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True Life: I work with a space cadet
I am so fed up with my co-worker that I have taken half days or personal time when I know that I will be stuck working with her. Our office is very laid back, has great hours, great benefits, and is exactly what I went to college for. I love my job....except for my space cadet of a co-worker. She is a very nice woman and alot of times it's just the 2 of us working together in an office the size of 1 story small house. At first I thought she's just ditzy and forgetful...but then I realized that she may be insane! She lives 2 minutes from work and is atleast 5 minutes late almost everyday. She has gone home for her 1 hour lunch break and forgot what time it was and was late in getting back. Our boss and other co-worker who is our supervisor just try to blow it off because they've tried disciplining her, lecturing her, and pretty much anything else but our boss is too loyal to fire her. I get most of the work that comes into our office because our supervisor doesn't trust her to get it done because she forgets about it or does it wrong and then we have to correct it. I am glad that my supervisor recognizes that I can get the job done and I feel that this is good job security in that I am valued in the office. Just to illustrate her craziness, here a few examples (mostly to laugh at but sometimes it makes me mad)
1. Asked to assist me with some of my work while I was busy so I agreed to finally let her help...I get back from lunch and by "helping" she answered 2 calls that I had been waiting on. For one call she wrote down the e-mail address wrong and for the 2nd call she wrote down the wrong number.
2. Has come in on a Saturday because she forgot what day it was.
3. Doesn't watch the news or any tv so when our office was closed during a snowstorm, she came in until she realized no one was coming in.
4. I gave her a name and contact info to call to request some brochures in our office. The entire time she called the person by the wrong name even though it was written down in front of her.
5. Occassionally our boss will let us leave a little early on a Friday if it's a nice, sunny, summer day - she has told people when they call our office that they need to call by a certain time because our boss may let us go early. Don't tell them that!!!
6. She will walk around eating popcorn and let the pieces fall on the floor and not pick them up...also if the bag leaks butter in the microwave she won't wipe it up....not because she isn't mean and doesn't care but because she's oblivious and didn't even see it.
7. She repeatedly leaves the water running in the sink, leaves the lights on when she is the one to close the office.
8. Perhaps my favorite...I had to drive her home from work because she couldn't find her car keys. She had a spare at home to get so I had to run her back to work. When we got back to work...her keys were sitting on the hood of her car. When she was digging for them in her purse, she set them aside so she "wouldn't lose them".
Just letting off a little steam on a Monday morning : ) Anyone else have any funny/bizarre/annoying co-workers to share stories?
Re: True Life: I work with a space cadet
Is it possible she is learning disabled or possibly under the influence?
She also may have a hearing or vision problem, also. Vision and hearing problems can indeed reak havoc on what you hear/see and what you comprehend.
So can certain other medical problems. Thyroid problems can and will make you forgetful and kill your attention span. And if this lady is in menopause or near menopause age, hormonal problems will also kill your attention span.
At any rate, something is wrong with this picture. No reasonable person is continually late for work and no reasonable person is this forgetful. She may have a learning disability or maybe even a drug and/or alcohol problem.
Maybe she's got something going on at home she won't fess up to -- who knows? and that's why she's continually late. Maybe there is a ill spouse or a child she needs to get to daycare and the kid is unruly or won't cooperate; who knows?
At any rate, she needs to be on time. And if it's a thing where she needs more time to get to work, maybe she can ask the boss if she can come in at 9:30 instead of 9and then leave a half hour later, providing she IS at work on time at 9:30 each day.
Is all of this very recent behavior? Just wondering. (on the off chance, she may have problems at home, if her work habits/job habits have recently been a factor.)
You could nip the late from lunch issue in the bud: your boss can make it effective immediately, nobody leaves the building for lunch. All of you eat in the breakroom or outside of the building proper, if there's somewhere to sit outside.
This way she can't go home and come back excessively tardy from lunch.
What your boss needs to do:
Call her into the office and say, "Mary, we love you and we love your addition to our team but we are not crazy about certain aspects of your performance..." and then out line what the deficiencies are.
Give her a list of what the office rules are for cleanliness, making sure the breakroom and workstations are relatively clean of crud, leaving lights on/off, etc -- and request, in writing, that she review the rules and then -- in front of your boss, sign and date the item. Your boss should do the same.
Same goes for lateness rules. There has to be a definite company policy in place for directives about lateness, absenteeism, etc.
Let her know what the rules for performance are; same thing -- give her a list of what's what and what the standards should be for satisfactory performance and have her sign and date it. Your boss does the same.
I would give Mary, also in writing, a period of time for her to more or less shape up or ship out. And if she doesn't comply, terminate her. Let her know that's what the deal will be up front: she has X days to improve or she will no longer be working there.
I worked with a guy who did the same: got the telephone number wrong or sometimes he'd even write down an incomplete phone number. sheesh, 9 numbers, and not 10, isn't going to help me if I need to return this person's call.:(
It was maddening.
And what was horrific: the boss did nothing at all about it.
I wish that I could blame it on a health issue but I really don't think it's the case. She has 2 children which are grown and out on their own and she has been divorced for over 20 years. I believe she may be bipolar because some days she seems fine but other days it's like she's horrible. My supervisor and I have talked about it at length and we truly feel that it's just the way she is. She does things at the pace she wants, when she wants, and doesn't care about anyone. She has perfect vision and her hearing seems fine. We have been chatting on a boring afternoon and in the middle of our conversation she'll pick up the phone and start calling friends/family just to chat. We all know that if we want to schedule any time off for vacations/the holidays we have to do it in advance and put it on our office calendar because if not, she is notorious for taking time off. I got married last spring and her boyfriend, at the time, got tickets to a local stop on the PGA tour. My supervisor was already off on vacation that week so she called me on my honeymoon to ask if I could come home a day early so that she could take off on Friday to go to the PGA tour. Obviously I told her no way and told her to figure it out herself.
Also, one thing she will do is run to the store for office supplies and will just get up and go whenever she wants. She said she was going to make a quick trip and I told her that I had a dr. appt and told her what time I'd be leaving. Well I waited and waited and she didn't come back in time. So I called her cell phone to check and tell her that I would have to close the office if she wasn't back in time (which our boss hates for us to do). She said that she had gone to the store but wanted to stop for lunch (which we get 1 hr) and then she forgot if she left her garage door open so she had to run home to check it. She never offered an apology. She truly doesn't care about anyone's time but herself.
Sometimes her forgetfullness can be funny but usually it's just annoying and sometimes it makes me downright mad.
I answered a phone call the other day and the person said that they received a call from our office...since there's only 3 of us, I knew that I didn't take the call so I checked with my officemate. She said that she didn't recognize the name and that it wasn't her. So then I checked with my other co-worker and she said that she hadn't placed any calls. I told the woman that I wasn't sure who called but I'd be happy to help her. After I take the phone call and start helping the woman...my officemate says ohh...is that (then says the womans name) and said I did call her this morning. Seriously?!
Something is def. not right but sometimes she can be totally fine and then others it's like she just comes in when she wants, leaves to run errands for the office when she wants, and just doesn't care. It's awful that my supervisor and boss let her carry on like this but on the other hand, sometimes it's just easier to let her do as she wants. It's like sometimes she seems to mess everything up, but other times she does a great job. It just depends on what she feels like doing.
So you're resigned to it being the norm and standard operational bullsh!t?
Well, good luck with this one. This is somebody who has a most definite problem.
This isn't the case of a bona fide misunderstood digit in a phone number or the case of an email addy being mistranscribed in the mix (ie you didn't know it was an underscore; you had to call the person back to verify the email addy) -- this is not normal behavior and something is erratically wrong with this person.
When you are at work, you work! you just don't pick up and go because you have wanderlust or just because. What she is doing is bullshit -- and just between me and you and the lamp post, I will bet you she is getting away with 99% of this garbage because she can! she knows she won't get fired and that the pushover boss and staff will never even open their mouths about it!
And someday someway, this employee will wind up costing your company a good chunk of money. This is a recipe for disaster: wait until she pisses somebody off and you lose a major account. Or something else happens that will cost the company money, thanks to her.
What about company policy about terminations? are you a "3 warnings and you're out"? Maybe it's time to institute that policy, even if you're in an "at will employment" state.
It is a shame this person's fully employed when there is close to 19% unemployment (remember the U6 number; it's 19% not 9.6%) and there is somebody out there seeking a job who will JUMP at the chance to be a fantastic addition to your team and will prove it ever second he or she is there.
Do the smart thing. Do not tolerate this; tell her that there's a new company policy: 3 warnings for an issue and on the third warning, it's the keys to the road. And then stand behind it.
And then hire yourselves a QUALITY employee. Not somebody who has you and the boss and everybody else at her beck and call.