@#$%@#$ coworkers!

[Timmain42]

Does anyone else have a complete idiot for a coworker?

I've been working for the last *9* months on building Flash-based online learning materials based on a pretty specific outline. The people in charge of the content have come and gone, but in January, the boss hired the "perm" content lady. I thought this would be great, but I've learned a few things:

1) She talks the talk, but can't walk the walk.
2) Somehow, she talked her boss into letting her "work from home," which really means she does very little and is completely unsupervised.
3) She was supposed to have been feeding me content and other information for the last three months, but I recently found out *when she admitted to my boss* that she hadn't done ANYTHING for the last month so she could study for school exams.
4) Now, placing content takes time, it's not instantaneous. Well, my boss gave us a deadline of Thursday afternoon to get 4 courses done... so don't you know she gives me 2/3rds of the remaining content LAST NIGHT with a promise that she's going to "smooth it over" with my boss. So now, since this is going to be late, *I'M* going to be the one responsible because she already gave me all the content by the deadline, strictly speaking.
5) MONTHS AGO, I finished all the hard programming in Flash, setting up the courses according to a strict guideline. She's suddenly (one day before the deadline) decided that we have to add in a bunch of stuff to one of the courses, which means I have to take at least 4-6 hours to rewrite and reprogram this course.

She's placing my ability to get my contract renewed in jepordy. I'm so p***ed I can hardly see straight, yet I have to bust my hump to fix all this stuff so it doesn't look bad on me. I've already let my boss *and* her boss know what's going on (since I see both of them every day, unlike my coworker) but I have a hard time believing that this level of unprofessionalism can still exist in the working world... and people still get away with this stuff. How do these people not get fired?!?!

[Dangerdoll]

UGH!! Tim, I feel your pain! Good luck with the project though..... just concentrate on getting it done and try not to let this get in the way of it, may tangle things up and cause delay. Then when the project IS finished and she tries to claim credit, "then" will be your chance to blow her up..... stating she had little if anything to do with it... Unfortunately though, in the meantime is when it sucks.... but believe me, I do know your pain.... sorry bud!

[125gJoe]

If ones' livelyhood is threatened, one must take action to prevent loss, demotion, etc...

Good luck with the situation and I hope it gets better!!

[OrionGirl]

I've never understood that myself. I always have lots of downtime, simply because I am waiting on other people to get info to me, make decisions, etc. I learned long ago that all I could do was keep track of when I was supposed to get things, when I actually did, and who was late. I let me boss know when I'm going to have problems meeting a deadline, what is needed for me to meet the deadline, and what I've done to try to meet it. So far, he's been very understanding, and I've had no problems. I don't hold it against my co-workers--but in my situation, they have a significant amount of other work that they must get done as well--meeting my needs is important, but seldom their top priority. It sucks, but I've learned to work around it and minimize impacts on me.

[flyingfish]

I totally feel your pain. Except my boss was the one to "lose" a project in his van, then expect me to work extreme overtime to get it to the customer when promised. I was stupid enough to agree to do some freelance work for them months after we had mutually split. Of course it was the same story, "Here I know it's noon on Friday but we need this by Monday afternoon!" :devil: I will NOT be doing any more jobs for them. :p: It's good that you can let the bosses know what's going on.

[cloud]

I really hate getting messed about like that. it's even worse when your self employed as it costs you money and effects your rep, which effects your ability to get more work.

Here's my 2c on your situation:

If the bosses know how she's behaved and still don't do anything about it then they sound as bad as her. You have to ask yourself how much you want to work for idiots as much as you have to ask yourself how much you want to work alongside idiots.

As a self employed designer I build Flash sites to and take on contracts myself. And I've learnt that bad clients can be worse that no clients when you end up getting the run around. I've been messed about with deadlines so i ended up working weeks longer than i should've on stuff. I've been messed about with payments, and I've had clients change briefs without notifying me (I spent a week designing a logo for a company who were called Swallow only for them to say 'oh that's nice but did'nt we tell you, we've changed our name to Show Pony so we don't want to pay you for the swallow logo as we don't need it anymore').

when you start you think you need to keep all your clients no matter what. But trust me, these clients are just not worth it.

a few tips on how not to get messed about as a self employed business person:

1, Get EVERYTHING in writing. it's obvious but it needs saying as sometimes your tempted to do stuff on a handshake and a verbal agreement so as to foster good relationships. Everytime i do this i ended up getting screwed to some extent.
2, like OG says. Keep your clients/bosses briefed so they know you're dependant on external factors when meeting deadlines.
3, make sure they know their responsibilities as well: before i undertake a job I hand over a timetable that includes what I agree to get finished and when, and what i expect done by them and when.
If I go over deadline due to anything that's my fault then i don't charge extra. but if they fail to meet their deadlines and i end up on the project longer than expected then i charge extra by the day. and I have that writen into any agreement agreement before i start.


HTH

[sublime1184]

I don't know how they last, and I think they are not only Running Rampid through town to screw good workers up, they are ignorantly enjoying it! Sux, I know. I have 11 co-workers in my small office, of which three are dumb supervisors and 8 are dumb co-workers. Only been working in this Medical Billing\Insurance for like 2 months and I know more than most there :rolleyes: The worst part is the dependency, if I didn't depend on them (or them depend on me), I would be a happy camper. I need to start my own business. Good luck to ya and I hope you can overcome the idiocy that surrounds :D

[judgemax]

well i know this sounds kinda sissyfied but don't complain to much ...let them know the situation and them do your job and because you succeeded in a bad situation without a monster major bi*ch session you will look better ..showing that you can still meet your potentiol even when every other idiot is fallig on their face, just think how great this will look on your resume for that dream job you have now worked so hard for ..i know it sucks o bite the bullet but in the real world sometimes the ones who have the battle scars from the bullet get all the attention! good luck with your project ..btw

[Timmain42]

Thanks all.

Diplomacy is not the problem. I used to be the aquarium service "smooth-over" guy for the biggest LFS in town, and my wife still says "You're a good one," because I'd rather not get upset than get indignent with stupid people.

One of these days tho... :)

[FishSeller]

I would take Cloud's advice: EVERYTHING in writing. Use a to-do book on your computer to document everything that you've done for the company as well as what the ignorance of others has caused you.

[Ramirezi]

hang in there keep your chin up....what goes around comes around...i worked with a guy that i trained and when i trained him i warned my supervisor that he just wasnt getting it. and he would outright lie to my supervisor that i hadnt showed him how to do this procedure or that procedure. when i had paperwork that he signed off on that stated that i did. he also had no phone etiquette. he'd chew out people or just answer the phone "hello?" no greeting no identification nothing.
our job is difficult and requires lots of research and legwork. and patience. we depend on the arresting agencies and clerks of courts for cooperation. if we get snotty with them, then we lose our contacts. this guy had an attitude and i had to always smooth things over with our contacts.
after nearly a year of putting up with his incompetence, attitude, making up his own work hours, and everything else, he was let go yesterday. he finally did something so horrendously wrong that it caught the attention of the higher ups and was finally forced to resign.
i had to keep my cool though for nearly a year. i just had to keep telling myself "i love my job i love my job". because i really didnt want to lose my job if i lost my temper and went off on this guy. and i really did like my job except for this one person.
and i did what cloud suggested..keep a log. in my case, i made copies of work that he screwed up on and it fell on me to fix it. and my supervisor asked for this info a few weeks ago. this probably helped her in getting him let go as well.

[Timmain42]

Congrats Ram!

[Ramirezi]

thanks, we thought it would never happen though. it just took so long, he just kept blaming his mistakes on others and finally i guess he got caught in his lies.
:clap:

[Unome]

I totally feel your pain. Except my boss was the one to "lose" a project in his van, then expect me to work extreme overtime to get it to the customer when promised. I was stupid enough to agree to do some freelance work for them months after we had mutually split. Of course it was the same story, "Here I know it's noon on Friday but we need this by Monday afternoon!" :devil: Just repeat this next time they call: Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency that must be resolved.

[nursie]

Tim..I feel your pain. I work with a guy that is such a slacker that the whole office knows..yet management refuses to do more that give him a little tap on the wrist occasionally. He's "unhappy" because of things he's been called on the carpet for..poor baby. We are trying to get him out. We feed him hints about job openings and are all hoping he leaves. Of course if he doesn't get the job he's applying for now I'm sure he'll be a real crab. He hasn't found anything else that he can get away with the crap he does here.

[Matak]

Dumb question Tim; is she pretty? Is she getting by on looks, not substance?

Just curious.

[Timmain42]

She might be pretty to some, but not to me. Here's a light and nonvolatile description:

58 yrs old
African-American
280 lbs.
100+ keloid scars
no teeth

Now, before anyone lights into me, I am being 100% serious, that's what she looks like. I'm not being mean about it, if I were going to be mean about it, I'd describe some of her more unpleasant attributes. If you were to ask me to describe her so you could pick her out of a crownd and neither of us knew her too well, I'd describe her the same way.

::edit:: I'm a dumb***, if she were hot, I probably wouldn't be *****ing about how she works.