Thin Skinned Co-Workers
For those of you that don't know, I work for a very large telephone corporation. The department I work in is a high profile one. My crew's job functions are heavily scrutinized by several upper level managers in various other departments. Things we do can determine whether or not we are fined by the government. My job can be very stressful at times...especially when mistakes are made and management is looking to discipline employees for those mistakes.
Several of us in the crew try to look out for one another. We feel it is better that we catch any errors or missed items and correct them before management does. If the manager finds missed items or mistakes he is more likely going to add it to your performance review which can ultimately get you fired.
Now we have this company only instant message program that is for "company use" only. Of course, a lot of us chat on there about non-company related things to one another in various departments. The messages are "monitored" so you have to be careful with what you do or say. It's pretty much that way with any corporation these days where computer related activities are concerned.
The company instant messenger pretty much works like any other instant messenger program. For instance, we have the capability to be in a group chat room to talk with a group of people at once instead of having various private chats going on continuously throughout the day. It works great for wanting to tell everyone at once a piece of information or to ask a question that anyone can answer. My crew has a group chat room we go into daily where we talk to one another about various daily issues.
For instance, if I page someone and then need to leave my desk for a few minutes before they call back, I can type in the group chat room that, "I paged so and so for information regarding such and such." If so and so finally returns my page and I'm either away from my desk or tied up on the other line, one of my co-workers can handle the call for me. It also works to ask who was handling an item, who paged a manager, how do we handle a certain situation, etc. We had to implement this group chat room feature because too many people in other crews complained about us shouting across the room to one another.
So anyway, today I was handling an issue and in the process stumbled across some thing that needed to be handled. I went to our group chat room and said (Due to the sensitivity of my job, I have removed the names of the various work items mentioned):
Camlaw(09:55:41): Need someone to update %&*^ #@* report for ??? ><+=.
Next thing I know, I receive this private instant message from Dilbert:
Dilbert(10:01:35): Camlaw,
Dilbert(10:02:56): let me know when something is not performed and I will handle...I do not want friction in the crew, but I will need to handle the situation...ok?
Camlaw(10:03:29): OK....are people getting offended cause I happen to mention stuff?
Camlaw(10:08:31): I was trying to figure out about that $#*&)% incident which end up being &^%$#@. As I was correcting my error, I stumbled upon items sitting in the work pool without the *&^$##@%^#. When I went to correct those, I found duplicate items. And then the >+=< with the (*&%^ on it, did not have a &^%$ on it. So I added the &^%$ and added it on the existing %&*^ #@* report. That is when I discovered NOTHING in the %&*^ #@* report notes. I added the initial information I could find.....then I put in the group chat room that the %&*^ #@* report needed to be addressed.
Dilbert(10:10:21): yeah...sometimes it is the way we say things or folks takes offense no matter who says it...but I need to make sure that they are doing their jobs
Camlaw(10:11:15): OK...then I guess every time I need to correct something I need to tattle to you about it?
Dilbert(10:11:38): I guess that is going to be the best...
I don't want to be a fucking tattle tale. Whoever was offended needed to talk to me about it. I was trying to be nice and say something before management does. Bunch of whiney ass mother fuckers! And I know someone was upset about my initial message. I heard Dilbert take a call at his desk and explain that is was me that typed that message in the group chat room before he instant messenged me. Hell, it is not like I went in there and said, "Looky here dumbass! You need to do your damn job and update this report!" If they were offended by that simple little message I did leave, then they are too thin skinned for our crew. Needless to say, I was pissed for the rest of the morning over this incident.
By lunch time, I had significantly calmed down. I had pretty much figured out who the whiner was and decided that their problem is that they're too lazy to do their job and they hate to be told that they need to do it. Unfortunately, my calmed state was only temporary.
When I returned to my desk after lunch, another co-worker told me that a manager from a different department called looking for my manager to complain about me not updating the %&*^ #@* report for ??? ><+=. Ms. S shows to be the manager I report to, but everyone in my crew reports to both Dilbert and Ms. S. Ms. S was on vacation today, so they called the main number to complain about me. Anyway, I told my co-worker to tell Dilbert about the call because that was the same item I addressed earlier in the group chat room and got in trouble over. Of course, I shouted this across the room loud enough for Dilbert to hear me.
And what really irritates me is that Dilbert said he wanted to know who was not doing their jobs. Well, I told him that the report had not been updated like it was supposed to be hours earlier. He did not bother to "handle" it then like he should have and hours later it became an issue. DUMB ASS!
So Dilbert eventually ended up calling the person responsible for keeping up with that report (the same person I suspect had complained about me) and I hope to hell he put that down on their performance review. Here I was trying to help them out, prevent something from becoming an issue and they turned it into one anyway....and even more so later when another department manager called to complain.
Now I am not one to want anyone to get in trouble, but I feel this idiot deserves it for not appreciating my help and trying to get me in trouble over it. It is days like this that really make me hate the people I work with.
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