Wrestling Match

Two grown men wrestling? Nothing controversial about that.
Two grown men wrestling, at work? That should get your interest peaked.
Two grown men wrestling, at work, and one guy is the General Manager?? It’s on, Fo’ Sho!!!!!!

Top Dog sales guy was the Top Dog for more than one reason. He was a house of a man! 6’3″, walking tank. Nobody messed with him, ever. But he had a particular fondness for our General Manager, let’s call him Slim Jim. Tall, lanky 6’4″, all of 180 lbs. Although taller than Top Dog, he was outweighed by 60 lbs or so. But Top Dog was all muscle, solid guy. It alway started as a handshake, that would lead to the “you let go first” jerking hand lock, then friendly shoving, at some point ending with Slim Jim in a headlock. One friday morning, Slim Jim and Top Dog were getting into it and it got out of control. The standing up headlock, soon was a wrestling match, on the ground. With Slim Jim in his Dockers slacks and a windbreaker. I was the first to pipe up “Somebody’s REALLY going to get hurt, and it’s going to be YOU Slim Jim!!!!”. Well, at this point, this isn’t a voluntary scrap match, Top Dog is really making Slim Jim fight his way out of this. So, as it’s going too far and Slim Jim’s face is getting really red from the scrapping, Top Dog finally let up a but and Slim Jim got loose. During the wrestle match, Slim Jim lost his shoe, a nice brown leather dress shoe. Top Dog picked up the shoe and ran out to the parking lot. Well, since it’s a service business, the parking lot is the LAST place you really want to walk around with just your sock on! God only KNOWS what you could stop ON or step IN!!!! So Slim Jim leans out the door and says “Top Dog!!!!! Get you ASS back here with y %*(#(*@%%^# shoe!!!”. From some faraway spot in the parking lot, he hears the big, loud, boisterous laugh of Top Dog. But it’s not like he can chase him down, he’s helpless!!!
So finally Top Dog emerges from the parking lot and says “Well, I’m off to my first appointment!” and races towards his service truck and takes off down the street! Slim Jim races to grab his Nextel radio and gets Top Dog on the radio, “TOP DOG!!!! Where’s my EFFING shoe at??? I have a meeting in 20 minutes with the Regional Manager!!! I NEED my shoe!!! Where is it?????”. So Top Dog answered “Ok, no problem. I threw it on top of the warehouse roof! Bye!”. So since Slim Jim can’t climb up the ladder on the side of the building himself, he sends the mechanic up the ladder to the roof to retrieve the missing loafer. “It’s not up here!” yells down Mechanic. “LOOK AGAIN!!” growls back a frustrated Slim Jim. “It’s really not up here!” yells back Mechanic after a second, more thorough look.
Slim Jim hobbles back inside “It’s NOT on the roof!! Where the EFF is my EFFING shoe???” he yells over the radio to Top Dog. Top Dog laughs over the radio and says “Ok, I lied. It’s under HR Lady’s car. Bye!!”. So after Mechanic comes off of the roof, he’s sent over to look under HR Lady’s Camry. No such luck. By now, Slim Jim has about T-minus 5 minutes until Regional Manager’s arrival to get his shoe. Slim Jim gets Top Dog on the radio again, he’s about to really lose his cool with Top Dog. Top Dog finally confesses, “Okay, you give up??? Why don’t you go check under YOUR car!!! The one closest to the building??? The one even closer than HR Lady’s car??? Good Luck!!!”.
Sure enough, there was the size 14 loafer, sitting under Slim Jim’s Jeep Grand Cherokee!!! He was SOOOOOOOOO embarassed that he didn’t check HIS car first! After all, it had been parked right next to Top Dog’s service vehicle when he left!!! That was the DUHHHHH moment of the year!!! His face was beet red, he was mortified, especially after cussing at Top Dog over the radio for allllll to hear!!
Ever have a boss embarass himself like that in front of everyone???? I wanna hear about it!!

Add comment August 6, 2009 thesassysecretary

Double Life

…or more like Triple Life!!

Long ago, I worked with a guy at the service company. On the surface, he was full of himself, slightly humorous, and very cocky. A real “President Of His Own Club” type of guy.
Well, he really thought he could pull it all off, juggling a wife and a mistress on the side. He had been successfully pulling this off for over 6 years. He even brought the mistress to work and got her a job. The nerve! So while his wife was at home taking care of the kids, working full time and being a wife to, well the Prez as we’ll call him from this point on, he was leading a double life.

One day, he meets Girl #3. He doesn’t tell her he has a mistress, let alone a wife and kids. So he starts seeing Girl #3 from time to time then more seriously. She is smitten with him and she decided to send flowers to him at work. That’s what normal girlfriends do, right? Well, that would have been okay if she was in fact a normal girlfriend.

The flowers arrived and sat at the front desk until The Prez came back to the office after he was told he had flowers waiting for him. To find out whom the flowers were for, another gal in the office had to look at the card, naturally. She sees on the card “Dear Prez these flowers are to show you how much I care for you and how wonderful the past few months have been. I think I am falling in love with you! Love, Girl #3“. Can you say firestorm? Remember, Mistress works at our location also. Word got to her SO fast, and she wasn’t even working that day. When Mistress confronted the Prez, he got upset with HER for “overreacting”. He ended up breaking it off with Mistress, telling her that Girl #3 was REALLY the girl for him. Really?? A gal with 3 kids from her previous marriage whom you’ve been LYING to for several months who doesn’t know you already have a mistress, let alone a wife!!

Well, The Prez under estimated the wrath of the Mistress. She was, shall we say, unstable to begin with. But abruptly end a 6 year relationship and hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!! Mistress decided to take it upon herself and contact Girl #3 to tell her that SHE was in fact the orginal mistress, she’d been seeing the Prez for 6 years AND he was married and had been for 15 years. Girl #3 was FURIOUS that the Prez had been lying to her, BIG lies, for months.

But Mistress wasn’t done yet with her wrath. She then contacted Prez’s wife. Yes she did! She had met her several times at company functions and crazily enough, they hit it off as acquantainces. WEIRD!!! So Mistress confessed to Wife that she had been having an affair with Prez for 6 years, and now there is another woman involved, Girl #3.

What did Wife do? She left his ass! She filed for divorce and took the kids with her! So, what’s the score now? Prez, 0. Ladies, 3. He has NO women at this point.

Then it got ugly…

Prez said that Mistress was now stalking him. Mistress said that Prez was stalking HER. They took restraining orders out on each other. Then they couldn’t be at the office at the same time, so that involved EVERYONE coordinating their schedules around all of this drama.

Meanwhile, Prez learned a very big lesson in all of this. He really did in fact love his Wife and wanted her back. But they had divorced at this point. And she didn’t want to have anything to do with him. But he was determined to win her back. And it took him a few years, but he finally did win Wife back. They re-married a few years after their divorce, and their relationship was stronger than ever. He was a changed man.

A few years after they remarried, Prez was writing out a contract and came to me with this question, “Hey Sassy, how do you spell “fidelity”?” but he pronounced it “Fye-delity”. I said “You mean “FI-delity”?”. He said yes, that’s it! I spelled it for him and said “Wow, The Prez doesn’t know how to spell “Fidelity”?? WHAT a shock!!!!”. It took him a second and he said “Okay, high five, that was a good one!!! It took me a minute to get it, but that was good. BUT, that was a LONG time ago! I don’t do that crap anymore!!! I”m a changed man!!”.
Sometimes old dogs learn new tricks after all, huh??

Anyone else ever involved in MAJOR office drama like that? Where the whole office is involved??

Add comment July 29, 2009 thesassysecretary

Transition

With so many folks on vacation this week, I thought I’d take a moment to introduce some new folks to all of you. I’ve worked at some pretty interesting places over the years. I’ve worked with some very nice people, very personable. On the other hand, I’ve worked with some really outrageous characters! When I relate the stories from past jobs, people can’t believe some of these people were employed!

Let’s go back a few years to a service industry company I used to work at for many years. The service guys who worked with us, wellsome of them were rather sketchy. One day, very early in the morning, the phone rang in the office. It was a man on his cell calling to complain about one of our service guys. I thought at first he was calling about bad driving, but it only it got worse. This man says he regularly drives alongside this driver because he must live near him. He sees him on a regular basis and he was also a customer of our company. On this particular morning, this service driver decided it would be a good idea to stop along a main thouroughfare, pull over to the side of the road, and pick up a KNOWN prostitute and let her into the car. The caller, who was at this point obviously a very conservative man, was VERY upset and was aghast that this employee would not only pick up a prostitute, but in a COMPANY vehicle!!! I was so embarassed and irritated that I was the one dealing with this upset customer and had to make excuses for this idiot co-worker. WHY would he think he wouldn’t get caught?? He was stopping in an area known for prostitutes. Even if, IF, this was all very innocent ( I HIGHLY doubt that though) and he knew her or was trying to give her a ride (not THAT kind of ride! Get your mind out of the gutter!) in his truck, it’s all about the perception. The company name, phone number, business license & contractors license is ON the truck! What a really bad, not thought out idea!! And during rush hour! Not in the middle of the night or during off peak hours.

So since it was so early in the morning, the manager hadn’t even dragged his butt into work yet. So I had to take down this callers’ name and phone number and tell him I’d have the manager call him back. Poor guy, he didn’t believe me at first, but I reassured him that the second the manager walked in, I would have him call him back. And he did of course and just shook his head in disbelief that he now has to fire a guy who had been there for a few years. A good worker too, it seemed like such a waste.

In another circumstance, I had to turn in my OWN service guy for bad driving!! I didn’t want to do it, but he was driving very dangerously and on a busy crowded freeway. I was off that day and I spotted our trucks logo ahead of me. I was driving about 65-70mph on this busy freeway. I see that he is up ahead of me, but I wasn’t sure who it was. Then I saw his vehicle # on the side and I knew who it was. He was driving at least 75-80mph and was towing a trailer behind his truck. VERY bad idea to drive that fast while towing a trailer! It’s a bad idea to drive that fast in ANY vehicle, let alone a 2 ton service truck full of equipment while hauling around a 1/2 ton trailer!!! Since I didn’t have this drivers cell phone number to warn him to slow down, I was forced to call the office. And who answers the phone?? The manager of course! And our work phones have caller i.d., so the manager answers the phone “Hey, Sassy! What’s up??”. I said to the manager “Hey, I’m on the freeway and so-and-so is driving ahead of me. I don’t really want to get him in trouble or written up, but he’s got to slow down! He’s hauling a trailer behind his truck and the freeway is crowded. Before he gets a ticket or causes an accident, get him on his cell and tell him to slow it down”. So the manager agreed not to bust him or expose me, so he called the driver and told him that another driver called in to tell him to slow his truck down.

Have any of you had to bust a co-worker for doing something wrong or unsafe?? Let me know!

Add comment July 28, 2009 thesassysecretary

I had a dream…

I had a dream over the weekend and I was very dissapointed that it was ONLY a dream.
I had a dream that Little Boss was ousted as Little Boss! One of our executives who works out of another office was promoted above Little Boss and became the man with the plan! This executive happens to be a really nice guy and that would be AWESOME if he became the guy in charge! But in the dream, this other executive asked to see me in the conference room. He wanted to know my REAL opinion of Little Boss and I was trying to be polite and skirt the issue. So the executive says to me “I KNOW Little Boss is an ass and treats you all like dirt. Those days are over, I’m in charge now!”. I was SO relieved to hear that! When I opened the conference room door, Little Boss was looming around the door because he just couldn’t STAND not knowing what was going on. I just smiled a very smug grin and went back to my desk. Unfortunately, that was when I woke up! But it was an awesome dream none the less. Is it a bad sign that you have a work dream at least once a week?
Has anyone out there ever had a good dream about work???

Add comment July 27, 2009 thesassysecretary

Printer Jam

printerThese early arrivals have GOT to stop!!
When you are used to have one hour of quiet solace to get settle into your desk, open your emails, get something to drink, make some oatmeal, and enjoy the QUIET before Little Boss comes in.
But Little Boss has been in the office before 8:30am ALL week! That makes for a really long day, especially if he doesn’t go out for lunch and eats at his desk. Ugh, take a break and GO somewhere! The worst is when we are all eating in the breakroom and he comes in to get utensils and tries to charm us all and make jokes, all while just having yelled at us or stomped around all morning long. CRAZY!
So after arriving at 8:30, stomping around all morning, bickering with anyone in his path, Little Boss’ first smoke break was at 9:15am. Just like the day before, this is NOT a good sign! He came back from his smoke break at 9:34am and sent out the following bitchy email:
“I see on the small table next to the big printer that there are an exorbitant number of printed papers laying on the table. I simply don’t understand why all of those papers are on the table. If you are going to print something out, then forget about it, then someone takes it off of the printer and leaves it on the table for you, why print it out in the first place? This is not only a waste of paper, it’s a waste of the printing cartridges and those are very expensive. If you don’t claim your papers by the end of the day, they are going into the recycle bin for good!”.
Oh my gosh, stop the madness. This isn’t the 4th or 5th or 6th reminder email that Little Boss has sent about the printed papers. This was the FIRST email about the papers on the table. What was the word I used before? REACTIVE. He’s obsessed with the printers. He purposely put the printer right in front of his office so he could see everyone come and go, instead of putting it in the center of the room for everyone to access. So those unfortunate ladies who walk around in high heels everyday to look professional have to walk across the entire office (not a short distance) to get every item they print out. How insane is that? That printer was in a much better spot when we moved into that office. Then Little Boss had the bright idea to move it closer to him. Why? What purpose does that serve besides micro managing? Well of COURSE they forget that they’ve printed something out! They shouldn’t have to walk ALL the way to the printer 20 times a day to get their print-outs! I know what you’re thinking, Little Boss must have moved the printer closer to himself so that he didn’t have to walk too far to get his OWN printouts. Are you kidding? His lazy ass has a desktop printer on his desk!!! Yeah right, him be inconvenienced?? Not on your life! Like I’ve said before, it’s Little Boss’ world and we just live in it! It was pretty funny later that morning, Gossip Girl walked over to the printer and said loud enough for Little Boss to hear “I better come get my printout before I get my hand slapped!!!” and at first, Little Boss didn’t hear her, so she repeated herself and Little Boss chuckled and said “Yeah, that’s right!”
I’ll expound on what I meant by Little Boss being obsessed with the printers. Months ago, a sign appeared on top of the regular copier/printer and the big color printer: “DO NOT LEAVE ANYTHING ON TOP OF THE PRINTERS!”. The signs were taped to the tops of the printers halfway through the day, so some folks didn’t quite catch the new sign because they were busy, you know, WORKING. MILF printed out some papers and when she went to retrieve her printout, someone else had printed some papers out at the same time. So she took the other persons’ printout, left it on top of the printer as we so often do, then went back to her desk.
Shortly after that, Little Boss walked by the printer and saw the papers on top of the printer, sitting on TOP of the sign he had JUST taped to the top of the printer and WIGGED OUT!!!! Little Boss started to systematically walk from desk to desk and ask,
“Did you leave this on top of the computer? Did you leave this top on top of the printer?? Did YOU leave this on top of the printer????? I SPECIFICALLY put a sign on top of the printer so people will stop leaving stuff on top of the printers, WHY was it left on top of the printer?? Who left this there? Did YOU leave this on top of the printer???”.
The guilty party was MILF, but she was new at the time and was too embarassed to confess! As he stomped all over the office to find the culprit, MILF rushed over to me and said “OMG, that was me! But I don’t want to confess, I’m too embarassed! I don’t want him to make an example out of me”. So I told her to keep her mouth shut and let him continue his embarassing reign of terror. What grown person acts like this? Over a piece of paper being left on top of a copier??
But back to our current printer situation from this week, with the threats of the printouts being thrown away. Little Boss was on edge all day and he spent most of the morning squabbling with Captain Obvious over the status of the many ongoing projects that he’s wayyyyy behind on. But even in the middle of a squabble, he abruptly stops makes a joke, teases Captain Obvious, and they are best friends all of a sudden. HUH??? You were JUST yelling at him! How do you switch the crazy on an off so quickly? It’s such an insane roller coaster to be on. Just like I said before, Little Boss and Captain Obvious will have a fight, then the next day they’ve “made up” and go to lunch together like best friends, it’s crazy!!!

Add comment July 25, 2009 thesassysecretary

Dissapointment

Dissapointment. The only word to describe the day.

Little Boss was supposed to be on a business trip for two days. At the exact time his flight was to be taking off, he walked in the door at 8:11am. WHAT????? Why is he here? Why didn’t he tell me he had cancelled his trip? Was he trying to trick everyone into thinking he was still going on his trip?

Since Little Boss normally comes in at 9:00am, he is 49 minutes early. Geez, it’s going to be a long day!
By 9:03am, he’s looking for Captain Obvious, who’s normal start time is 9:00am. Little Boss walks over to Captain Obvious’ dark office and says “Captain Obvious isn’t here YET??”. Wow, Captain Obvious is 3 minutes late and he’s already throwing a fit? Yikes, not a good sign. So at 9:10 Captain Obvious strolls in, very surprised to see Little Boss there! The second Little Boss heard Captain Obvious’ door open, he was out of his seat and in Captain Obvious doorway!
And you wouldn’t BELIEVE what conversation they had! Yes, it was the weekly update of the computer program that Captain Obvious was supposed to have completed ONE year ago!!!! He JUST got there and Little Boss needs an update! It MUST be Groundhog Day, because I’m hearing the same exact conversation I hear EVERY week from the two of them!

By 9:16am, it was Little Boss’ first smoke break. He’s stressing hardcore, he usually has the first one around 10am! It’s going downhill fast.

Legal Eagle came back from a business trip and it was her first day back in the office. Which only means one thing: 2 hour gossip lunch with Little Boss to gab about all the drama that “we’ve” created, not Little Boss. Those two are 2 peas in a pod, they deserve each other.

Meanwhile, 2 days prior in the early morning, I had given two purchase order requisitions to Little Boss for his approval. I’m STILL waiting on them. But, I sent him a proposal that HE’S been waiting on, he immediately printed it out, signed, and brought it back for me to send back. UMMM, what happened to MY purchase orders I’M waiting for from you??? People need supplies!! The kitchen is getting bare!! WTH??? But then I remember, it’s HIS world and we just live in it! So I brought it up to him “Hey, Um, Little Boss? Did you happen to get those purchase order requests I emailed to you on Tuesday morning?”. “Oh yes” Little Boss replies, “but I just haven’t had a chance to look at them. I’ve been really busy!”. Ohhhh, you have, had you? Let’s do the math. Since I sent you those requests, you had 6 cigarette breaks on Tuesday, and at 10 minutes each, that’s an extra hour taken from work time. Yesterday was a busy day too, and you had 7 cigarette breaks, totaling 1 hour and 10 minutes stolen from work time. As of right now, you’ve had 3 cigarettes totaling 30 minutes stolen from your work day. Not to mention your two hour gossipfest lunch with Legal Eagle to b****h about how YOU run the show and how hard you work. It also doesn’t include the 45 minute phone call of BS’ing with a business associate about your favorite baseball team and their standings in the American League. OR talking about how much you need a vacation. Or how big your grandson is getting.
What conclusion have we come to? The 3 1/2 hours you’ve wasted on CRAP, when you could have take 30 seconds to look over the office supply and kitchen supply purchase request and gotten back to me with it. Don’t come crabbing to me when we freaking run out of your precious coffee you drink like it’s going out of style! I won’t be the one too blame! I try to stay on top of these things, and these are the obstacles I run into, but I’m the FIRST person he’ll blame if we run out, just watch!

So 4:05pm rolls around, and it’s time for IT Guru to go home. He stops by Captain Obvious’ office to say bye. Captain Obvious (whom I also thought was joking) says “Oh you can’t leave yet. You need to send out a mass email to our vendors before you go”. IT Guru’s like “Yeah right, see you tomorrow!” *chuckle, chuckle*. Captain Obvious says “I’m not kidding, I need you to do that before you go and you can’t go until you’ve finished that”. IT Guru came UNGLUED! He was SO mad! “WHY,WHY,WHY do you wait until I’m LEAVING to give me these things to do??? Why not 2 hours ago? And you know I can’t send that email out until you’ve updated the system. HAVE you in fact updated the system? So now I have to wait for you to update the system, THEN I can sen out your mass email, is that how it goes?”. So just before IT Guru explodes, Little Boss comes over to regulate. I use the word “regulate” loosely, it was basically a ticker tape parade for Captain Obvious. “Well, IT Guru, if Captain Obvious needs you to stay to and finish this update, then that’s what needs to happen. Whether he told you just now or two hours ago, that is besides the point”. Wow, nice pep talk. Can’t you see that this man is PISSED? Why can’t Little Boss just tell Captain Obvious to tell IT Guru sooner? Instead of making IT Guru look, once again, like a hothead???

When it was time for me to leave, I was standing in the lobby with IT Guru who is finally able to leave and he’s just standing there shaking his head. He was SO mad! He said “Wow, that Captain Obvious lives QUITE the charmed life! He gets away with EVERYTHING and I’m really tired of it!”. Poor IT Guru, no respect!

Who’s the kickaround guy in your office? Ours is IT Guru….

Add comment July 25, 2009 thesassysecretary

Boss + Can Opener = FREAKOUT

canopener1Reactive.
That is the only word to describe Little Boss. He sees something, he reacts. There’s no counting to 10 or “choose your words wisely” nor does he have that little voice inside his head that tells him to keep his yapper shut. It’s HIS world and we just live in it.
We used to work out one department, and then we moved to our own division. Each division has their own door security code though. So when we moved, we got our own door code and the other division had to change their door code too. We were told we could not give the other division our door code, nor were we to have theirs. According to Little Boss.
So not long after moving to the other division, we realized that we didn’t have a can opener and Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou only had a can of soup for lunch. You know, since Little Boss pays her the big bucks, she’s eating soup for lunch! Since we still have friends in the other division, Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou went over there to borrow there can opener, but instead she was given the code by the receptionist and went down the hall into the kitchen. No one had a problem with her going in their division, except the Old Lady (see blogpost titled “Hater!..). She told Little Boss that Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou had been in their division’s kitchen. She just HAD to mention it to him, didn’t she?? THIS is how big of a hater she is! She’s trying to keep Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou from eating her lunch!
Fast forward to later in the day after lunch. All you hear are the stomping footsteps of Little Boss coming down the hallway. I’m thinking he’s coming over to my desk, but he keeps on going. Where is he headed?? He stops two desks down at Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou’s desk. “Uhhhh, WHO gave you the code to the other divisions’ door? You are NOT supposed to have that code!! I hear you were over in their kitchen at lunchtime. How did you get inside their door? We have seperate codes now for a reason! They aren’t supposed to be in our division and we aren’t supposed to be in their division! I’ve already gone over this! Why were you over there??”. Poor, poor Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou! She’s beyond frazzled! She’s simply shocked that it’s SUCH a big deal that their division was our office a mere week earlier! She stammers out “Well, I…I…I just needed to borrow their can opener for my soup. That’s all I had for lunch and we didn’t have one down here. So-so-so, the receptionist gave me the code to let myself in because she was too busy to enter the code for me since she was by herself. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. I just wanted to eat my soup!”. With that exlanation, do you think that Little Boss backed down after learning that it was the only thing she had to eat? Of course not! Little Boss said “Well, I don’t want to see you up there again. We aren’t supposed to be over there!”. With that, he walks away, leaving a dumbfound Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou probably a little teary eyed from the verbal attack.
As if that display of UTTER professionalism wasn’t enough, as he’s stomping back to his desk, Little Boss has the NERVE to come to a screeching halt at my desk. “Do you have the door code to the other division???”. OH HELL NO. Don’t come over to MY desk and pop off about something you know NOTHING about. He’s already been told who gave her the damn code, so why the heck is he up in my face about it?? I SLOWLY turned around and angrily looked him in the eye and said “UH, NO. I do not have the code to their door”. And then he just stands there looking at me. I sat there looking back at him with the “What else do you want?” look. I finally said “Anything else?”. Little Boss says “No. No. Thanks” and with that he walked back to his desk. Since everyone on in the ENTIRE office heard the whole altercation with Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou, my cell phone begins to blow UP with texts from my friends around the office!!!
“WHAT was that?”
“WTH is his problem???”
“What’s he so worked up about?”
“THAT was all over a FREAKING can opener??”
“OMG, he needs to get his THYROID checked!!”
“UH, Was that Jekyl or Hyde???”
“WTF is his freaking problem???”
So, I had a spare can opener at home, and I brought it in to leave in our kitchen. The next day at lunch, I quietly let Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou know that I am leaving this can opener here to avoid yesterday’s “situation”. She smiled and thanked me and everyone in the breakroom was like OMG, I cannot believe the hissy fit he threw, are you okay Mrs. Holier-Than-Thou??? She said she was fine, but her husband certainly was upset when she told him the story. OH I can imagine. I’m sure her husband would LOVE to have a few words with Little Boss!
So, of course this is now a running joke in the kitchen, someone always brings it up. If the can opener gets pushed to the back of the drawer and someone is on the hunt for it, when they find it they’ll say “Whew! It’s a good thing I found the can opener, otherwise I would have freaking starved to death! I better not go to their division, I’ll get my ass chewed out!!”.
Just a reminder, LITTLE BOSS IS A GROWN MAN ACTING LIKE THIS!!!!! BIG BABY!!!!

Add comment July 25, 2009 thesassysecretary

Geek Fight

office spaceIt had been brewing for days. Small squabbles here and there for over a week.
Then, the mother of all geek fights.
IT Guru had been mad at Captain Obvious for being such a hard head and not listening to IT Guru’s opinion. Remember, Captain Obvious is a know nothing know it all. The network server had been on the fritz and then one day, it completely crashed. On the weekend. IT Guru had to come in very early on a Sunday morning, yes I said a Sunday morning, to fix the system. He was able to patch it up to get it back online. By Tuesday morning it was starting to fail again and IT Guru and Captain Obvious had gone into the server room to try to figure out what kind of equipment they needed to buy to solve the problem. Captain Obvious ONLY does things HIS way, even if it fails 10 times. Then, on the 11th try, MAYBE he’ll concede to try things IT Guru’s way. And always, ALWAYS, IT Guru’s solution solves the problem. Well, doing this insane cycle everytime was just TOO much for IT Guru to go through yet again. So when the system started to fail, they needed to come up with a solution FAST, before Little Boss got back from his business trip. So they went into the server room to work and had closed the door due to the equipmet being so noisy. Or was that really the reason to close the door? So Captain Obvious starts telling IT Guru what to do, and that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. IT Guru’s elevated voice echoes through the office “Why do we have to go through this for the HUNDRETH freaking time?? Your way OBVIOUSLY isn’t working, Captain Obvious!!! I’m sick and tired of this insane routine we try 10 times before you allow me to give opinion!! We need to get the high capacity server, that’s it! No arguing! You’ve got to ask Little Boss to order it!! This is ridiculous! I’m not coming in on another weekend just because you don’t answer your damn phone!!”. The most maddening part is that ignorant cocky Captain Obvious lets him rant on and on and doesn’t even defend himself, making IT Guru look like a hothead. Then he gives him that condescending “There, there, don’t get so worked up” tone in his high pitched squeaky little voice. It’s so obnoxious! No wonder IT Guru snapped!
Their fight was SO loud, that Spoiled Brat had to go inside the server room to tell them that their cuss fight wasn’t appropriate for the office! Who knows how long and loud their fight COULD have gone on!!
Two days prior to this altercation, they were talking about about the first network crash that started all of this fiasco. IT Guru was in Captain Obvious’ office. The door is closed, but I can see them through the half glass wall. Captain Obvious is his annoyingly smug self, while IT Guru is spiraling downward FAST! The worst part though was that in the office next door, Little Boss and Graphics Guy were going over some new brochures and could hear the shouting match through the paper thin walls!!! But Little Boss must have been “Man Crushing” on Graphics Guy because he didn’t come out of HIS office to break up the geek fight!!
Captain Obvious treats IT Guru like absolute garbage. He is always trying to make IT Guru look bad in front of others. When the clock on my computer was 5 minutes slower than my cell phone, Captain Obvious instantly shouted “I TOLD IT Guru to take care of that!!!”. I told him “Who cares? At least we now there’s a time difference”.
We get our birthdays off as a paid workday. Last year, IT Guru’s birthday landed on a Friday. He put it on the big calendar showing that he would be off that day. So, the friday rolls around and IT Guru isn’t there and Little Boss says “Have you see IT Guru?? Did he call out sick or something??”. Does Captain Obvious pipe up and say “No it’s his birthday, remember? He’s using his day off”? Noooooo…he decides to throw IT Guru under the bus. “I HAVEN’T heard from him, I don’t know where he is!!”. Well, that throws Little Boss into a FRENZY!!! “What’s with him not calling out today? I’m really tired of this! (as if it happens ALL the time???) Give him a call and see where he’s at!!!”. That was when I had to step in!!! This meeting of the minds is getting ridiculous!!! “Ummm, today is IT Guru’s birthday! He’s using his birthday-day off since today is his BIRTHDAY! It’s on the calendar and I did hear him ask you (Little Boss) a few weeks ago for the day off”. OH, all of a sudden, Little Boss remembers IT Guru asking him for the day off! And then it’s Captain Obvious’ turn to suddenly remember! Those two put the “fun” in dysfunctional!!!
Anyone out there ever witness a geek fight in the office??

Add comment July 25, 2009 thesassysecretary

Clueless

cluelessThat inner voice, the hairs raising on the back of your neck, that feeling in your stomach that makes you pause.
These are all signs that you have that feeling. That inkling you get that makes you stop, turn around, and decide NOT ask your boss that question you were going to bother him with. You get these feelings because you’ve picked up on his vibe. You heard him sigh, heavily, and with an attitude.
I can hear that sigh from my desk, 20 feet away. It’s like it is being broadcast over an megaphone. Your ears are keen to that noise, even when you are knee deep in work. Like when you are sitting in traffic with the music blaring, and you hear that ever so faint Fire Engine or Ambulance siren, you turn the music down and you are now on alert. Where is it coming from? What’s the emergency? Same thing with picking up on the signs.
Rarely does Little Boss ever just blow up. You get levels of warnings and it’s all about paying attention to them. Here are a few of the warning signs:
  • Huffing or Sighing loudly, with attitude
  • Banging on the keyboard
  • The expression “Oh, Come ON!!” when his computer doesn’t cooperate
  • The expression “Give me a break!” when some program or his email won’t open
  • The way he calls people in to help him. If it’s a “Heyyyy, IT Guru? Can you come here for a second?”, then he’s ok. If it’s a “Captain Obvious! Come here!”, that’s a bad sign.
  • “Why did you do that????” with major attitude, bad sign, goes from level 1 to a level 10 quickly
  • Walking hard and loud through the halls
  • When he walks up behind you and doesn’t wait for you to finish your phone call, which is always with a customer and he RUDELY stands behind you until you are done
  • When he’s throwing his hands up in the air and isn’t doing it for someone to see, he’s just so irritated he’s reacting
  • When he throws anything onto your desk
  • The face. No explanation necessary. Think 14 year old girl with attitude, rolling her eyes and rudely smirking

Any of these signs spell disaster. So with all of this knowledge and the frequency of how often we see these signs, you would think EVERYONE knew when to steer clear of him.

Not when you’re The Wanderer! Simply clueless! She always knows the exact wrong time to approach Little Boss and the wrong thing to say to him. She’ll walk in to bug him when he’s in mid-huff!! That should be a HUGE sign and would make you want to turn around and say to him “I’ll come back later!”. Nope, not her. She can’t see past her own hand to realize when it’s the wrong time to bring something up. I believe it comes from 2 things: 1) her inexperience with men and 2) her inability to read people because she’s unknowingly too focused on herself.

In mid-rant, The Wanderer walks into Little Boss’ office and his response was “Can I help you?”. Hello, HUGE red flag, and yet she STILL walked in! “I have a very useless question to ask you that will only further spiral your inappropriately unprofessional behavior, but I’m still going to ask it”, or at least that’s how I heard it!! She asks him a question that I could SWEAR she’s asked him a few times before. But that’s how she makes herself useful, she asks the same questions over and over again just to get folks to help her or do the work FOR her. But I digress!

So, I’m guessing Little Boss is hearing his own snotty attitude and tries to be a little more helpful and asks The Wanderer, “So, how are you today?”, but he doesn’t REALLY care, he’s just making conversation. He picked the wrong question and the wrong person to ask this of!! He hasn’t realized yet that she’s so needy, this question evokes her life freaking story!! She takes a big breath and says “Welllll, I’ve been really tired lately! I think it’s my diet, but I met with a nutritionist and he says I have to give up all glutens and sugar and that might help me out. But I went to Whole Foods and met with their nutritionist and……”. Hence, the life story. Meanwhile his eyes are glazing over and he’s praying for his phone to ring! But he’s so blunt, he just cuts her off with a “Sooo, did you have anymore questions? No? Okayyyyy, thanks a lot!”, and then dismisses her by turning back to his computer! This scenario happens almost EVERY time! The Wanderer doesn’t get that HE’S NOT ONE OF YOUR GIRLFRIENDS! You just say to Little Boss “I’m doing great” when he asks how you’ve been, then move on!

Who has a Wanderer in their office? A simple good morning turns in to a “Dear Diary…” moment??

Add comment July 25, 2009 thesassysecretary

Printer Jam

These early arrivals have GOT to stop!!

When you are used to have one hour of quiet solace to get settle into your desk, open your emails, get something to drink, make some oatmeal, and enjoy the QUIET before Little Boss comes in.

But Little Boss has been in the office before 8:30am ALL week! That makes for a really long day, especially if he doesn’t go out for lunch and eats at his desk. Ugh, take a break and GO somewhere! The worst is when we are all eating in the breakroom and he comes in to get utensils and tries to charm us all and make jokes, all while just having yelled at us or stomped around all morning long. CRAZY!

So after arriving at 8:30, stomping around all morning, bickering with anyone in his path, Little Boss’ first smoke break was at 9:15am. Just like the day before, this is NOT a good sign! He came back from his smoke break at 9:34am and sent out the following bitchy email:

“I see on the small table next to the big printer that there are an exorbitant number of printed papers laying on the table. I simply don’t understand why all of those papers are on the table. If you are going to print something out, then forget about it, then someone takes it off of the printer and leaves it on the table for you, why print it out in the first place? This is not only a waste of paper, it’s a waste of the printing cartridges and those are very expensive. If you don’t claim your papers by the end of the day, they are going into the recycle bin for good!”.

Oh my gosh, stop the madness. This isn’t the 4th or 5th or 6th reminder email that Little Boss has sent about the printed papers. This was the FIRST email about the papers on the table. What was the word I used before? REACTIVE. He’s obsessed with the printers. He purposely put the printer right in front of his office so he could see everyone come and go, instead of putting it in the center of the room for everyone to access. So those unfortunate ladies who walk around in high heels everyday to look professional have to walk across the entire office (not a short distance) to get every item they print out. How insane is that? That printer was in a much better spot when we moved into that office. Then Little Boss had the bright idea to move it closer to him. Why? What purpose does that serve besides micro managing? Well of COURSE they forget that they’ve printed something out! They shouldn’t have to walk ALL the way to the printer 20 times a day to get their print-outs! I know what you’re thinking, Little Boss must have moved the printer closer to himself so that he didn’t have to walk too far to get his OWN printouts. Are you kidding? His lazy ass has a desktop printer on his desk!!! Yeah right, him be inconvenienced?? Not on your life! Like I’ve said before, it’s Little Boss’ world and we just live in it! It was pretty funny later that morning, Gossip Girl walked over to the printer and said loud enough for Little Boss to hear “I better come get my printout before I get my hand slapped!!!” and at first, Little Boss didn’t hear her, so she repeated herself and Little Boss chuckled and said “Yeah, that’s right!”

I’ll expound on what I meant by Little Boss being obsessed with the printers. Months ago, a sign appeared on top of the regular copier/printer and the big color printer: “DO NOT LEAVE ANYTHING ON TOP OF THE PRINTERS!”. The signs were taped to the tops of the printers halfway through the day, so some folks didn’t quite catch the new sign because they were busy, you know, WORKING. MILF printed out some papers and when she went to retrieve her printout, someone else had printed some papers out at the same time. So she took the other persons’ printout, left it on top of the printer as we so often do, then went back to her desk.

Shortly after that, Little Boss walked by the printer and saw the papers on top of the printer, sitting on TOP of the sign he had JUST taped to the top of the printer and WIGGED OUT!!!! Little Boss started to systematically walk from desk to desk and ask,

“Did you leave this on top of the computer? Did you leave this top on top of the printer?? Did YOU leave this on top of the printer????? I SPECIFICALLY put a sign on top of the printer so people will stop leaving stuff on top of the printers, WHY was it left on top of the printer?? Who left this there? Did YOU leave this on top of the printer???”.

The guilty party was MILF, but she was new at the time and was too embarassed to confess! As he stomped all over the office to find the culprit, MILF rushed over to me and said “OMG, that was me! But I don’t want to confess, I’m too embarassed! I don’t want him to make an example out of me”. So I told her to keep her mouth shut and let him continue his embarassing reign of terror. What grown person acts like this? Over a piece of paper being left on top of a copier??

But back to our current printer situation from this week, with the threats of the printouts being thrown away. Little Boss was on edge all day and he spent most of the morning squabbling with Captain Obvious over the status of the many ongoing projects that he’s wayyyyy behind on. But even in the middle of a squabble, he abruptly stops makes a joke, teases Captain Obvious, and they are best friends all of a sudden. HUH??? You were JUST yelling at him! How do you switch the crazy on an off so quickly? It’s such an insane roller coaster to be on. Just like I said before, Little Boss and Captain Obvious will have a fight, then the next day they’ve “made up” and go to lunch together like best friends, it’s crazy!!!

2 comments July 25, 2009 thesassysecretary

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