Antiwork

[Scarlet]

I was going to quit back when I first started at this company. Had a hellish summer, left for vacation in California, talked with my brother and his friends - thought I’d fly out there and look for a job. Told my family I was going to do it. Got home from LA, went back to work on Monday to catch up, go through emails. Made the decision to give my notice Tuesday at my 1 on 1. That Tuesday was September 11. Never had the 1 on 1. Completely changed my mindset. I thought, what am I complaining about? Just had my 23rd anniversary there in February.

 

[MissThundercat]

I was looking for a second PT job because the "gig economy" isn't enough.

I thought about Torrid, the plus size retailer, and then I I learned it would only pay $11/hr.

 

[psych]

Had a kid threaten to kill my wife and me today while I had him in a hold due to dangerous behavior. Told me “I know you live here. I live here too, pu—y. I’ll wait for you outside when you leave work, follow you home, and kill you and your wife.” Cheers! I love my job.

 

[MissThundercat]

Kid today: took food into their room, slammed a remote on the TV stand, was argumentative with a peer, slammed their bedroom door and a few other things.

Second shift came in and asked what happened, and I told them based on what I saw, kiddo should not be allowed to go on the merit outing today, but it was up to second shift.

Kiddo: "But all the other kids do those things!"

Every day i tell myself that I'm their staff, not their friend.

 

[Kepler]

I just sat through a meeting that was such a waste of time I literally almost screamed. And it wasn't even senior management, we did it to ourselves.

Business people should not debate technical implementation details. They aren't up to it. Just give requirements and sit there and look pretty.

 

[wolverineTrumpet]

So a company is coming in to look at some of our product. I'm the contact person because the person that should be didn't step up to do it. They try to arrange a date to come and offer a Saturday. I tell them we are closed on Saturdays, so Friday at 4 pm they write to say they'll be there the next business day. I check my email on the weekend for whatever reason, and respond back to them that I won't be at work Tuesday (or Wednesday). Later yesterday the inspector writes back, "i'll be there around 10:30 Tuesday".

Awesome. Hopefully the person that should have stepped up to this task will, as I forwarded the email. I'm off on a road trip to the lovely destination of Akron today. whee. Manufacturing sites are in such exotic locations.

 

[Kepler]

I'm off on a road trip to the lovely destination of Akron today. whee. Manufacturing sites are in such exotic locations.

Elkhart beckons.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Reminds me of a semiconductor manufacturer that is (was?) a massive customer of ours. Insisted on inspections of our production facility and usually on short notice. Very formal.

I think we usually spent in the range of $20k every visit to clean up the production area. Painting, replacing insulation, cleaning floor surfaces, etc. The end product had to be insanely pure.

Anyways, they always insisted on their timing and we accommodated. Which was fine because we made a shit ton of money off that line. The margin had to be north of 1,000%. Might have even been closer to 5,000%.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Business people should not debate technical implementation details. They aren't up to it. Just give requirements and sit there and look pretty.

It's not just business stakeholders. There are system admins and junior devs who shouldn't be part of solutioning or debating the "how", but nevertheless some of them do. That is why we have dev leads and technical architects.

 

[Kepler]

It's not just business stakeholders. There are system admins and junior devs who shouldn't be part of solutioning or debating the "how", but nevertheless some of them do. That is why we have dev leads and technical architects.

OK but I like to have those junior technical staff at the table because it's how they learn and grow. And you never know, sometimes they do have new solutions and can break up GroupThink.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

OK but I like to have those junior technical staff at the table because it's how they learn and grow. And you never know, sometimes they do have new solutions and can break up GroupThink.

That is true, yes. In my area of expertise, the platform has a lot of ways to fulfill a requirement, but there is usually a best practice solution and juniors have to learn and apply those best practices.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

We unfortunately had to terminate a manager from my department last week. Too much alcohol in Vegas the week before at our company retreat, and too much said to a female coworker. *rolleyes*

My understanding is that the victim is OK, but obviously the perp had to go. I wasn't privy to the details of what he said, but from more than one source it was reportedly "egregious". I talked about the guy with my director during our 1:1 Friday, because I used to report to him before I was promoted. We both agreed that he has all the signs of an alcohol problem. When he's working on something he enjoys, he's all-in burning the midnight oil - a terrific employee. When he feels bored, ignored, and/or under-appreciated, he gets stupid drunk at company events and has to be escorted back to his room. Something like this felt bound to happen with him eventually, it's just disappointing. He had a ton of industry experience after 20 years at Microsoft, but just couldn't keep his drinking under control and his mouth shut.

One of my comments coming out of this edition of our annual retreat is that if the company truly espouses the "One of Us" tenant of our official culture code, we need options for official evening social activities that don't involve loud parties with guest DJs and gallons of booze. I also don't think it's going to be in Vegas again, because the point was to have it coincide with our vendor/partner's big annual conference, and the consensus was that everyone who presented at the partner conference hated walking back and forth between the two different venues. Therefore, they ended up missing a lot of our topic-specific internal sessions/breakouts.

Our sales and marketing staff collected over 3,000 leads though, which was the main goal. So, our sales folks have their work cut out for them over the coming months to convert at least 1/3 of them to prospects. The march to being a $1b firm continues...

 

[MichVandal]

Fade- honest question- do those parties and get togethers make you a more effective worker? I never went to any after a few years after I had to listen to coworkers talk about stuff that I didn't want to know. So I stopped going so that I didn't question the motivations of my coworkers. I never saw anything that would violate any rules, but to see some of people totally suck up to people that I hear them complain about when they stopped by my desk- yea, no.

While I got some beef about it, I then asked how knowing people personally made me a more effective worker. I got no reply.

I never saw the value of forcing me to be "friends" with everyone I worked with. Working friends, I'm totally ok with. Personally, no- I have zero desire to get to know everyone I work with- I'll choose those people on my own.

 

[Proud2baLaker]

While I got some beef about it, I then asked how knowing people personally made me a more effective worker. I got no reply.

I never saw the value of forcing me to be "friends" with everyone I worked with. Working friends, I'm totally ok with. Personally, no- I have zero desire to get to know everyone I work with- I'll choose those people on my own.

So much this. I hate when people think the people you work with should also be your friends. Let your friends be your friends, your co-workers your co-workers. If you genuinely find yourself becoming friends with a co-worker fine, but it shouldn't feel forced.

I go out for an occasional Friday drink with my employees. I will go ice fishing maybe once or twice a year with one employee. But that's about it. I try to keep my personal life separate.

My company enrolled a bunch of leadership type people in some online leadership training thing. I thought it was like a short deal with like 2 or 3 months of online things but I was wrong. I did month 2 because I thought that was the important one (one of those darn "what type of leader are you?" tests) but once I realized it was supposed to be for the full year, I stopped. To much of it was "share a time in your life when X" and it felt like it was asking to much as some of the questions seemed to require answers that were not work related at all. Some of the people on my team were people I never met and never work with directly. I did not feel the need to share anything remotely personal with them. Thankfully, the training was not mandatory and my supervisor never said a word to me about skipping out (he doesn't participate either).

 

[SJHovey]

I think you guys are looking at this all wrong, and hurting yourselves in the process.

Company social events are not designed to force you to become friends with your co-workers. They are designed to give you the opportunity to become friends with co-workers, to communicate differently with co-workers than by text or email, to develop relationships. And relationships are really important if you want to advance your career.

I'll use Cafe as an example. We've all probably drawn mental pictures of what posters look like, sound like, act like, or how they communicate. In some instances you might be dead on, but I guaranty that in others you'd be very surprised.

That is what company social events are about. They get you out from behind the screens and let you talk to people face to face. Human beings need that personal, direct socialization. You will benefit by it. Candidly, humans are getting worse at, mostly due to technology.

The other thing that it does is that it gives you a chance to show what kind of decisions you are capable of making. When people are encouraged to relax and have a good time, to you relax and have a good time or do you get drunk and make a pass at your boss?

The reason you all think it's stupid is not because it is stupid. It's because you're introverts, and it's hard.

 

[Scarlet]

My issue with these types of events is I'm usually on the team planning it and I have to work during them and don't get to enjoy it.

So, last Friday, the head of our business unit sent out an email to a blog post about the new return to work policy. Starting in September, they want employees back in the office at least twice a week. Doesn't affect me as I've been going in twice a week for the past year. There is a distance requirement - meaning if you live withing 50 miles of our office, you have to come in. Anyway, I get why they're doing it but man, I read the comments from employees and they were NOT happy. I have a feeling a lot of people moved during the pandemic and now it's a challenge to get into the city. A lot of people were hired over the past three years and were considered remote employees but now they have to start coming in. Many people commented on the fact that the blog post was dropped at 1:30 on a long weekend, which was the first thing I thought of. I think that sucks. Very poorly done. This could get ugly.

 

[MichVandal]

I think you guys are looking at this all wrong, and hurting yourselves in the process.

Company social events are not designed to force you to become friends with your co-workers. They are designed to give you the opportunity to become friends with co-workers, to communicate differently with co-workers than by text or email, to develop relationships. And relationships are really important if you want to advance your career.

I'll use Cafe as an example. We've all probably drawn mental pictures of what posters look like, sound like, act like, or how they communicate. In some instances you might be dead on, but I guaranty that in others you'd be very surprised.

That is what company social events are about. They get you out from behind the screens and let you talk to people face to face. Human beings need that personal, direct socialization. You will benefit by it. Candidly, humans are getting worse at, mostly due to technology.

The other thing that it does is that it gives you a chance to show what kind of decisions you are capable of making. When people are encouraged to relax and have a good time, to you relax and have a good time or do you get drunk and make a pass at your boss?

The reason you all think it's stupid is not because it is stupid. It's because you're introverts, and it's hard.

I saw my entire department on a regular basis. Some daily, some weekly, some monthly. But we all lived in cube farm so we saw everyone face to face. And in that time, I learned which ones that I could barely tolerate. So that's not a valid reason.

We socialized in meetings, too. Where you are face to face, there's always small talk before and after meetings. So there's that.

And I never once thought they were truly places where you could relax, BECAUSE you were also supposed to network for your career- theoretically. So there's that. I never really saw anyone that "hustled" at those events have a productive path to being a manager or technical specialist.

Again, the part I really hated was 1) seeing people suck up (not network) to bosses when they were complaining about the same people and 2) learning things about my co-workers that seriously questioned their motivation to do good work- which is the exact opposite that these things are supposed to do. Let alone learning that few of my co-workers actually share any thing that I'm interested in. I've never seen one person I've worked with at any Michigan hockey game, let alone the concerts we go to, or the other arts events we go to.

You don't address either of those flaws.

Being an introvert needs to be allowed, not forced to comply.

Funny thing that for the last decade or so of working, the individual had to pay their own money to go to the events.... I'm not paying to go to "senior day" at the local fun place. Yes, the best they could come up with for an event was an afternoon at one of those places that seniors go to when they graduate from high school for an afternoon. It was bad enough that the previous events were bowling or golf- things I've not done much of since college.

 

[MichVandal]

My issue with these types of events is I'm usually on the team planning it and I have to work during them and don't get to enjoy it.

Sorry to let you know that there's a non zero amount of people who really hate those events. It's not your work that's the issue.

 

[SJHovey]

I saw my entire department on a regular basis. Some daily, some weekly, some monthly. But we all lived in cube farm so we saw everyone face to face. And in that time, I learned which ones that I could barely tolerate. So that's not a valid reason.

We socialized in meetings, too. Where you are face to face, there's always small talk before and after meetings. So there's that.

And I never once thought they were truly places where you could relax, BECAUSE you were also supposed to network for your career- theoretically. So there's that. I never really saw anyone that "hustled" at those events have a productive path to being a manager or technical specialist.

Again, the part I really hated was 1) seeing people suck up (not network) to bosses when they were complaining about the same people and 2) learning things about my co-workers that seriously questioned their motivation to do good work- which is the exact opposite that these things are supposed to do. Let alone learning that few of my co-workers actually share any thing that I'm interested in. I've never seen one person I've worked with at any Michigan hockey game, let alone the concerts we go to, or the other arts events we go to.

You don't address either of those flaws.

Being an introvert needs to be allowed, not forced to comply.

Funny thing that for the last decade or so of working, the individual had to pay their own money to go to the events.... I'm not paying to go to "senior day" at the local fun place. Yes, the best they could come up with for an event was an afternoon at one of those places that seniors go to when they graduate from high school for an afternoon. It was bad enough that the previous events were bowling or golf- things I've not done much of since college.

Neither one of the two things you identified are actually "flaws." You learned something at the event that you didn't previously know. Can you trust or depend upon the person that complained about his or her boss to you privately, but then sucked up to that boss at the party? Were they making those statements to you to see if they could get you to agree and say your own bad things about the boss? Are they a person who just says what they think others want to hear?

Me, personally I like to know if there is a reason not to trust someone, or something they might tell me, and you learned that about at least one of your co-employees.

As for them not sharing your interests, that might actually be a positive. Granted, it's a lot easier to hold a conversation with someone about something you both are interested in, but don't always look to take the easy way out. You might actually learn something interesting, or develop a new interest.

 

[Proud2baLaker]

I'm not talking about company social events specifically. My company only does 1 or 2 of those each year (that are company sponsored), and I usually go to 1 of them if they do 2. I am talking about just regular co-workers who feel like they need to be friends with the people they work with. That they should be doing more together outside of work and who feel the need to share everything about their lives. Your Michael Scott types. I work with and have worked with some of those types and I hate it (but I do not let it affect they way I treat/work with them). As for the leadership training, it was optional and will have absolutely no bearing on any advancement I get through my company. I know this for a fact as my supervisor, our COO, has told me this directly and he is someone who is far more concerned with results (we are an aquaculture company raising fish, relationships are important yes, but results are way way more important). And I spend half my day at most in front of a screen. I interact with my crew (5 people I supervise) and the other department at my site (10+ people) everyday. I also interact with folks from other sites and departments in person, on video calls, and voice calls regularly. So, while introverted, it really doesn't have anything to do with it as I have had no problem being around people when I need to be.