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12 Employees Share Their Stories of Office Politics and BS

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Offices and jobs and bosses and coworkers that heat up fish in the break room microwave – oh my! If you’ve ever had an office job, chances are you have some stories to tell.

Would they be better than the tales of BS offered up by these 12 Redditors?

There’s only one way to find out!

12. That’s not annoying at all

I work with a woman who cc’s her boss on all emails.

Her boss follows up on all of the emails 5-10 minutes later.

They looks like this:

Woman: “Hey Ganglebot, we’re starting this new thing so can you send us X, Y and Z when you have a chance – thanks!”

Her boss, 5 min later: “Ganglebot, as per [woman’s] initial request, we need these things to move forward. In our previous meeting on May 4th, at 2pm you indicated you could send these to us. I ask you to please send these along ASAP as our initiative depends on good information. Please confirm receipt and indicate when we can expect these documents.”

11. Show me the money!

I was offered a job at another location. I told my boss about it and my current company offered me a raise to stay. I took it. It’s been 2 months and I haven’t seen the raise in my paycheck yet.

UPDATE: I emailed my boss and asked for an update. They assumed I understood that the raise would begin at our new fiscal year which starts July 1. So it will be in my next paycheck.

10. Can you say petty?

Lately whenever the mother of one of my students pisses off the father (they divorced >4 months ago) he will send all three of their kids in mismatched clothes with shirts that have some variation of “I love my Dad” or “Daddy’s kid”.

I have not seen the same shirt twice and believe mom throws the shirts out and dad just keeps buying more.

9. A massive hoarder

I manage all the tools, parts, and materials for a small electrical company. We have a ton of little fittings, couplings, and such that are very small and have multiple parts. We recently let one of our journeymen go, and I’m in the process of clearing out his van.

Turns out he was hoarding tens of thousands of fittings in his van, all mixed together with absolutely no organization. To top it off, at least 60% of them were completely disassembled before being just chucked in to drawers, boxes, and bags along with mixed bolts, nuts, fasteners, etc., so it is now my job to take these collections of assorted hardware and dump them out, separate them, and reassemble as many as I can before restocking them in my already overflowing shop.

8. It never ends…

A third party keeps insisting that an individual worked for my company. They did not. We have searched everywhere. We have punched in every variation of their name, birthday, social security number into our system. Dude didn’t work here, and “Well this other woman says he did” isn’t an argument.

ETA: As much as I appreciate all the replies, this is not my first rodeo as an attorney, and I wouldn’t be complaining if this had a simple fix like “tell them to f*ck off” or “stop replying.”

7. It’s been 3 months!

Bar manager and 20% of the staff quit. Owner hasn’t hired anyone. It’s been 3 months.

No one can take unexpected days off or call in sick and inventory is at an all time low. (Except the kegs. So. Many. Kegs.) We keep running out of f*ckin everything. I (and others) have offered to help over the summer and nothing has come of it.

The restaurant is expanding and we need more employees but my boss is too focused on having us dust (during construction), replacing glassware with crystal, and setting up public accessible training courses to bother with actual management.

Oh, and communication is non existent, so I regularly show up to work and have no idea where sh^t is or what the new procedures are.

6. Very suspicious

It’s my bosses birthday, not a lot of folks respect her. I’m new to the department and was asked by Don to collect money on Friday to get her flowers. He was going to bake a cake and bring it in. He was sick yesterday so didn’t come to work. I collected a measly 19$ from others, awkward af because no one even likes her, topped it up with my own 10 to get a decent bunch of flowers, bought yesterday evening and brought in this AM.

Don is in and says “I couldn’t find the money you collected, do you have it” I said “I used it yesterday to buy the flowers, wasn’t that the plan?”

He replies with an attitudey “well no…”

I ask why it matters and he says “well I couldn’t bake the cake because I was sick so I don’t know what we’re going to do now if the money’s used up, we can’t get a cake now”

Another girl nicely chimes in that she will run out and grab a cake and don’t worry Don it’s all fine. Don’s a snippy guy so I don’t bother asking him how I was to know he’s too ridiculous to go get a cake himself.

Others are running around asking me if I’ve seen the money because apparently Don’s making it well known that I was supposed to collect money but no one has seen the envelope (obviously, I took it yesterday), then I have to explain that I used all the money so I look stupid.

Keep throwing in that I was doing exactly as was asked of me but Jesus Christ Don would it kill you to communicate your change of plans to people???

5. Who needs a system?

Everything is done in an improvised fashion even when it’s identical to something we’ve done a hundred times before. They refuse to create any kind of system or structure for doing anything and it drives me up the wall. Every single time, every question, every form, every action, everything, needs to be run through a hundred different people and approached as if it’s a brand new thing, even if it’s routine paperwork we do multiple times a week. It’s the most incredible waste of time.

Let’s say I traveled from Phoenix to Tucson and I need to be reimbursed for gas.

I’ll go pull out the exact same piece of paperwork I used last time. I’ll fill in the extremely basic blanks that I did last time. Name, travel date and time, mileage, gas receipt, sign and date. Submit the form.

A day later, I get an email. Oh hey here you put “Tucson” but you need to put “Tucson, Pima County, AZ.”

Make the change. Ask if there are any other changes. Nope, looks good. Resubmit.

A day later, I get a phone call. Oh hey here you put “Jay J. Jameson” but you need to put “Jay Jonah Jameson.”

Make the change. Ask if there are any other changes. Nope, looks good. Resubmit.

A day later, someone pops in my office. Oh hey here you put “Pima County, AZ” and “Jay Jonah” but it needs to just say “Tucson, AZ” and “J. J. Jameson” oops.

Make the change. Ask if there are any other changes. Nope, looks good. Resubmit.

It finally goes through.

Two weeks later, I travel from Phoenix to Tucson and need to be reimbursed for gas.

I pull out the final version that finally went through last time, just two weeks ago, after all the changes. I change nothing except the date/time and attach the new gas receipt.

A day later, I get an email. Oh hey here you put Tucson, AZ but now it just needs to say Tucson. Oh hey here you put Phoenix but you didn’t include the zip. Oh hey here you put J. J. Jameson but it needs to say J. J. Jameson Jr, Esq. Oh hey here you put that it’s 113 miles but we decided to start rounding to the nearest five so it should should 115 miles. Oh hey here you put 115 miles but an hour ago we decided it needs to be rounded to the nearest ten-thousandth of a mile. Oh hey we decided to do away with zip codes on these forms.

Every. Single. Time.

4. Let me check!

I have a vendor who gives me the same answer every day that I email him: “Let me check and get back to you.”

His shipment has slipped by over two months at this point and it’s driving me nuts.

He’s doing the same thing to other people in my office on other projects. He’s on a quick list to be blacklisted, but unfortunately, the clients love his stuff.

Edit: Furniture, he sells furniture. Why does everyone think it’s drugs?

3. What does that even mean?

my boss asked if I would be working tomorrow afternoon. When I said yes, he ominously replied, “interesting”.

Edit: Update!

Turns out my boss completely forgot even saying this to me. He was wondering if I would be working in the afternoon because he’s bringing his daughter in and knew I would want to see her.

Thank you all for taking so much interest in this. I’m a 23 year old woman working a college job. I found it beyond funny some of y’all were suggesting I was banging his wife or visa versa.

2. No more questions!

“Do this task. What do you need?

– I need 30 computers and 20 USB3 flash drives.

– Here’s 15 computers and 7 USB2 flash drives.

– What? I need 30, where’s the other 15? And these flash drives won’t do, the system won’t even work with those.

– Budget cuts, sorry.”

Later…

“How’s this task going along?

– Everything is set to go, but as is it won’t fulfill the task.

– What’s keeping you from doing the task?

– I need 15 more computers and 20 USB3 flash drives.

– Ok, we’ll order more ASAP, they’ll be here in two years. Make sure everything’s running by September though.”

Are things like this everywhere or is it just at my job?

1. There’s never anything important.

Girlfriend took the time off in advance to see a best friend she hasn’t seen in two years for literally one day.

Work is currently telling her that they’re scheduling a mandatory employee meeting everyone needs to go to or else you get fired.

Keep in mind there is barely anything important that ever gets announced at these.

Kind of makes you feel better about your own BS, doesn’t it!?

Which one of these do you relate to? Have a story of your own?

Let us know in the comments!

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