Curmudgeon, Part II

[cjsmith]

Know what else I'm losing patience with?

- People who EAT MY CHOCOLATE. Listen, folks, this is the only snack in the building that I can currently safely eat. You guys can eat any of the free stuff provided by the company, not only the snacks but also the free lunches provided once a week. I can't eat any of it. Leave my 85% very-low-sugar chocolate alone. It's not hard to tell which is which; the free snacks are in the break area and my chocolate is sitting on my desk.

- People who seriously, totally, MISS THE POINT, either semi-deliberately or because they're simply too wrapped up in themselves to hear what is being said. Let's skip simple e-mail misunderstandings; how about shortening just about every business meeting ever held to half or a third the time?

- Abdominal pain. YAY for better living through chemistry, but holy moly, can I be DONE with this now? I am not going to use these pieces-parts! Not going to happen! Leave me alone!

- Example code that DOES NOT COMPILE, and when massaged until it compiles, DOES NOT RUN. I could eat a handful of ones and zeros and... eh, you know the rest of the quote.

OK. I feel better now.

Sheesh. And this isn't even a Monday.

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I don't remember David Bower's hot sauce. What happened?

And yeah, 99% of the time I don't mind when someone eats my snacks. I've invited half the company to snarf teabags from my varied collection whenever they like. I might even have happily handed over the chocolate if someone had asked. But to show up and find it gone... right this moment, when that and my lunch is what I'm going to have until I leave... I was peeved.

I don't have security cameras near my cube. I could install one, but then at the next all-hands I'd have to fast forward past any time I scratched where it itches.

[psi-star-psi.livejournal.com]

David kept a bottle of super-intense hot sauce in his cube, something like "Dave's Kick-Ass Hot Sauce". It was cute. He'd take it down from the shelf, show it off, and put it back. It was sealed, because it was way too dangerous to actually use.

One (late) night I stopped by his cube, and we fiddled with the bottle of hot sauce as we had many times before. Just as I was putting it back, he said, "Joe, don't wipe your eyes with your hands. The bottle has been opened, and there's sauce around the rim. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to the restroom to flush my eyes since I just got hot sauce in them."

Some clueless moron had opened the sauce, messed around with it, and put it back. A day or two later, we got the HR nastygram to stay the goddam hell out of other peoples' cubes and don't screw with their stuff. At least, that's what it should have said. It was couched more politely than was justified.

That's probably about the point when Spice tipped over from a collection of adults into a standard corporate kindergarten. Sounds like your place has hit the transition too. My condolences.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Holy moly. Yeah, that's appalling behavior too.

Kindergarten is a great description for it, and yes, we have indeed tipped over. Twelve employees = mostly adults. Thirty = kindergarten. It's really too bad.

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

When they stop flushing the toilet(s), that's when you're really back in kindergarten. That one used to really make me feel confident I was working with adults.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

In my building we can't blame the humans for that one. Randomly, the toilets need multiple flushes. (Randomly, they even look like they're going to be fine until the very end of the cycle.)

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

Dear god. How... yuck.