I work for my county in mental health. I do some work with the county social workers but not much as they are in a different department.

I get an email from a social worker saying something to the effect of:

Social Worker: “Hi. I hear you are the liaison for the local women’s shelter. Can I get [form]?”

I work with the infant early childhood program, and I have nothing to do with the program she is talking about.

Me: “Sorry, but I think you might have the wrong person.”

She immediately responds.

Social Worker: “No, I have the right person. I need this form immediately, so please send it.”

Me: “Sorry again, but I don’t know what form you’re talking about, and I don’t work with that program.”

Social Worker: “Look, I know you’re new, but you really need to learn the job quicker. Sometimes women need these resources immediately.”

I again apologize and say she has the wrong person as this is not the program I work with. I will also note that I am not new; I’ve been in my position for almost three years. She states that this is unacceptable and asks for my supervisor’s email.

Now, my supervisor is known around the office as the bulldog because she usually won’t let things go until she gets her way. She’s a total bada**. She always sticks up for her people, and she has been with the county for over a decade. So, I’m thinking this is going to be good.

I tell [Social Worker] my supervisor’s email and go down the hall to give my supervisor a heads-up. When I tell her [Social Worker]’s name, she rolls her eyes.

Supervisor: “She’s always like this. Get back to work and I’ll handle it.”

I head back to my office, and like forty-five minutes later, [Supervisor] walks in.

Supervisor: “[Social Worker] must have looked up my number because she called. She launched into a speech saying she would expect someone trained by their supervisor to be actually competent, and you should really at the very least know the forms. I very politely but precisely told her that she not only had the wrong person as you do not work with that program but that the person who is in that position does not exist as they have not been hired yet. She just went silent and then hung up. I knew the form she was looking for, though, so I went ahead and emailed her a copy.”

Coworker: “What time is the ten o’clock meeting?”

I blink for a moment.

Me: “It’s at 11:40.”

Coworker: “What?! But they said they wouldn’t have a meeting over lunch! I’ll be so hungry.”

Me: “Yeah, it sucks. You should tell your boss to order catering if it’s gonna go over lunch.”

Coworker: “Yeah, I should! Thanks!”

Me: “My pleasure.”

They go and come back

Coworker: “I spoke to my manager, and it’s okay; they pushed it to ten.”

Me: “Hallelujah!”

I recently left a jack-of-all-trades type of position, where one of my jobs was to roll out new hardware on a five-year refresh plan.

I’ve been at the company for four and a half years, dealing with 250-plus colleagues’ IT issues all by myself, so you generally get to know most people in the company pretty well, even if only on a superficial basis.

Thirty new laptops arrive to replace those due, and two names appear that I’ve never heard of before. I have a search for them in my helpdesk system, and they’re not in there; they’ve never logged a ticket. I ask Human Resources, who says these two people definitely exist and still work for us.

Okay, then. I reach out to let them know. They’re both home-based salespeople from around 300 miles away. One of them is due at the head office in the next month or so, so he will pick up both laptops then.

So, the laptops are built and left on a shelf. Six weeks later, a random person knocks on the IT office door and introduces himself as one of the unseen colleagues. It turns out he’s a huge PC gamer, so he knows most stuff — so much so that my predecessor who’d built his last laptop just made him a local admin. He also sorts most issues for his other colleagues in the area, so he’s a local admin of that.

Me: “It’s good to finally meet you!”

Employee: *Jokingly* “I hope we don’t have to meet again!”

Me: “We probably won’t; I’m off to a new job in a couple of weeks.”

On my second to last day, a package arrived. It was a card, signed by [Employee] and his colleague, with a set of three whisky miniatures from their local distillery. It was literally the only acknowledgment that I got for four and a half years of service.

As part of my wrapping-up, I went through to check that there were no old accounts I’d missed closing or anything, and I found another — sales again, this time 200 miles away in a different direction. Again, he’d never logged a ticket and never emailed me. Somehow, he made it four and a half years at the company without asking for a single thing from IT. I was tempted to reach out and send him something, as well.

This story reminds me of one guy I work with. Long story short, one time, he tried to throw me under the bus for something that was neither of our faults, but it would make him look good for “fixing it.” Except, I was the one who both found the fault and fixed it, and there was no way I was letting his little-man ego trip slide.

Ever since then, he just refuses to talk to me 95% of the time unless someone else is also there, to the point where he’ll frequently just stare at me as I ask a question then turn around and walk away. So, instead of talking to the guy and getting an answer like, “Hey, it’s not written here. Did you put ‘signature required’?”, I now have to schlep around the entire warehouse, find the manager or assistant manager, ask him, and wait for him to go and get the information and get back to me.

Then, Human Resources is like, “Well, I’m glad you guys found a solution!”

No, sorry, that’s a workaround. A solution would be telling him to put on his big-boy pants and act professionally, but apparently, it’s not an option.

Related:
They Say It’s For Protection, But We Have Doubts

This story happened to my coworker early in his job at our company. He was recruited as a one-man team for a new posting as the company was growing fast. 

At his first yearly appraisal, his boss gave him this speech.

Boss: “I am beyond happy with you. You really went above and beyond, you saved us a lot of deals, and we would really be lost without you.”

And so on, with big (deserved) praises for five to ten minutes.

Boss: “So, I have decided to give you only half of your bonus to motivate you to go even further beyond!”

My coworker told me he considered giving his resignation letter there and then. The only thing that made him stay was that a big part of the job implied a lot of travels at great destinations, but he clearly slowed down a little.