Without Reason

(One of the perks of my workplace is that we can ship out personal packages on the company account for savings that they pay back, within reason. Unfortunately, some people don’t quite have the same understanding of “within reason” as others do.)

Coworker: “Hey, can I bring a few boxes around later for you guys to ship?”

Me: “Sure, we’ll just need the full addresses and phone numbers they’re going to. Do you need any packing material?”

Coworker: “Nope, they’re all set; just need labels, thanks!”

(An hour later, a car backs up to the shipping dock door. It’s [Coworker], who opens the trunk to reveal it’s FULL of boxes.)

Me: “Uh…”

Coworker: “What’s wrong?”

Me: “You said, ‘a couple.’ There have to be dozens in there.”

Coworker: “Fifty on the dot! Here’s the list!”

(He tries to hand me multiple sheets of paper. They’re awkwardly stapled together down the side like a book, and it’s all handwritten, extremely sloppily.)

Me: “You know we have to do each one of these manually through the [Carrier] software, right? Could you maybe put this in an email to make sure we get it all down right?”

Coworker: “No, don’t worry; this is fine.”

Me: *trying not to outright call him on his poor penmanship* “Well, it’s still going to take a while. When do you need this done by?”

Coworker: “They need to be delivered tomorrow.”

Me: “Tomorrow?! Wait, you come by at five o’clock, to give us fifty boxes you want sent out overnight?! All to different addresses, on a sheet I can’t read right?! NO!”

Coworker: “But you guys are supposed to do this!”

Me: “Yes, when it’s reasonable. This is not. If you got it to us first thing this morning, yeah, we could have done it, but the truck’s going to be here any minute now, and there’s no way we can get this done.”

Coworker: “Well, that’s just rude! I’m complaining to your boss about this!”

Me: “Yeah, have fun with trying to get him to side with you wanting us to stop doing our actual work at the end of the day to cater to you.”

(The kicker? He actually DID try to complain to my boss, who told him the same thing: actual orders come first, and there was no way we were creating 50 shipping labels in five minutes with a single computer and printer. On a hunch, we sent a joint email to the Human Resources representative, not to complain about the coworker, but in case they tried to complain about either of us. Sure enough, my boss ended up hearing how we were supposedly “excessively rude,” “abrasive,” and “racist” to him. That last one was exceptionally funny, as all three of us are white!)