AdminSecret

So I've been having a lot of "really?" moments lately. I don't know what is up with my boss but she is finding flaws in everything.

Case in point, I wrote an article for our company newsletter. I received an incredibly formal email explaining that while it was OKAY there were general points (listed in bullet format) that I need to include in EVERY issue to "improve my performance." But immediately after that a co-worker forwarded me an email from my boss saying she liked the story and we need to use it for our press. WTF?

Also, she just informed me that a letter that she approved is out of date and I need to reprint the whole batch. She sighed several times and I could tell she was annoyed. This after we received an email "invoicing" the office for long distance calls. The calls were literally listed by number with the amount charged next to them. The email was sent because the calls looks "suspicious." The entire amount for all the calls was less than $10. Is that really reason enough to irritate everyone in the office?

What the heck is going on? I really dislike this meanness by email and constant fault finding.

I hate when people ask me to do things for them like "Hey how do you get to such and such restaurant?"  and if I say I don't know, they ask me to look it up for them.  Like you don't have access to Google?  Come on people.

Very similar to the binder incident... My boss at a former job would ask me to fax something. He had already written the fax recipient's name and fax number on a sticky note that he had placed on top of the document. And he had to walk past the fax machine to get from his desk to mine. Why he couldn't just write the info on the fax cover sheet vs. sticky note is beyond me. I believe his idea of delegating duties was severely out of whack.

Really Moment?

People asking "Are we still on for the 2 o'clocK?"

Yes, of course we are.

If it on the calendar, if we emailed about it, if I didn't ask you "can we reschedule?" that means, YES, we are still on.

I alternate desks every other day so when i'm not sitting by my boss, she intercoms me (2 digits) to get someone else on the phone for her in house (4 digits), she spends more time calling me instead of just dialing two more numbers on the phone!! seriously lady???

And she'll do the same if she's out of the office, although she has a blackberry with all her contacts, she will call me at the office to connect her with someone elses cell phone. i just don't get it!!

My personal favorite at the moment is the "hey there's no hurry but..." Look if you tell me there is no headline or no hurry on something then I'm going to put it on the bottom of my ginormous pile of stuff to do.I probably have about ten such projects on my desk right now. Randomly a co-worker or my boss will come to me demanding the finished project. I then stare at them blankly and remind them they said I was to do it when "I had a chance." I swear a co-worker literally said to me "Yeah but obviously I need it today" Well then you should have told me that! Ugh, so annoying.

I have two bosses - one is incredibly self-sufficient.  The other is completely hopeless.

Prof. Hopeless cannot use the online directory to find phone numbers - I have to look them up for him.  Sometimes the same number repeatedly (hey, I write them down on post-it notes but he loses them).

He cannot call his students to ask them to come see him - he has to say "LittleMissSnarky, can you ask StudentBob to come see me?".  Really, you couldn't just call your lab and say "StudentBob, come see me?"  Oh, wait - you don't know the phone number for your lab.

Aside from being Prof. Hopeless's brain, I am pretty much 411 at work.  People are constantly asking me questions.  I have yet to answer "let me google that for you", because I do tend to like being a know-it-all, but sometimes when you are busy, you just want everyone to stop asking.  Especially when it's something that they've asked about over and over again.

I've had most of these things happen to me, as well. Isn't it hilarious how we all seem to work at the same office, just in different places around the world?

I, too, love being a know-it-all, but I find EVERYTHING from search engines. Our company search engine and Google, mostly. People think I'm a genius, but if they had ANY gumption at all, they could figure stuff out themselves, too.

And I work with a lot of VERY smart people who can't figure out the basics for themselves. I once had a guy ask me how to operate a stapler. Not a fancy electric stapler or a stapler that was integrated into another piece of office equipment like the copier...a stapler. A desk stapler, your average Swingline.

Really?