group.

In the second group setting, he managed to exercise his right to use racism and sexism to drive wedges between many individuals. Very odd situation, and I got pulled into it. HR began interviewing people in the office, and it took several weeks. Eventually he received a few days of training at local HR office, so it was a reward to him.

Early on, he managed to convince a woman in another group that they should marry. As years went on, it was interesting to watch, to see when she would figure out that he was cheating as much as possible. I observed this behavior on company trips. Yes, wife figured it out, eventually.

He now works somewhere in the south for same megacorp, I've heard. He has special employment status which benefits the company.

This thread is one of the more entertaining ones to come along. Now, off to work and experience many of those named in other posts.

 

[CaptTom]

I'm quite sure we had all these behaviors at one time or another at MegaCorp. But I never felt any of them were bad enough to dread going in to the office. I guess overall my co-w*rkers were a pretty good bunch, even if we had some idiosyncrasies.

I suppose the real reason I RE'd was because I could. Secondary to that was the ever-tightening claw of upper-level management, squeezing every nickle and unpaid hour they could out of the employees. That was the real travesty, not the petty antics of the employees.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

And there is also "My Microwave Mike" who puts his lunch in the microwave for 2 minutes and then disappears for 5-10 minutes leaving co-workers waiting for the micro to wonder if they should remove his lunch from the microwave.

Oh, I never hesitated! Sometimes I WAS that guy, having gotten kidnapped by that fellow who likes to have impromptu meetings in the hall. I always wondered why anyone would stand and stare at my hot lunch.

 

[38Chevy454]

Thought of another one, the Smoke Breaker. This person is always on a smoke break, can hardly be found at any time needed. Even though smoking is not allowed int he office, the person's desk and cubicle area smell like an ashtray anyway.

 

[brucethebroker]

Stampede Stan. Look out! Stampede Sam and his band are watching the clock tick down to 4:29: PM, THEN WHAM!! Mad dash to the elevators! Stand back, or be trampled!

 

[CitizenK]

The Wrench Thrower is the manager who despite many pleas along the way, won’t pay attention to any details of a project brought to his attention. Then just before the deadline, he reappears to “express his concerns” and request changes hours before the presentation.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Stampede Stan. Look out! Stampede Sam and his band are watching the clock tick down to 4:29: PM, THEN WHAM!! Mad dash to the elevators! Stand back, or be trampled!

I was very much guilty of this. No way I was hanging around there...if I didn't have to be there, I wasn't.

 

[travelover]

I was very much guilty of this. No way I was hanging around there...if I didn't have to be there, I wasn't.

True. A lot of the people hanging around were just looking for face time Brownie points. I used to have a manager that made the rounds at 4:45 to see who his good boys were. By 5:00, most had fled.

 

[Mdlerth]

Gaseous Clay, the crop duster. Snacks on junk food continuously throughout the day; about every 30 minutes he gets up and wanders around the sweatshop emitting nether coughs as he passes by co-workers at their stations. Some of us never made it out of adolescence.

Someday I'm gonna write a book about this guy.