Working in an office: a rant

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a sarcasm diary entry because life is just generally busy and stressful, so I’ve been gathering less highlights to share.

‘The Sarcasm diaries’ is basically a cute name I gave my rants, it’s been a while, so strap in. I’ve been in my current job around 9 months, all jobs previously have pretty much only been in retail. There are some definite benefits to working in the office environment but this is not what we will be focusing on today…

 

First thing I would like to say is:

PRINTERS ARE THE DEVIL INCARNATE AND I DEARLY HOPE WHOEVER INVENTED THEM IS IN THE DEEPEST CIRCLE OF HELL RIGHT NOW

The printers in my work place can jam in a total of 7 places, sometimes it jams IN ALL BLOODY 7 OF THEM AT ONCE.

Secondly, emails.

Dear God, why have one verbal conversation where 30 emails can do the trick? And whoever invented the ability to CC people into emails should be with the printer inventor in hell. Moreover, whoever invented blind CC’ing  is a sadistic bastard who is so evil that hell itself probably spat them back out. Somehow the emailing has become a necessary evil but I think we can all agree that we’d get a lot more shit done if weren’t so busy answering emails.

My next issue is people’s defensiveness of their stuff my desk, my mug, my departments pens, paper etc, our kettle, our microwave not yours. My list of useful numbers for the building, my information not yours. You know what, after all we get taught about sharing in school, I can’t see one supposed ‘adult’ willing to lend you so much as one sheet of paper without giving you a derisery tut. In retail we had a kitty that we all chipped into to buy tea and coffee for everyone to use, or management would take care of that out of guilt for paying you minimum wage on a zero hour contract.

Also, one suprising thing I miss about retail is people having your back. If it was bad day, or you’d made a minor error, you can bitch to your colleague and they would just agree ‘yeah mate, it was a bad day’ because people are awful and retail is hard but at least your team would agree and leave it there. Going to management about a conversation (unless you’ve literally stolen something etc) is tantamount to being a snitch in prison. In an office, it is actually considered common practice and normal. This is not based on my experiences, it’s just something I noticed happening so I made some enquries with friends and family and it seems this is just the way it is in an office, it would appear that with some keyboard annonymity, comes underhandedness. 

I also miss how your word was implicitly believed over a customers because people are mean and awful and life in retail is a constant war against the ‘I want to talk to your manager’ generation.

My final and biggest hatred are the buisness buzz words such as:

‘Action this’  – ACTION IT? ALL I’M DOING IS FILING SOMETHING

‘End of play’ – I’M SORRY? I DIDN’T REALISE WE WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF A MATCH, MY BAD

Here’s some others, I’ve tried to provide some definitions for what I think they actually mean:

‘quick catch up’ – a meeting people can interrupt

‘can I have a quick word’- you’ve fucked up pal.

‘working lunch’ – sad sandwich whilst nodding effusely time

‘touch base’ – I don’t want to send another bloody email, so we’re going to have a relatively pointless phone call/ meeting

‘not a good use of my time’- I consider myself above this task and, therefore, above you

‘I’m not sure this falls under me’- not my problem mother fucker

 

Now I feel much better, I would just like to add that I enjoy my job immensely and I work with great people doing very cool stuff. This is not about them or the job, this is about the world of office work from my newbie perspective!

What bullshit buzz words do your work place use? Comment your most hated ones below!