...way out on the corner of fucked up and evil...

There's a department in the company I work for that is not doing well. Certainly from the places where my work intersected with theirs, they've never been particularly good - information not passed on, jobs left half-finished or not done at all, having to be chased multiple times to hand over relevant documents, etc - but the last few months they've gotten a lot worse on multiple fronts. Things got bad enough that the administrative work that intersects with mine has been taken off them and now the department I'm in handles that whole side of it.

Turns out they're at least four months behind - I say at least because I'm expecting there to be stuff pre-COVID that they haven't processed either, but I won't have time to look for it 'til I sort out the stuff from June onwards - and of the paperwork they've handed over, two-thirds of it is missing information or just plain wrong.

I ended up putting together a spreadsheet with all the stuff that I needed correcting/filling in and sending it back - unfortunately it's not information I can access myself and it's not a situation where I can hazard a best guess in order to move forward.

(by this point I've spent a day and a half on this mess)

The guy who has let his work back up for a full THIRD OF A YEAR and then sent unusable GARBAGE to the team cleaning it up decided this was the point at which he would get snotty over email. I had to go take a quick breather away from my computer because the response I wanted to send... honestly, it wouldn't have made it through the filters, so I'd probably be fine, but still.

I sent the spreadsheet on to my supervisor along with a note explaining that the missing info was why I wasn't further along and that I'd jump back on it when I had the right info, which she's fine with, but... ARGH.

Where do these people get off?! I'm already doing a chunk of this guy's job because he couldnt, and hand-holding him through the bits he's still supposed to be doing but isn't! At what point is his incompetence a reason to get arse-y with me, the person already wiping his metaphorical arse!! ARGH.

Anyway, rant over, I hope that guy steps on Lego.

So here's the calmer more worksafe version of what happened on Thursday:

I am so burned out on my job right now.

My team is supposed to be four people. This year we’ve had two people out for extended periods of time due to ongoing health/personal issues.

I ‘ve done my best to cover what I could, keep things moving along, and although it was hard and draining I managed because it was temporary.

Except now two of these people – a chronic underperformed and someone whose personality is most tactfully described as challenging – are being moved on to other departments and me and the one remaining coworker are being expected to absorb this four person workload in perpetuity.

And the one remaining co-worker has an ongoing health issue that means they’re on reduced hours, so essentially there’s one person in the office full time covering four people, and that person is me.

I’m getting so much hassle and pushback and backbiting from other departments because I can’t do four peoples work as fast as four people would, and people are getting so offended because I can’t immediately drop the five things I’m juggling and give them my full undivided attention the moment they decide they have to get an answer for their non urgent query that could just as easily go to the group inbox so that I could manage my workload.

I called in sick on Friday because after asking four people to please put their query in an email as I was swamped and the only one in the office – which they could see, as they were literally at my desk harassing me and could see five empty desks around me – and getting interrupted four times while trying to answer one complicated query that covered seventeen different schools, I was a hundred percent done.

I spent the day in bed, just trying to catch up on the sleep I missed because I was crying and stressing out all Thursday night. I’m so exhausted and so sick of the selfishness and stupidity of these assholes.

And now it's almost 1am Monday morning and I don't feel any better and I still can't sleep.

Ugh. And if you call up at 8:45am the following day demanding why it isn't done because, "well, the rest of the team are back in today, aren't they?" then you are a bellend and I curse you to an eternity of every beverage you drink being lukewarm and decaffeinated. #coworkerssuck

— eerieindianadw (@eerieindianalj1) September 5, 2018

Work had a change of leadership at the start of the year. The new MDs new executove assistant is big on trying to reform the company's image and culture. To that end, shes horned in on a pre-existing beach cleaning charity event as an excuse to get some branded shirts in local newspapers.

All the employees who showed up were women. Having your lower-paid female staff provide free labour in order to boost corporate image is... honestly, not a great look, but weirdly fucking perfect for that shitshow.

I do understand that scheduling a photo op with an embroidered version of our logo on display is far easier than fixing a company culture gone toxic, but how about you at least try to look like you've put some fucking effort in?

Ugh.

Home sick all this week with an ear infection. Now i cant even sleep because if i roll over and put pressure on either ear, spiking skewers of agony.

I do get them pretty regularly, but this one coming up right after i had to go back to direct debits? Im thinking its not a coincidence.

Just... ugh. And i think id actually rather be home in pain than back there putting up with lazy shitheads trying to dump that departments work on me.

Actual nightmares about being back in direct debits. Multiple times in the night, waking up with my heart pounding, sweating and frightened and furious.

Past a certain point in your working life, i should not have to ask you to please shut the fuck up in a fucking office environment. Nobody needs to hear your inane screechings about beans on toast at that volume when theyre trying to do their job. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

Ugh and now i have a cold, 100% due to being forced to spend ninety excruciating minutes in an unheated tent in the middle of a waterlogged field during the pouring rain last friday, while a knobhead in a giant polyester shirt made us all watch a ridiculous video presentation in which he a) claimed falsely that we'd gone four years without any lost time injuries, b) followed that up with "four years - thats thirty months!" (no really, sigh) and c) managed to spell the THREE LETTER NAME of our parent company wrong.

didnt realise how much of last week id spent hunched over clutching my stomach til i got better, went back to work, and found my back killing me from sitting normally in an office chair.

still, apparently i missed some epic nonsense from the departmental pain in the ass, so i think i still came out on top.

I'm back.

Thank you to everyone who left comments of support on my last post. Without going into too much detail, it was unpleasant, and I had to step away from a lot of other things for a while, but I got through it and am currently feeling much better.

I really appreciate all the kind words and thoughts sent my way.