"We'll wait a few more minutes for person X to join, then get the meeting started," like the other ten people who made the effort to show up on time deserve to be punished with extra meeting time for being responsible. Bonus points if this causes the meeting to run a few minutes long.
I talk to the C suite and lab staff regularly, sometimes, you can't duck out of front the muckity mucks, sometimes you can't leave a conversation with researchers and partners. But, I'm frequently the one who say, we're 5 minutes from close, 2 minutes from the end of our time, ok, we're going to have to drop off. With either.
Yeah, I'm totally cool with being late sometimes, but I know various folks where it'd be an exception, if they're not late, because they have meetings back-to-back all day long.
Always makes me feel like the official meeting start should be 5 minutes after or something, but I know that those folks aren't late for the fun of it. They'd definitely overrun those 5 minutes, if they knew they had them.
My frustration is less with the people who are late and more with the meeting host making the rest of the attendees sit around twiddling their thumbs waiting for the late person. Unless the late person's presence is the point of the meeting, just get started and let them catch up.
Have to agree with that, as I'm either hosting or presenting.
They tried to fix this at my work by changing the default values for an hour- or half-hour meeting. Half an hour would automatically become 25 minutes and an hour would turn into 50 minutes in the calendar.
The idea seemed to work at first, but people quickly adjusted and used those extra minutes to extend the meeting regardless.
My place of business has this dysfunction with meetings—Zoom being the biggest offender—where people just keep talking through the end of a meeting. 30-minute meetings become 35-40. 60-minute meetings becomes 65-70. And, with meetings frequently being back-to-back-to-back, invariably one or another person is late to the next one.
I think it’s because scheduling a meeting with all necessary parties is so difficult that if you don’t finish the thought, the next chance is at least a week away.
To top it off, we had a company-wide survey that spawned a working group to tackle the problem of meetings, whose suggestion was to update Outlook settings to automatically shorten meetings by X minutes—to allow people transit time, bathroom breaks, etc. Almost no one set that setting.
Maybe I am crazy but I always thought it was lazy as fuck to have meetings for absolutely everything. Like, how about you spend some time researching and analyzing a subject on your own before calling a meeting for every little step of the way.
Now I understand that there must be a balance, but man there was so many of those meetings where nobody has a clue on the subject and it is just pointless talking for over an hour. Another meeting is scheduled with another party as soon as that one meeting is over, and it is just back-to-back meeting with everyone in the company, slowly but surely deriving a solution from everyone opinion. Seems to me like people who do well in those environments are the lazy workers who just want to spend their whole days chatting in meetings.
Can we, at some point, derive a solution based on experimentation and verifiable facts? Can someone come up with a summary analysis with recommendations and possible solutions? Why does everything has to be the result of endless meetings, endless compromises with people without a clue, and end up being a shitty design-by-committee feature.
Anyway, could be just be a me thing, or specific to that place I worked at.
Just disconnect.
they don't respect the meeting time, they don't respect you.
If they couldn't fit everything in, then that's their problem for under booking the meeting.
eh. meetings are when you post on hexbear, a few extra minutes of posting is fine i think
That Edge is now the only "approved" browser anyone is allowed to use, per our admin (taking input from a third party security consultant). Most people in other departments don't care, they use whatever gets put in front of them because their needs are basic and their tolerance for bullshit is too high for their own good. The rest of us in IT (well most of us) hate it.
I had to go uninstall Chrome and even a few Firefox installations, manually, from any workstation that had them. And I've never felt dirtier in my job. Like everytime I punched in my credentials to authorize the uninstall, Microsoft's stock rose by the smallest amount.
Legitimately, the more of a Microsoft 365/Azure/Endpoint/Entra/Shithole/Power BI/SharePoint clusterfuck my workstation becomes, the less enthused I am about the entire IT profession.
Amen. Managed to ‘prove’ I was competent enough to run linux on my personal laptop due to a combination of needing me as an employee and that I was able to show why their RDS solution broke after an official windows update with xfreerdp.
I keep my windows workstation up to date and switched on - but all work is done from my laptop and no one’s questioned me so far.
Strictly according to the IT policy, Windows is not required - they just thought I wouldn’t be able to access anything without it. When I proved to the auditors that I met every checkbox on the requirements list, they said it was fine too xD
Any microsoft application. Constant bugs, crashes and a tendency to break everything if you accidentally use them in any other way than microsoft intended.
Also, ads in a fucking operation system? I don't see how anyone can find that acceptable.
I think MIUI was its pioneer. Even the settings app had ads.
At least they use that to sell you the hardware for cheap. Microsoft doesn't provide anything of value like that. In fact, they charge people for the OS and then have the audacity to add ads.
Oh shit this makes me have flashbacks to the one - and only - time I got a phone with MIUI. I could not believe how bad that Android skin was. As in, even Samsung in their pre-One heyday could not even come close to this bullshit.
Linux includes ads built into Firefox in a lot of the popular distros.
I'd say firefox doesn't qualify as OS but I get your point, distros do ship it by default.
The good thing is that those ads are just defaults, not permanently baked in. I can get rid of them in about 2 minutes. Mozilla doesn't sell your usage data so they need another way of funding themselves and I don't think there's a better way to do it.
The same can be said about the Windows ads. It's just a checkbox to turn off tips. Tips are useful a lot of the time so people don't want to turn them off. The second a tip isn't useful it's seen as an ad.
First of all, tips will automatically get enabled during some updates.
Secondly, tips notifictions telling you to use microsoft crap are not the only ads. You get fullscreen ads for office after booting that are made to look exactly like an installer, you get edge literally spamming you with popups when you try downloading another browser (that's closer to malware than an ad but I'll let it count).
You get ads in the settings menu as well and if you try to edit a video like you could on windows 7, you get the "fuck you, pay a subscription".
You also get ads in your start menu and of course, don't forget the start menu search that will rather show you a bing page full of ads than actually search for your files.
Please stop defending this bullshit, it benefits no one but microsoft and is actively making the world a worse place.
I've literally not seen any of the ads you are talking about (besides an office 365 install prompt at the end of an install) but I run a windows debloater tool on every install since windows 7. I also never had an update mess with the debloater stuff or turn ads back on.
Omg... I have tried to sound the whistle on a major mistake no less than 3 times in the last 7 years and they have all been ignored. I have taken to doing what I used to do with my female friends who had poor taste in men, tell them what is going to happen and let them know the only reason I am doing it is so I can say "told you so" later.
Heh. I've grown fond of the phrase "My resume is up to date, anyway. Go for it."
It’s as if thinking is shut down as soon as they enter the workplace.
There’s a high pitched sound coming from one of the air ducts. It’s driving me crazy but no one else seems to hear it.
They probably don't. Congratulations! You're either young or still have great hearing!
Or tinnitus
Tinnitus that only gets triggered at work?
At this time of year?!
May I hear it?
No
As much as I like to be flattered for still looking young, it's probably the latter option :)
I don’t work at the moment, but here is a list of stuff I’m glad to be away from:
That guy over there that grunts and coughs and clears his throat every 37 seconds.
Having ten minute standup meetings every day, that take at least 45 minutes every day and could have been replaced by looking at the status page in the wiki.
That other guy over there that raises his voice and yells and carries on every time he is on the phone, completely unaware that his phone has a microphone, and that anyone else exists
People who eat stinky stuff for lunch at their desk, chewing with their mouth open while watching the football at full volume. Go and use the lunch room, you inconsiderate fuck.
my boss over in the next cubicle who yells out someone’s name, expecting them to be there, and then yells a series of instructions whether they are there or not. I’m trying to think, can’t you just get up and walk all the way over to another cubicle to talk at a reasonable volume, like a normal person?
The woman that just started, sitting in the next cubicle, that reeks of foul perfume. I know when she arrives and leaves by the smog cloud, the revolting stench that follows her around the office, and the trail of people vomiting and struggling to breathe after she goes past. I tried to do the right thing and talk to her and she conveniently can’t speak English, unaware that I can hear her on the phone speaking flawlessly.
I'm sure you've got more, this is Dilbert-level stuff!
No doubt, I worked in large corporate offices most of my working life, and don’t I regret it…
We may have worked in the same office.
When people message with a "hi" or "hello" and then say nothing more till I reply.
It annoys the hell out of me. Like, why can't you just say what you want. It wastes so much of my time and mental energy to switch back and forth while I wait for your reply after replying to your utterly useless hello.
Especially infuriating when the other person is in a very different time zone. I once worked on a project with a partner company in a time zone 10 hours ahead of mine and it was common for trivial things to take days purely because the other person insisted on typing "Hi," waiting for my "Hi, what's up?" response (which they didn't see until the next day since our hours didn't overlap), and then replying with their question, which I didn't see until my next day. Answering the actual question often took like 30 seconds, but in the meantime two or three days had gone by.
I came to believe they were doing it on purpose so they could constantly slack off and tell their boss they were blocked waiting for my answer.
What's worse, after you "hi" them back, some people (looking at you project managers) just ducking call without any explanation. Drives me nuts
Reject call.
'why didn't you answer'
'I'm not available for calls right now'
'why'
'that's not your business'
I've wandered down this road a few times now.
Got reported to my manager for doing just that. My rule was simple: if you're not my boss, I need to know what the call is about in advanced.
I just explain the same as above.
If you're not paying me for my time, you're not entitled to it, nor an explanation of what I do in my own time.
If we're talking about time on the clock, that's a different story.
Or I think worse yet, I ask a question, and they don’t reply for a while so then when they do respond all they say is “hi.”
It infuriates me, I don’t need to be at my desk for you to answer the question I left you above! Ughhh
I just wait until they say more things. Hello is nothing.
I have tried this. I'm often reminded the next day that they still haven't received a reply from me.
I love that part.
I occasionally give people shit for this. Chat is asynchronous and I'm busy just ask me the question and I'll respond back when I can. Some people just won't learn though and I usually just leave them on read.
“Hi, we need to talk…”
My co-workers.
We have 3 (three. Three!!) redundant monitoring and alerting systems and have yet to detect the issues routinely found by our customers. Its not because we didn't detect them, it's because we have so many false positives we stopped looking (but still run the monitors).
Uuuuuugffhhhhhj
Who owns the monitoring systems? Are they accountable for the costs that they're imposing on the rest of the company?
Teams! It literally never works on Linux and you cannot change a single thing about it. I'm so tired of having to tell people that today my teams cannot share shit, which worked flawlessly yesterday.
Teams is garbage. This comes from someone who used it on windows, both on the app and web versions.
In teams, people above you get reports on all of the time you’ve spent in teams and can see all of your “private messages”! There’s a whole-ass dashboard for it!
Hmmm I hope that's not also the case with private messages on teams some 5 years ago. Pretty sure there was some condescending chats about uni teachers over private messages.
Oh well, I've graduated anyway and never again used the messaging function after that.
For anyone on Linux: teams-for-linux is an unofficial client that works way better than the official client. It's also in AUR
Teams is shit. I use it at work on Windows, and it's still shit.
Searching something in the chat? Complete dogshit. Half the times it just straight up doesn't work, the rest of the times it shows only the message where searched word is present and not the point in discussion when this message happened.
Keybinds. Non-customisable. Keybinds. Who in their right mind does that?! I once heard that keybind customisation would confuse "normies", which is complete moot. So-called "normies" won't go to the settings (or at least, to keybinds) anyway and will be either satisfied with defaults or won't use them at all.
It also cannot restrict how many notifications it displays in the corner - so when things are getting spicier at work, it spams whole right side of your screen (gods help you if you were working on the laptop with small screen atm, cause getting shit done will be impossible). So your 2 options will be to mute everything or continue getting spammed.
And then the whole point that it is even worse on Linux. And it's web version is crap, too. And that it is a bloted, laggy mess that is more in my way when I work than helps me.
Rant over, I guess?
the rest of the times it shows only the message where searched word is present and not the point in discussion when this message happened.
Uh, I just click the message and it sends you to the conversation where you can check what was said.
So your 2 options will be to mute everything or continue getting spammed.
You can also mute only the chat that's being spammy, but I agree with this one because I can't mute it for X mins and such.
It's curious how when the pandemic started people around me were super happy with Teams, comparing it to Google Meet and other meeting software, because it was one of the best services that simply worked, and over time they became more angry with it for all the bugs and weird decisions.
How bout the fact that everyone above you can see everything you do and all your “private messages”?
Can they? I don't really care, I don't use the corporate chat for personal things. I will act without regard to that, and if it comes to my knowledge that they did read them for the sake of controlling me, I'm going to fucking leave the company after talking to HR, that's an issue with the boss not the tool.
I do find that useful in a corporate scenario, where if someone leaves the should be able to retrieve all the information shared on those chats, and if you suspect that someone is saying things they really shouldn't to clients or colleagues, being able to check it is good.
I miss Teams. It was so bad, that anytime I forgot something, I was able to blame teams and no one questioned it. Since then I changed jobs, so can't do it anymore.
I use Teams very sparingly at work, but it occasionally decides it wants to auto-start when Windows turns on (ignoring my settings that disable it on startup).
Teams also occasionally decides that it wants to disconnect/break my Bluetooth headset connection. I don't always need Teams to do my job, but my Bluetooth headset is always required for what I do. The only way to restore functionality when this happens is to close Teams. I haven't figured out why it happens only some of the times, but it's annoying as fuck. I don't have that issue with any other programs doing that to my input devices.
If I had to guess, Teams is getting small updates when that happens to you. You have it turned off on startup, but if it gets an update and the end of that update is a restart of the program. And poorly designed updates tend to reset connections or settings. And Teams loves its updates. I wouldn't turn off the auto updates though if I was you. Usually they are security updates.
Don't schedule a &$&% meeting during lunchtime without serving up lunch to us!
Don't schedule a meeting at lunch time. Full stop.
My lunch time is me time. I'd prefer no lunch meetings ever. That's my walking time.
People have died for lesser offences than scheduling a meeting over lunch time and not serving lunch.
I hear you, but given that my "lunchtime" could be anywhere between 11:00 and 15:00 (and that's not even allowing for timezones), that's pretty impractical.
In my last two jobs in two different countries the unwritten rule is to not schedule a meeting between 12-13. Not everyone has lunch at the same time, and everyone is free to have lunch whenever they want, but this guarantees that you will have some time to have lunch even if you are booked by meetings around noon. But it doesn't really solve the timezone issue.
The noise. FML. If I have to listen to another coworker take calls at the top of their voice one cubicle over...
I'm not in the office frequently, but when I am, my supervisor and I just plan on getting absolutely no work done. It is soooo loud. We have cubicles and frequent teams meetings, and all that we can hear is everyone else's conversations.
Neither of us can concentrate with the constant noise interruption.
We have these breaking news tv screens all over the lunch room. I absolutely hate it, can I please enjoy my lunch in peace?
I’m always the one asked first. Fuck that. Don’t at all. Just … stop
Dirty pits. I work as a mechanic on busses and try to keep my pit clean. If the work I'm doing makes a lot of sand fall down, I sweep it aside so I don't walk through it. If the bus has a leak, I put something beneath it to catch the oil/coolant/fuel until I get to fix it.
Most of the coworkers don't care and their pit is a mess. They ask for help with something and you have to navigate through puddles and sand piles to get to them.
They also don't put the shared equipment back on its right place so you waste a lot of time trying to find it.
I thought you meant armpits at first...
Off topic, but I love that you are here!
I always loved at the old place that there were people from totally random professions sharing their knowledge. At the beginning, it was not very...diverse here in that regard. I'm glad you are here!
Any Microsoft App. Most annoying Excel. I'm working with it almost the whole day and some simple things can break it. Heck, when doing a bit more complex stuff, it brings my work computer to its knees. Like wtf.
My workplace switched from G Suite to all MS a while back. I was livid at first. MS Excel does have some good features that Sheets doesn't, and some of their formulas can be better functionally. But Google understands user experience better and it definitely runs more efficiently than Excel. Like, Excel, This workbook isn't set to share yet, it's entirely local. Why is every other window of Excel also updating every time I change something? They aren't affected!
Anyway, if possible, when I'm working on a really chunky workbook, if possible I'll do all the work offline in the app and everything else open in the browser. If I have to add it to a shared sheet, I'll just paste it in when I'm done and know it works. I work with excel lot, but it's mostly data sifting and I tend to use Excel in ways it was not designed for, so my formulas can get out of hand sometimes and be a bit much on larger sheets.
I have some huge files I gotta work with. Some access other office programs like Outlook.
Every damn time that thing is almost crashing. Also added that all the files are placed in a shared drive.
Oof. Yeah... Sometimes there's just no getting around it. That's rough. I've had some that when I was working on them I just knew that it should take 5 minutes but will end up being 30 because every input means I wait 5 minutes for it to catch up. We also have some that are used and continuously updated every day. I was finally able to convince them to archive old ones and get a new sheet every quarter.
Yeah. I know exactly what you mean. But it's a free break :D
Pizza parties, "lunch and learns", lunch at a restaurant with the boss...
All of that condescending shit that is intended and expected to deprive people of time away from the office, building, worksite, whatever if they need it.
I value my personal time and it's not easily replaced by free food.
Some of the other comments in the thread are great too...
Overabundance of redundant or unnecessary meetings in general is another one for me.
Mandatory webcam on calls/meetings. I get that it works for team building when half the developers are at home at any given time, but it exhausts me in meetings.
You sit there with nothing to say/do while you listen, constantly having to look forward and pay attention. Then your jaw starts to feel tense, but you can't just open your mouth or move around too much.
Total torture for 60+ minute meetings. In my previous company we had the webcams always off, so I could relax or if it was only talking with no presentation even sit on my couch away from the PC.
I’m not sure how much of this pressure is from your company or self-driven, but I always keep my webcam on and I don’t give a shit about sitting straight or looking attentive or whatever. Half the time I’m fucking around with stuff in the background. Nobody has ever said anything about it.
Agreed. I also frequently turn mine off for a minute or two to grab tea or snacks or whatever. Nobody's ever said anything. It's on ~90% of the time.
why can't you get comfy infront of the camera? Do they not allow you to join from a couch, and just record yourself?
What I always do is make sure I have something to fidget with off-screen. Either a little puzzle you can solve without looking or some activity I've done a hundred times before. I've spend quite a few online meetings doing my nails :)
Set up a small lock pick station just out of sight of the camera and then pick locks by physical feedback :)
An absolute lack of consideration in regards to chat etiquette. Man now that I think about it, it's chat threads/notification in particular.
People who carry on side conversations in threads. You're giving everyone else who has participated in the thread the choice of "disable notifications for this thread and risk missing something relevant come back around, or get a notification for every single side message they're sending". Especially when someone is chiming in like 4 hours later. "Glad you guys got this sorted out". Yes, all 12 of us on-call people in this thread needed to get that message direct to our phones at 3a.m. 4 hours after the outage has been resolved. Thanks for that. Very fucking helpful. High value communication.
People who will not use threads. I don't need a new fucking notification every 20 seconds because you guys are deciding to have a chat about e-bikes. Make a goddamn thread or use a room made for chit chat, we're all on the same team, we're all in on-call positions. I'm paid to respond when this thing makes a noise. I am NOT comfortable muting the team channel.
It's addressed elsewhere in these comments, but +1 to folks who just message you "hi". Go get stabbed.
On the topic of notification fatigue:
People who will just not finish a thought.
Before hitting their enter button.
So they end up like doing this thing.
Where you get a notification every 15 seconds, because they are just absolutely addicted.
To their enter key I mean.
They are addicted to thier enter key.
their*
Oh.
I guess I could have just edited that message instead of sending the correction with the thing.
Asterisk? Asterisx? I forget what it's called.
LOL.
Anyway, that thing.
Also, when I'm helping you I am 100% going to stop what I am doing every time I get a message and read the message. There's no way for me to know whether or not you're messaging me "Oh never mind, I had a typo" or "here is more relevant info to make your work easier". That message may very well have immediate impact on what I'm doing, and affect the course I take. Of course I'm going to stop what I'm doing to read it. So maybe don't wait 5 minutes to send me the message "k" after I kindly, thoughtfully provide you with the status update "I think it's the fizzibob, let me verify in the logs real quick" of my own volition so that you are not only aware of what's going on, but don't have any question as to whether or not your question is still being looked at.
Not using threads is fucking driving me insane too.
Also when somebody just says "hi" and waits. Don't you fucking dare to do that. Type in what you want so I can decide if I want to reveal that I'm currently actually there and want to deal with your bullshit. Sometimes I just don't write back. And then 3 days later they ask me in the office whether I saw their message. And I say yes, saw that, I just thought that was all because you haven't continued.
Also you don't have to say "Hi Golem" every single time when you start to ask something on the same day. Sometimes even 5 times a day. Geez. Just say what you want and be done with it.
Introduce them to the wonderful world of No Hello!
Everything: from 8am to 5pm I'm a steaming ball of anger that struggles to act polite while planning small acts of office terrorism.
::: spoiler I've got a lot of small pet peeves
like:
A general lack of awareness in workplace safety practices
People listening and sending audio messages when they could type instead
People doing personal conference calls without a headset
When they say "can you please grab that thing on my desk?" and their desk is a post-earthquake library scenario
and many others...
:::
but the thing that bugs me the most is the general absence of people that "just do their job".
There are a lot of people that do fuck-all and a lot of people that work their lives off and both of those groups expect you to walk at their pace. I'd like to meet more people in the middle.
The lights at my previous workplace. They were super bright, depressing, fluorescent lights, and even though we had windows with natural light coming thru, they'd have the overhead lights on at full blast. Not only was it a massive waste of electricity, the lights actually hurt my eyes, and made me hate my workplace. I loved the WFH phase during covid since I could just rely on natural light - and was so much more productive and in a better mood. Unfortunately they started calling us back into the office with 3 compulsory days, and that was the last straw which made me quit my job.
I'm living the inverse of your experience right now. Just started a new job that requires 3 days in the office after having worked several years fully remote. I sit next to a full wall-length window and yet am being battered by soul-crushing overhead fluorescents. Time to figure out where the controls to the lights near me live in the breaker. I hear the COO likes all of the lights on so he can "feel like there are more people in the office." Bully for him.
People clipping their nails at their desk.
Oh wow this
lol this dae amirite
Toxic Positivity: "Everything is always great" and the unspoken rule to never talk about your issues.
Mental health issues not being taken seriously and/or treatment being forced on you
Alcohol culture: "if we haven't had a beer together, i don't know you"
meetings. As a programmer i can be super productive, but then i'll be interrupted by a meeting... and that meeting is an hour long... completely stripping my concentration and now i gotta get it back up...
retro-meetings ... talking about what has been done in the last week... and what we liked and what we hated... i never know what to say "yeah i finished shit" or "i hate working with this shit"
but then you have to elaborate....
So, I figure all modern corporate offices are exactly the same then. There is some good stuff in there, but it is so over the top and forced that it sort of ruin the benefits imo.
Positivity is great, even if it is forced a little, but hiding all negativity, issues and criticism make forced positivity completely useless. Not to mention that at the office I worked there was virtually always one or many of your "bosses" in earshot, in every situation. There wasn't a daily, a meeting or a workstation in that job where some guy responsible for my promotions and employment wasn't listening. This is how you make sure nothing of value is ever said in your dailies and retro meeting. It's all great!
Now let's play the game of figuring the smallest politically correct nitpick to mention during the retro so that we can check that self-improvement/self-organizing checkbox in front of the boss. What, you think over 10 hours of useless scrum meeting is wasteful, on top of the actual important meetings? Well, better not mention it. I mean you could, but shitting on scrum will get you canned. Do you think the way points/hours/complexity is evaluated completely miss the mark? Or are you tempted to mention Goodhart's law when reviewing whatever metric in Jira? Well, better not do that, because you might as well say that your boss's job needs not to exist. Better not mention anything that might compromise someone else in front of the boss, or anything that could be used against you in a review.
Because that's the thing, since no one ever admit to mistake and make themselves vulnerable, if you're the only one to do it it's gonna raise "red flags" and you're gonna hear about it in your next review. Better give a good not-so-anonymous review to your immediate managers too, raising any sort of issues could prevent one, or both of you from getting promoted with increased pay.
Forced positivity is horribly fake. Are you American perchance?
No, it was a big international corporation. But afaik the forced positivity was universal.
Retro meetings are useful but I think some people do them wrong.
First off, who remembers shit from a week or two ago? We started a document at the start of the sprint so we could add stuff throughout the sprint as it happened. Made it easy to remember and actually talk about stuff.
Secondly, retro meetings should typically get shorter the longer you're on a team. You use the meetings to find out what works for you and then most of the rest of the time it's a short meeting unless there are issues to talk about.
And no one should be forced to participate. After a while there usually isn't anything in particular to comment on.
So, a brand new team might have a lot to talk about for the first couple of retros because they do things slightly differently (how they go about determining risks, how people pick up peer reviews, etc) but after identifying those problem areas in the retros it should be pretty smooth sailing.
I know every now and then I have to reiterate to my team that they need to prioritize peer reviews. You can't let 5-8 stack up just because you don't want to do them or whatever other reason they have. Thankfully I finally have someone on my team who gets just as annoyed with them as I do so I don't have to always be the broken record.
That we all accept that working our butts off for at least 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, with only around 2 weeks of vacation a year in the hopes that we can save just enough to retire at 65+ is normal. The social contract is broken, and everyone except the top 1% of earners is paying the price.
Slow computers and awful cheap Keyboards
By this point i spend 400 € for a quality keyboard and noise canceling headphones, money I earned in that very job so I don't get nuts at that job.
I use it at home too.
Perfume and cologne. MAI GAD I hate it so much and it makes me sick, and they come to work drenched in it. One was wearing essential oils for a while, the fumes of which set off my asthma so badly I had to go see my respirologist for a stronger puffer, and I finally had to come out and tell her it made me sick.
Secondly, casual racism. I had one CW the other day tell me she didn't care for Indians (by which she means indigenous people), and another who told me she hoped I wasn't 'getting Jewed' out of something. I was quite horrified. I eat lunch alone for the most part and refuse to have social contact with them.
In recent weeks: Not having a plan.
Our manager was on vacation for a few weeks and so everyone was kind of just doing whatever they wanted. We're a software dev team, so one colleague was working on UI, another colleague was working on authentication and a third worked on some showcase.
Now our manager is back and we did planning and it's like, that showcase isn't relevant until the end of the next milestone, and we're not going to need the backend, nor its UI+authentication for the next two milestones.
Only really my work is directly relevant, because I did the incredible strategy of working towards the bare minimum we need.
I kind of don't care, if we're inefficient. It's not my job to manage the place. But I hate not knowing what I should work towards.
"Uplifting news" being shared like an offline version of Reddit. Same basic idea too: some good news about some rare stroke of luck for some individual where a few hundred or a few thousand or a few million exactly like them weren't so lucky but didn't get the uplifting news report because that would be a downer.
That shit depresses me but it's on me to at least put on a neutral face when I hear about some kid selling lemonade to pay for their dad's lethal but treatable medical problem until someone rich gets some cheap-for-themselves PR and the kid gets to keep their dad alive... unlike a few thousand that could not.
My work keeps putting on social events that involve a boat. Boat to this island or that island or just sail around on a boat for the afternoon. Everyone else seems to think it's fun, but I really would rather not be stranded for hours of forced bonding with my coworkers because we have to wait for the damn boat to take us back.
Not documenting work. Lazy people suck when it comes time to troubleshoot something with zero documentation.
The temperature. It's always just cold enough in the building that I need to wear a jacket.
Also the people who feel the need to eat stinky foods at their desk.
The most credible explanation of this bullshit I ever heard was that office air-conditioning systems were designed for the expectation that —
men wore woolen suits all day
women wore long skirts and pantyhose
... and men were in charge
None of this makes sense in a slacks-and-polo-shirt office, to say nothing of a shorts-and-T-shirt software development shop.
Having to relogin every two weeks with two-factor authentication. Everything is a MS Office document, in particular ridiculous spreadsheets. Everyone writes in acronyms that they assume everyone else knows. Even though there is always a lot of new staff, every email assumes everyone has been working there forever. ("It's that time of the year again! You need to complete your GRD before week 5 of the COG and send it to the OSYN. Probably you are already an expert in completing these forms after so many years, but if you need instructions, please go to our IDRN and enter your ICRJ.")
God I wish I only had to use MFA once every two weeks!
We only have to use it when connecting from off-site.
Best way is to VPN in (requires MFA) then everything via VPN.
Some admin stuff has more strict checks, but the staff access is use the office network or use MFA.
Conditional access rules. If the admins cared it's easy to apply
Seriously, anything through SSO requires me to do 2FA every time I log in.
I have to login every 8 hours...I'd kill for every two weeks.
I have to re-auth with AWS every goddamn hour and enter a 2fa code for every. single. command. I run from the CLI. It drives me up a fucking wall even though I have it entirely scripted now. Another great example of how overly tight security leads to worse security as people try to bypass it.
I'm so sorry. I will hug the IT team now for only making me login every 2 weeks.
uncompensated driving, commute times, etc
people don't realize how much their car is costing them. IRS rate is like $0.60 a mile. running errands for work all day? 45-minute commute? yeah you're effectively making less than minimum wage now
very difficult to get people to understand though
Freedom with a cost to every imaginable part of it.
More like... feedom
2 mandatory office days even for consultants. If you want to be at the office, fine. But don't make everyone be because of some so-called fairness. Catering to some imaginary average person isn't fair, it's hurting everyone a little or a lot. Alas since I'm working via an agency, I got to follow client directives. Luckily I have good rapport with both my agency and my project team lead so I can kinda toe the line.
Also the inability or rather unwillingness of my fellow devs to follow protocol. Ticket not approved by business? You don't touch it. Yet the geniuses I work with went total yolo mode on a project I'm not on. So I wasn't there to remind them and now they're upset they got told off they spent a week on tickets that they were asked to discuss with the business. And that they aren't getting praise for their efficiency. It's government work, not your hobby project. That's a week of budget spent on work they may need to reverse because they didn't even put it on a branch. Maybe when they hear it from higher up they'll listen because I really get the impression when it comes from me it is seen as my personal opinion. No, I just figured out early how the office politics work and play the game I'm paid for. I voice my opinion plenty but here it actually aligns with the organisation expectations.
Blatant disregard for preserving people's hearing. Most of my coworkers are of the opinion that not wearing hearing protection while operating loud tools and equipment (chainsaws, pneumatic drills etc) is not a big deal. What's worse they will often not bother to give a heads up to people working nearby that they are about to start. As a musician, and also someone with a family history of hearing loss, this kind of behavior pisses me off
"We're good people, and our goals are noble. Therefore, rules don't apply to us."
(Proceeds to break important laws)
“Faith-based” politics in a nutshell.
Rattling ceiling tiles. I have a stick at my desk devoted to banging on ceiling tiles so they stop rattling. That sound is literally one of the most annoying things I experience.
No one else seems to care.
The problem is that there's unequal pressure above and below the tiles, if your building has mechanics or even maintenance at a stretch they could fix this for you. I used to deal with little things like this pretty regularly when I did building maintenance.
One place I worked had end of shift meetings every day for the transition between third and first shift. First shift was supposed to get there 15 minutes early, but hardly ever did. This was a stand-up meeting at the end of an 8 hour shift. Look assholes, I'm tired and I wanna go home.Your disrespect of my time isn't helping my attitude toward this shit-hole company. Also, apparently, they didn't need to do this for second shift, because, you know, first shift is tired and wants to leave on time. Imagine that. I ended up quitting when they tacked on extra hours for us to work at the last minute during the week of Thanksgiving, so that effectively we'd still end up working 40 hours. What's the fucking point of holidays if you're just going to make us work more hours anyway?
The guy who gives safety meetings says “um” between every phrase
I feel this one. We have a partner who says "you know" before and after almost everything he says. It's so distracting that I can barely hear what he is trying to say. I now do my best to avoid interacting with him or his team in any way.
Pet peeve: no "stay logged in" option for a system I use multiple times per day
Yeah my job has that too. That system has a "remember me" button, but it doesn't work.
Someone clipping their nails
Standups and retrospectives.
Both are totally useless. I feel like screaming into the wind would be more useful.
May I ask why? This coming from the guy that has to facilitate them.
I'm especially curious about the stand-ups, since I have mixed feelings about retrospectives myself, they have their place and I think they play a part in a team's growth, but at the same time I'd rather just cancel them if I don't feel we'd get anything useful out of it and I don't want to hold a retro just because the process says so.
LE: Gonna just edit this to say thank you to the people who replied, gave me some new perspectives to think about.
I think the value of standups depends a ton on the team's composition and maturity.
On a team with a lot of junior or low-performing devs who don't have the experience or the ability to keep themselves on track, or a team with a culture that discourages asking for help as needed, a daily standup can keep people from going down useless rabbit holes or unwittingly blocking one another or slacking off every day without anyone noticing.
On a team of mostly mid-level and senior devs who are experienced enough to work autonomously and who have a culture of communicating in real time as problems and updates come up, a daily standup is pure ceremony with no informational value. It breaks flow and reduces people's schedule flexibility for no benefit.
When I'm thinking about whether it makes sense to advocate for or against daily standups on a team, one angle I look at is aggregate time. On a team of, say, 6 people, a 15-minute daily standup eats 7.5 hours of engineering time a week just on the meetings themselves. The interruption and loss of focus is harder to quantify, but in some cases I don't even need to try to quantify it: when I ask myself, "Is the daily standup consistently saving us a full person-day of engineering time every week?" the answer is often such a clear "yes" or "no" that accounting for the cost of interruptions wouldn't change it.
I've just had some unlucky jobs, I think. Think 30-45 minute stand-ups for a team of 4, because the team lead or PM or "Scrum Master" feel like they have to prove their worth or something when ultimately the standup provides little to no value after the first 4 minutes (if any).
For jobs with a single ADO or Jira board, just look at our ticket status and comments.
I had one job that had daily stand-ups, a single ADO board, a requirement to send EOD status update emails, and a requirement to copy those updates to individual ticket comments EOD as well. I rage quit that job after 2 months because, frankly, that's absurd (it had other issues too).
My favorite standup at a job was one with 12-16 people and it took no more than ~6 minutes. It was no BS. The manager got his quick update notes across all supported clients (and separate ADO/Jira boards) and everyone got to go about their day. If you talked too long you'd get cut off.
But generally, daily stand-ups are just an interruption and a thing where I end up having to make up some BS to appease management. If my update is too long, team members hate it. If it's too short, management thinks I'm not doing any work.
As for retrospectives, of 15+ jobs in my life, only 2-3 of them ever even did anything with the feedback. Thus, it typically felt like a waste of 1-3 hours (yes one job had 3 hour retrospectives every two weeks, it was brutal). If none of the bads or nexts are ever going to happen, then don't pretend like we even have a voice.
If your stand-ups and retrospectives aren't BS, provide understood value, and don't waste time then I'm fine. But if all they exist for is to check a "we're agile!" box and allow management to flex, then I'd say it's doing the exact opposite of agile and merely annoying the engineers.
For stand-ups you really need at least one person that keeps it on track and limits the time each person has, cutting them off and telling them to talk after.
only 2-3 of them ever even did anything with the feedback
Exactly this. Nothing ever gets done with the feedback so what is even the point? Just to make it look like we care?
In my experience I feel like I'm basically talking to myself during the stand ups. No one is actually listening to anyone's status except maybe the scrummaster. I've said things in the standup to have coworkers be surprised later on when they're actually carried out.
The disgusting coffee machine
A lack of basic level manuals and work flows for basic job duties.
Holy shit folks, where is my picture book that lets me know how this 15 year old point of sale system out in a rural post office is supposed to do the things that I need it to do?
People saying "10-4” on the radio when they mean "affirmative" or "yes"
Well since 10-4 is a radio code meaning message received, I think they're saying exactly what they mean.
Things like "Did you guys go for lunch?" and hearing back "10-4". Obviously I know what they mean, it just annoys me.
What does 10-4 really mean then?
I think it's technically supposed to be an acknowledgement that the message was received.
Messaged received / ok / got it
I deliver pIzza and all of our in-store routing software is tied to Google. It's a good GPS but it gets so much wrong. During rushes it's the job of the managers to route us on doubles or triples and I've gotten routed on badly-chosen doubles (i.e. 3 miles from each other) because Google thought the addresses were right next to each other. Sometimes it's a customer issue, like a typo on the website but most of the time it's Google being dumb.
You can submit corrections to Google and most of the time they accept them. When I delivered pizza in a rural area I had to do it multiple times a week and most were accepted. Helped fix mileage and stopped me from getting lost the next time.
Random plug for openstreetmaps here, if you're already willing to submit updates to maps why not support a free alternative?
That's a good point, I should've done both. I only did Google because I know my coworkers used Google.
Good questions. I own priorities, my team owns operation. Fixing this is on our list of priorities, not high enough to get the amount of attention needed to really fix it.
literally everything. I hate the work, I hate the pay, and I absolutely hate the people. I'm quiting in December to travel the world for a while, which will be great, as long as they don't kill me first
"We'll wait a few more minutes for person X to join, then get the meeting started," like the other ten people who made the effort to show up on time deserve to be punished with extra meeting time for being responsible. Bonus points if this causes the meeting to run a few minutes long.
I talk to the C suite and lab staff regularly, sometimes, you can't duck out of front the muckity mucks, sometimes you can't leave a conversation with researchers and partners. But, I'm frequently the one who say, we're 5 minutes from close, 2 minutes from the end of our time, ok, we're going to have to drop off. With either.
Yeah, I'm totally cool with being late sometimes, but I know various folks where it'd be an exception, if they're not late, because they have meetings back-to-back all day long.
Always makes me feel like the official meeting start should be 5 minutes after or something, but I know that those folks aren't late for the fun of it. They'd definitely overrun those 5 minutes, if they knew they had them.
My frustration is less with the people who are late and more with the meeting host making the rest of the attendees sit around twiddling their thumbs waiting for the late person. Unless the late person's presence is the point of the meeting, just get started and let them catch up.
Have to agree with that, as I'm either hosting or presenting.
They tried to fix this at my work by changing the default values for an hour- or half-hour meeting. Half an hour would automatically become 25 minutes and an hour would turn into 50 minutes in the calendar.
The idea seemed to work at first, but people quickly adjusted and used those extra minutes to extend the meeting regardless.
My place of business has this dysfunction with meetings—Zoom being the biggest offender—where people just keep talking through the end of a meeting. 30-minute meetings become 35-40. 60-minute meetings becomes 65-70. And, with meetings frequently being back-to-back-to-back, invariably one or another person is late to the next one.
I think it’s because scheduling a meeting with all necessary parties is so difficult that if you don’t finish the thought, the next chance is at least a week away.
To top it off, we had a company-wide survey that spawned a working group to tackle the problem of meetings, whose suggestion was to update Outlook settings to automatically shorten meetings by X minutes—to allow people transit time, bathroom breaks, etc. Almost no one set that setting.
Maybe I am crazy but I always thought it was lazy as fuck to have meetings for absolutely everything. Like, how about you spend some time researching and analyzing a subject on your own before calling a meeting for every little step of the way.
Now I understand that there must be a balance, but man there was so many of those meetings where nobody has a clue on the subject and it is just pointless talking for over an hour. Another meeting is scheduled with another party as soon as that one meeting is over, and it is just back-to-back meeting with everyone in the company, slowly but surely deriving a solution from everyone opinion. Seems to me like people who do well in those environments are the lazy workers who just want to spend their whole days chatting in meetings.
Can we, at some point, derive a solution based on experimentation and verifiable facts? Can someone come up with a summary analysis with recommendations and possible solutions? Why does everything has to be the result of endless meetings, endless compromises with people without a clue, and end up being a shitty design-by-committee feature.
Anyway, could be just be a me thing, or specific to that place I worked at.
Just disconnect.
they don't respect the meeting time, they don't respect you.
If they couldn't fit everything in, then that's their problem for under booking the meeting.
eh. meetings are when you post on hexbear, a few extra minutes of posting is fine i think
That Edge is now the only "approved" browser anyone is allowed to use, per our admin (taking input from a third party security consultant). Most people in other departments don't care, they use whatever gets put in front of them because their needs are basic and their tolerance for bullshit is too high for their own good. The rest of us in IT (well most of us) hate it.
I had to go uninstall Chrome and even a few Firefox installations, manually, from any workstation that had them. And I've never felt dirtier in my job. Like everytime I punched in my credentials to authorize the uninstall, Microsoft's stock rose by the smallest amount.
Legitimately, the more of a Microsoft 365/Azure/Endpoint/Entra/Shithole/Power BI/SharePoint clusterfuck my workstation becomes, the less enthused I am about the entire IT profession.
Amen. Managed to ‘prove’ I was competent enough to run linux on my personal laptop due to a combination of needing me as an employee and that I was able to show why their RDS solution broke after an official windows update with xfreerdp.
I keep my windows workstation up to date and switched on - but all work is done from my laptop and no one’s questioned me so far.
Strictly according to the IT policy, Windows is not required - they just thought I wouldn’t be able to access anything without it. When I proved to the auditors that I met every checkbox on the requirements list, they said it was fine too xD
Any microsoft application. Constant bugs, crashes and a tendency to break everything if you accidentally use them in any other way than microsoft intended.
Also, ads in a fucking operation system? I don't see how anyone can find that acceptable.
I think MIUI was its pioneer. Even the settings app had ads.
At least they use that to sell you the hardware for cheap. Microsoft doesn't provide anything of value like that. In fact, they charge people for the OS and then have the audacity to add ads.
Oh shit this makes me have flashbacks to the one - and only - time I got a phone with MIUI. I could not believe how bad that Android skin was. As in, even Samsung in their pre-One heyday could not even come close to this bullshit.
Linux includes ads built into Firefox in a lot of the popular distros.
I'd say firefox doesn't qualify as OS but I get your point, distros do ship it by default.
The good thing is that those ads are just defaults, not permanently baked in. I can get rid of them in about 2 minutes. Mozilla doesn't sell your usage data so they need another way of funding themselves and I don't think there's a better way to do it.
The same can be said about the Windows ads. It's just a checkbox to turn off tips. Tips are useful a lot of the time so people don't want to turn them off. The second a tip isn't useful it's seen as an ad.
First of all, tips will automatically get enabled during some updates.
Secondly, tips notifictions telling you to use microsoft crap are not the only ads. You get fullscreen ads for office after booting that are made to look exactly like an installer, you get edge literally spamming you with popups when you try downloading another browser (that's closer to malware than an ad but I'll let it count).
You get ads in the settings menu as well and if you try to edit a video like you could on windows 7, you get the "fuck you, pay a subscription".
You also get ads in your start menu and of course, don't forget the start menu search that will rather show you a bing page full of ads than actually search for your files.
Please stop defending this bullshit, it benefits no one but microsoft and is actively making the world a worse place.
I've literally not seen any of the ads you are talking about (besides an office 365 install prompt at the end of an install) but I run a windows debloater tool on every install since windows 7. I also never had an update mess with the debloater stuff or turn ads back on.
Everyone happily careening toward totally preventable catastrophe, then doing surprised pikachu face.
Omg... I have tried to sound the whistle on a major mistake no less than 3 times in the last 7 years and they have all been ignored. I have taken to doing what I used to do with my female friends who had poor taste in men, tell them what is going to happen and let them know the only reason I am doing it is so I can say "told you so" later.
Heh. I've grown fond of the phrase "My resume is up to date, anyway. Go for it."
It’s as if thinking is shut down as soon as they enter the workplace.
There’s a high pitched sound coming from one of the air ducts. It’s driving me crazy but no one else seems to hear it.
They probably don't. Congratulations! You're either young or still have great hearing!
Or tinnitus
Tinnitus that only gets triggered at work?
At this time of year?!
May I hear it?
No
As much as I like to be flattered for still looking young, it's probably the latter option :)
I don’t work at the moment, but here is a list of stuff I’m glad to be away from:
I'm sure you've got more, this is Dilbert-level stuff!
No doubt, I worked in large corporate offices most of my working life, and don’t I regret it…
We may have worked in the same office.
When people message with a "hi" or "hello" and then say nothing more till I reply.
It annoys the hell out of me. Like, why can't you just say what you want. It wastes so much of my time and mental energy to switch back and forth while I wait for your reply after replying to your utterly useless hello.
just answer them with https://nohello.net/en/
Especially infuriating when the other person is in a very different time zone. I once worked on a project with a partner company in a time zone 10 hours ahead of mine and it was common for trivial things to take days purely because the other person insisted on typing "Hi," waiting for my "Hi, what's up?" response (which they didn't see until the next day since our hours didn't overlap), and then replying with their question, which I didn't see until my next day. Answering the actual question often took like 30 seconds, but in the meantime two or three days had gone by.
I came to believe they were doing it on purpose so they could constantly slack off and tell their boss they were blocked waiting for my answer.
What's worse, after you "hi" them back, some people (looking at you project managers) just ducking call without any explanation. Drives me nuts
Reject call.
'why didn't you answer'
'I'm not available for calls right now'
'why'
'that's not your business'
I've wandered down this road a few times now.
Got reported to my manager for doing just that. My rule was simple: if you're not my boss, I need to know what the call is about in advanced.
I just explain the same as above.
If you're not paying me for my time, you're not entitled to it, nor an explanation of what I do in my own time.
If we're talking about time on the clock, that's a different story.
Or I think worse yet, I ask a question, and they don’t reply for a while so then when they do respond all they say is “hi.”
It infuriates me, I don’t need to be at my desk for you to answer the question I left you above! Ughhh
I just wait until they say more things. Hello is nothing.
I have tried this. I'm often reminded the next day that they still haven't received a reply from me.
I love that part.
I occasionally give people shit for this. Chat is asynchronous and I'm busy just ask me the question and I'll respond back when I can. Some people just won't learn though and I usually just leave them on read.
“Hi, we need to talk…”
My co-workers.
We have 3 (three. Three!!) redundant monitoring and alerting systems and have yet to detect the issues routinely found by our customers. Its not because we didn't detect them, it's because we have so many false positives we stopped looking (but still run the monitors).
Uuuuuugffhhhhhj
Who owns the monitoring systems? Are they accountable for the costs that they're imposing on the rest of the company?
Teams! It literally never works on Linux and you cannot change a single thing about it. I'm so tired of having to tell people that today my teams cannot share shit, which worked flawlessly yesterday.
Teams is garbage. This comes from someone who used it on windows, both on the app and web versions.
In teams, people above you get reports on all of the time you’ve spent in teams and can see all of your “private messages”! There’s a whole-ass dashboard for it!
Hmmm I hope that's not also the case with private messages on teams some 5 years ago. Pretty sure there was some condescending chats about uni teachers over private messages.
Oh well, I've graduated anyway and never again used the messaging function after that.
For anyone on Linux: teams-for-linux is an unofficial client that works way better than the official client. It's also in AUR
Teams is shit. I use it at work on Windows, and it's still shit.
Searching something in the chat? Complete dogshit. Half the times it just straight up doesn't work, the rest of the times it shows only the message where searched word is present and not the point in discussion when this message happened.
Keybinds. Non-customisable. Keybinds. Who in their right mind does that?! I once heard that keybind customisation would confuse "normies", which is complete moot. So-called "normies" won't go to the settings (or at least, to keybinds) anyway and will be either satisfied with defaults or won't use them at all.
It also cannot restrict how many notifications it displays in the corner - so when things are getting spicier at work, it spams whole right side of your screen (gods help you if you were working on the laptop with small screen atm, cause getting shit done will be impossible). So your 2 options will be to mute everything or continue getting spammed. And then the whole point that it is even worse on Linux. And it's web version is crap, too. And that it is a bloted, laggy mess that is more in my way when I work than helps me.
Rant over, I guess?
Uh, I just click the message and it sends you to the conversation where you can check what was said.
You can also mute only the chat that's being spammy, but I agree with this one because I can't mute it for X mins and such.
It's curious how when the pandemic started people around me were super happy with Teams, comparing it to Google Meet and other meeting software, because it was one of the best services that simply worked, and over time they became more angry with it for all the bugs and weird decisions.
How bout the fact that everyone above you can see everything you do and all your “private messages”?
Can they? I don't really care, I don't use the corporate chat for personal things. I will act without regard to that, and if it comes to my knowledge that they did read them for the sake of controlling me, I'm going to fucking leave the company after talking to HR, that's an issue with the boss not the tool.
I do find that useful in a corporate scenario, where if someone leaves the should be able to retrieve all the information shared on those chats, and if you suspect that someone is saying things they really shouldn't to clients or colleagues, being able to check it is good.
I miss Teams. It was so bad, that anytime I forgot something, I was able to blame teams and no one questioned it. Since then I changed jobs, so can't do it anymore.
I use Teams very sparingly at work, but it occasionally decides it wants to auto-start when Windows turns on (ignoring my settings that disable it on startup).
Teams also occasionally decides that it wants to disconnect/break my Bluetooth headset connection. I don't always need Teams to do my job, but my Bluetooth headset is always required for what I do. The only way to restore functionality when this happens is to close Teams. I haven't figured out why it happens only some of the times, but it's annoying as fuck. I don't have that issue with any other programs doing that to my input devices.
If I had to guess, Teams is getting small updates when that happens to you. You have it turned off on startup, but if it gets an update and the end of that update is a restart of the program. And poorly designed updates tend to reset connections or settings. And Teams loves its updates. I wouldn't turn off the auto updates though if I was you. Usually they are security updates.
Don't schedule a &$&% meeting during lunchtime without serving up lunch to us!
Don't schedule a meeting at lunch time. Full stop.
My lunch time is me time. I'd prefer no lunch meetings ever. That's my walking time.
People have died for lesser offences than scheduling a meeting over lunch time and not serving lunch.
I hear you, but given that my "lunchtime" could be anywhere between 11:00 and 15:00 (and that's not even allowing for timezones), that's pretty impractical.
In my last two jobs in two different countries the unwritten rule is to not schedule a meeting between 12-13. Not everyone has lunch at the same time, and everyone is free to have lunch whenever they want, but this guarantees that you will have some time to have lunch even if you are booked by meetings around noon. But it doesn't really solve the timezone issue.
The noise. FML. If I have to listen to another coworker take calls at the top of their voice one cubicle over...
I'm not in the office frequently, but when I am, my supervisor and I just plan on getting absolutely no work done. It is soooo loud. We have cubicles and frequent teams meetings, and all that we can hear is everyone else's conversations.
Neither of us can concentrate with the constant noise interruption.
We have these breaking news tv screens all over the lunch room. I absolutely hate it, can I please enjoy my lunch in peace?
Oops, it just turned off.
Lol that's amazing
I despise those things in restaurants, maybe with the exception of explicit sports bars. Having those in a break room sounds awful
Tell me more about these explicit sports!
The moderator of a daily web-meeting saying "Who wants to go first?".
Followed by either:
...BECAUSE THERE'S A LAG AND BODY LANGUAGE DOESN'T EXIST ONLINE.
Seriously people, don't ask everyone. Ask individuals.
I’m always the one asked first. Fuck that. Don’t at all. Just … stop
Dirty pits. I work as a mechanic on busses and try to keep my pit clean. If the work I'm doing makes a lot of sand fall down, I sweep it aside so I don't walk through it. If the bus has a leak, I put something beneath it to catch the oil/coolant/fuel until I get to fix it.
Most of the coworkers don't care and their pit is a mess. They ask for help with something and you have to navigate through puddles and sand piles to get to them.
They also don't put the shared equipment back on its right place so you waste a lot of time trying to find it.
I thought you meant armpits at first...
Off topic, but I love that you are here!
I always loved at the old place that there were people from totally random professions sharing their knowledge. At the beginning, it was not very...diverse here in that regard. I'm glad you are here!
Any Microsoft App. Most annoying Excel. I'm working with it almost the whole day and some simple things can break it. Heck, when doing a bit more complex stuff, it brings my work computer to its knees. Like wtf.
My workplace switched from G Suite to all MS a while back. I was livid at first. MS Excel does have some good features that Sheets doesn't, and some of their formulas can be better functionally. But Google understands user experience better and it definitely runs more efficiently than Excel. Like, Excel, This workbook isn't set to share yet, it's entirely local. Why is every other window of Excel also updating every time I change something? They aren't affected!
Anyway, if possible, when I'm working on a really chunky workbook, if possible I'll do all the work offline in the app and everything else open in the browser. If I have to add it to a shared sheet, I'll just paste it in when I'm done and know it works. I work with excel lot, but it's mostly data sifting and I tend to use Excel in ways it was not designed for, so my formulas can get out of hand sometimes and be a bit much on larger sheets.
I have some huge files I gotta work with. Some access other office programs like Outlook.
Every damn time that thing is almost crashing. Also added that all the files are placed in a shared drive.
Oof. Yeah... Sometimes there's just no getting around it. That's rough. I've had some that when I was working on them I just knew that it should take 5 minutes but will end up being 30 because every input means I wait 5 minutes for it to catch up. We also have some that are used and continuously updated every day. I was finally able to convince them to archive old ones and get a new sheet every quarter.
Yeah. I know exactly what you mean. But it's a free break :D
Pizza parties, "lunch and learns", lunch at a restaurant with the boss...
All of that condescending shit that is intended and expected to deprive people of time away from the office, building, worksite, whatever if they need it.
I value my personal time and it's not easily replaced by free food.
Some of the other comments in the thread are great too...
Overabundance of redundant or unnecessary meetings in general is another one for me.
Mandatory webcam on calls/meetings. I get that it works for team building when half the developers are at home at any given time, but it exhausts me in meetings.
You sit there with nothing to say/do while you listen, constantly having to look forward and pay attention. Then your jaw starts to feel tense, but you can't just open your mouth or move around too much.
Total torture for 60+ minute meetings. In my previous company we had the webcams always off, so I could relax or if it was only talking with no presentation even sit on my couch away from the PC.
I’m not sure how much of this pressure is from your company or self-driven, but I always keep my webcam on and I don’t give a shit about sitting straight or looking attentive or whatever. Half the time I’m fucking around with stuff in the background. Nobody has ever said anything about it.
Agreed. I also frequently turn mine off for a minute or two to grab tea or snacks or whatever. Nobody's ever said anything. It's on ~90% of the time.
why can't you get comfy infront of the camera? Do they not allow you to join from a couch, and just record yourself?
What I always do is make sure I have something to fidget with off-screen. Either a little puzzle you can solve without looking or some activity I've done a hundred times before. I've spend quite a few online meetings doing my nails :)
Set up a small lock pick station just out of sight of the camera and then pick locks by physical feedback :)
An absolute lack of consideration in regards to chat etiquette. Man now that I think about it, it's chat threads/notification in particular.
People who carry on side conversations in threads. You're giving everyone else who has participated in the thread the choice of "disable notifications for this thread and risk missing something relevant come back around, or get a notification for every single side message they're sending". Especially when someone is chiming in like 4 hours later. "Glad you guys got this sorted out". Yes, all 12 of us on-call people in this thread needed to get that message direct to our phones at 3a.m. 4 hours after the outage has been resolved. Thanks for that. Very fucking helpful. High value communication.
People who will not use threads. I don't need a new fucking notification every 20 seconds because you guys are deciding to have a chat about e-bikes. Make a goddamn thread or use a room made for chit chat, we're all on the same team, we're all in on-call positions. I'm paid to respond when this thing makes a noise. I am NOT comfortable muting the team channel.
It's addressed elsewhere in these comments, but +1 to folks who just message you "hi". Go get stabbed.
On the topic of notification fatigue:
Also, when I'm helping you I am 100% going to stop what I am doing every time I get a message and read the message. There's no way for me to know whether or not you're messaging me "Oh never mind, I had a typo" or "here is more relevant info to make your work easier". That message may very well have immediate impact on what I'm doing, and affect the course I take. Of course I'm going to stop what I'm doing to read it. So maybe don't wait 5 minutes to send me the message "k" after I kindly, thoughtfully provide you with the status update "I think it's the fizzibob, let me verify in the logs real quick" of my own volition so that you are not only aware of what's going on, but don't have any question as to whether or not your question is still being looked at.
Not using threads is fucking driving me insane too.
Also when somebody just says "hi" and waits. Don't you fucking dare to do that. Type in what you want so I can decide if I want to reveal that I'm currently actually there and want to deal with your bullshit. Sometimes I just don't write back. And then 3 days later they ask me in the office whether I saw their message. And I say yes, saw that, I just thought that was all because you haven't continued.
Also you don't have to say "Hi Golem" every single time when you start to ask something on the same day. Sometimes even 5 times a day. Geez. Just say what you want and be done with it.
Introduce them to the wonderful world of No Hello!
Everything: from 8am to 5pm I'm a steaming ball of anger that struggles to act polite while planning small acts of office terrorism.
::: spoiler I've got a lot of small pet peeves
like:
and many others... ::: but the thing that bugs me the most is the general absence of people that "just do their job".
There are a lot of people that do fuck-all and a lot of people that work their lives off and both of those groups expect you to walk at their pace. I'd like to meet more people in the middle.
The lights at my previous workplace. They were super bright, depressing, fluorescent lights, and even though we had windows with natural light coming thru, they'd have the overhead lights on at full blast. Not only was it a massive waste of electricity, the lights actually hurt my eyes, and made me hate my workplace. I loved the WFH phase during covid since I could just rely on natural light - and was so much more productive and in a better mood. Unfortunately they started calling us back into the office with 3 compulsory days, and that was the last straw which made me quit my job.
I'm living the inverse of your experience right now. Just started a new job that requires 3 days in the office after having worked several years fully remote. I sit next to a full wall-length window and yet am being battered by soul-crushing overhead fluorescents. Time to figure out where the controls to the lights near me live in the breaker. I hear the COO likes all of the lights on so he can "feel like there are more people in the office." Bully for him.
People clipping their nails at their desk.
Oh wow this
lol this dae amirite
So, I figure all modern corporate offices are exactly the same then. There is some good stuff in there, but it is so over the top and forced that it sort of ruin the benefits imo.
Positivity is great, even if it is forced a little, but hiding all negativity, issues and criticism make forced positivity completely useless. Not to mention that at the office I worked there was virtually always one or many of your "bosses" in earshot, in every situation. There wasn't a daily, a meeting or a workstation in that job where some guy responsible for my promotions and employment wasn't listening. This is how you make sure nothing of value is ever said in your dailies and retro meeting. It's all great!
Now let's play the game of figuring the smallest politically correct nitpick to mention during the retro so that we can check that self-improvement/self-organizing checkbox in front of the boss. What, you think over 10 hours of useless scrum meeting is wasteful, on top of the actual important meetings? Well, better not mention it. I mean you could, but shitting on scrum will get you canned. Do you think the way points/hours/complexity is evaluated completely miss the mark? Or are you tempted to mention Goodhart's law when reviewing whatever metric in Jira? Well, better not do that, because you might as well say that your boss's job needs not to exist. Better not mention anything that might compromise someone else in front of the boss, or anything that could be used against you in a review.
Because that's the thing, since no one ever admit to mistake and make themselves vulnerable, if you're the only one to do it it's gonna raise "red flags" and you're gonna hear about it in your next review. Better give a good not-so-anonymous review to your immediate managers too, raising any sort of issues could prevent one, or both of you from getting promoted with increased pay.
Forced positivity is horribly fake. Are you American perchance?
No, it was a big international corporation. But afaik the forced positivity was universal.
Retro meetings are useful but I think some people do them wrong.
First off, who remembers shit from a week or two ago? We started a document at the start of the sprint so we could add stuff throughout the sprint as it happened. Made it easy to remember and actually talk about stuff.
Secondly, retro meetings should typically get shorter the longer you're on a team. You use the meetings to find out what works for you and then most of the rest of the time it's a short meeting unless there are issues to talk about.
And no one should be forced to participate. After a while there usually isn't anything in particular to comment on.
So, a brand new team might have a lot to talk about for the first couple of retros because they do things slightly differently (how they go about determining risks, how people pick up peer reviews, etc) but after identifying those problem areas in the retros it should be pretty smooth sailing.
I know every now and then I have to reiterate to my team that they need to prioritize peer reviews. You can't let 5-8 stack up just because you don't want to do them or whatever other reason they have. Thankfully I finally have someone on my team who gets just as annoyed with them as I do so I don't have to always be the broken record.
That we all accept that working our butts off for at least 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, with only around 2 weeks of vacation a year in the hopes that we can save just enough to retire at 65+ is normal. The social contract is broken, and everyone except the top 1% of earners is paying the price.
Slow computers and awful cheap Keyboards
By this point i spend 400 € for a quality keyboard and noise canceling headphones, money I earned in that very job so I don't get nuts at that job.
I use it at home too.
Perfume and cologne. MAI GAD I hate it so much and it makes me sick, and they come to work drenched in it. One was wearing essential oils for a while, the fumes of which set off my asthma so badly I had to go see my respirologist for a stronger puffer, and I finally had to come out and tell her it made me sick.
Secondly, casual racism. I had one CW the other day tell me she didn't care for Indians (by which she means indigenous people), and another who told me she hoped I wasn't 'getting Jewed' out of something. I was quite horrified. I eat lunch alone for the most part and refuse to have social contact with them.
In recent weeks: Not having a plan.
Our manager was on vacation for a few weeks and so everyone was kind of just doing whatever they wanted. We're a software dev team, so one colleague was working on UI, another colleague was working on authentication and a third worked on some showcase.
Now our manager is back and we did planning and it's like, that showcase isn't relevant until the end of the next milestone, and we're not going to need the backend, nor its UI+authentication for the next two milestones.
Only really my work is directly relevant, because I did the incredible strategy of working towards the bare minimum we need.
I kind of don't care, if we're inefficient. It's not my job to manage the place. But I hate not knowing what I should work towards.
"Uplifting news" being shared like an offline version of Reddit. Same basic idea too: some good news about some rare stroke of luck for some individual where a few hundred or a few thousand or a few million exactly like them weren't so lucky but didn't get the uplifting news report because that would be a downer.
That shit depresses me but it's on me to at least put on a neutral face when I hear about some kid selling lemonade to pay for their dad's lethal but treatable medical problem until someone rich gets some cheap-for-themselves PR and the kid gets to keep their dad alive... unlike a few thousand that could not.
My work keeps putting on social events that involve a boat. Boat to this island or that island or just sail around on a boat for the afternoon. Everyone else seems to think it's fun, but I really would rather not be stranded for hours of forced bonding with my coworkers because we have to wait for the damn boat to take us back.
Not documenting work. Lazy people suck when it comes time to troubleshoot something with zero documentation.
The temperature. It's always just cold enough in the building that I need to wear a jacket. Also the people who feel the need to eat stinky foods at their desk.
The most credible explanation of this bullshit I ever heard was that office air-conditioning systems were designed for the expectation that —
None of this makes sense in a slacks-and-polo-shirt office, to say nothing of a shorts-and-T-shirt software development shop.
Having to relogin every two weeks with two-factor authentication. Everything is a MS Office document, in particular ridiculous spreadsheets. Everyone writes in acronyms that they assume everyone else knows. Even though there is always a lot of new staff, every email assumes everyone has been working there forever. ("It's that time of the year again! You need to complete your GRD before week 5 of the COG and send it to the OSYN. Probably you are already an expert in completing these forms after so many years, but if you need instructions, please go to our IDRN and enter your ICRJ.")
God I wish I only had to use MFA once every two weeks!
We only have to use it when connecting from off-site.
Best way is to VPN in (requires MFA) then everything via VPN.
Some admin stuff has more strict checks, but the staff access is use the office network or use MFA.
Conditional access rules. If the admins cared it's easy to apply
Seriously, anything through SSO requires me to do 2FA every time I log in.
I have to login every 8 hours...I'd kill for every two weeks.
I have to re-auth with AWS every goddamn hour and enter a 2fa code for every. single. command. I run from the CLI. It drives me up a fucking wall even though I have it entirely scripted now. Another great example of how overly tight security leads to worse security as people try to bypass it.
I'm so sorry. I will hug the IT team now for only making me login every 2 weeks.
uncompensated driving, commute times, etc
people don't realize how much their car is costing them. IRS rate is like $0.60 a mile. running errands for work all day? 45-minute commute? yeah you're effectively making less than minimum wage now
very difficult to get people to understand though
Freedom with a cost to every imaginable part of it.
More like... feedom
2 mandatory office days even for consultants. If you want to be at the office, fine. But don't make everyone be because of some so-called fairness. Catering to some imaginary average person isn't fair, it's hurting everyone a little or a lot. Alas since I'm working via an agency, I got to follow client directives. Luckily I have good rapport with both my agency and my project team lead so I can kinda toe the line.
Also the inability or rather unwillingness of my fellow devs to follow protocol. Ticket not approved by business? You don't touch it. Yet the geniuses I work with went total yolo mode on a project I'm not on. So I wasn't there to remind them and now they're upset they got told off they spent a week on tickets that they were asked to discuss with the business. And that they aren't getting praise for their efficiency. It's government work, not your hobby project. That's a week of budget spent on work they may need to reverse because they didn't even put it on a branch. Maybe when they hear it from higher up they'll listen because I really get the impression when it comes from me it is seen as my personal opinion. No, I just figured out early how the office politics work and play the game I'm paid for. I voice my opinion plenty but here it actually aligns with the organisation expectations.
Blatant disregard for preserving people's hearing. Most of my coworkers are of the opinion that not wearing hearing protection while operating loud tools and equipment (chainsaws, pneumatic drills etc) is not a big deal. What's worse they will often not bother to give a heads up to people working nearby that they are about to start. As a musician, and also someone with a family history of hearing loss, this kind of behavior pisses me off
"We're good people, and our goals are noble. Therefore, rules don't apply to us."
(Proceeds to break important laws)
“Faith-based” politics in a nutshell.
Rattling ceiling tiles. I have a stick at my desk devoted to banging on ceiling tiles so they stop rattling. That sound is literally one of the most annoying things I experience.
No one else seems to care.
The problem is that there's unequal pressure above and below the tiles, if your building has mechanics or even maintenance at a stretch they could fix this for you. I used to deal with little things like this pretty regularly when I did building maintenance.
One place I worked had end of shift meetings every day for the transition between third and first shift. First shift was supposed to get there 15 minutes early, but hardly ever did. This was a stand-up meeting at the end of an 8 hour shift. Look assholes, I'm tired and I wanna go home.Your disrespect of my time isn't helping my attitude toward this shit-hole company. Also, apparently, they didn't need to do this for second shift, because, you know, first shift is tired and wants to leave on time. Imagine that. I ended up quitting when they tacked on extra hours for us to work at the last minute during the week of Thanksgiving, so that effectively we'd still end up working 40 hours. What's the fucking point of holidays if you're just going to make us work more hours anyway?
The guy who gives safety meetings says “um” between every phrase
I feel this one. We have a partner who says "you know" before and after almost everything he says. It's so distracting that I can barely hear what he is trying to say. I now do my best to avoid interacting with him or his team in any way.
Pet peeve: no "stay logged in" option for a system I use multiple times per day
Yeah my job has that too. That system has a "remember me" button, but it doesn't work.
Someone clipping their nails
Standups and retrospectives.
Both are totally useless. I feel like screaming into the wind would be more useful.
May I ask why? This coming from the guy that has to facilitate them.
I'm especially curious about the stand-ups, since I have mixed feelings about retrospectives myself, they have their place and I think they play a part in a team's growth, but at the same time I'd rather just cancel them if I don't feel we'd get anything useful out of it and I don't want to hold a retro just because the process says so.
LE: Gonna just edit this to say thank you to the people who replied, gave me some new perspectives to think about.
I think the value of standups depends a ton on the team's composition and maturity.
On a team with a lot of junior or low-performing devs who don't have the experience or the ability to keep themselves on track, or a team with a culture that discourages asking for help as needed, a daily standup can keep people from going down useless rabbit holes or unwittingly blocking one another or slacking off every day without anyone noticing.
On a team of mostly mid-level and senior devs who are experienced enough to work autonomously and who have a culture of communicating in real time as problems and updates come up, a daily standup is pure ceremony with no informational value. It breaks flow and reduces people's schedule flexibility for no benefit.
When I'm thinking about whether it makes sense to advocate for or against daily standups on a team, one angle I look at is aggregate time. On a team of, say, 6 people, a 15-minute daily standup eats 7.5 hours of engineering time a week just on the meetings themselves. The interruption and loss of focus is harder to quantify, but in some cases I don't even need to try to quantify it: when I ask myself, "Is the daily standup consistently saving us a full person-day of engineering time every week?" the answer is often such a clear "yes" or "no" that accounting for the cost of interruptions wouldn't change it.
I've just had some unlucky jobs, I think. Think 30-45 minute stand-ups for a team of 4, because the team lead or PM or "Scrum Master" feel like they have to prove their worth or something when ultimately the standup provides little to no value after the first 4 minutes (if any).
For jobs with a single ADO or Jira board, just look at our ticket status and comments.
I had one job that had daily stand-ups, a single ADO board, a requirement to send EOD status update emails, and a requirement to copy those updates to individual ticket comments EOD as well. I rage quit that job after 2 months because, frankly, that's absurd (it had other issues too).
My favorite standup at a job was one with 12-16 people and it took no more than ~6 minutes. It was no BS. The manager got his quick update notes across all supported clients (and separate ADO/Jira boards) and everyone got to go about their day. If you talked too long you'd get cut off.
But generally, daily stand-ups are just an interruption and a thing where I end up having to make up some BS to appease management. If my update is too long, team members hate it. If it's too short, management thinks I'm not doing any work.
As for retrospectives, of 15+ jobs in my life, only 2-3 of them ever even did anything with the feedback. Thus, it typically felt like a waste of 1-3 hours (yes one job had 3 hour retrospectives every two weeks, it was brutal). If none of the bads or nexts are ever going to happen, then don't pretend like we even have a voice.
If your stand-ups and retrospectives aren't BS, provide understood value, and don't waste time then I'm fine. But if all they exist for is to check a "we're agile!" box and allow management to flex, then I'd say it's doing the exact opposite of agile and merely annoying the engineers.
For stand-ups you really need at least one person that keeps it on track and limits the time each person has, cutting them off and telling them to talk after.
Exactly this. Nothing ever gets done with the feedback so what is even the point? Just to make it look like we care?
In my experience I feel like I'm basically talking to myself during the stand ups. No one is actually listening to anyone's status except maybe the scrummaster. I've said things in the standup to have coworkers be surprised later on when they're actually carried out.
The disgusting coffee machine
A lack of basic level manuals and work flows for basic job duties.
Holy shit folks, where is my picture book that lets me know how this 15 year old point of sale system out in a rural post office is supposed to do the things that I need it to do?
People saying "10-4” on the radio when they mean "affirmative" or "yes"
Well since 10-4 is a radio code meaning message received, I think they're saying exactly what they mean.
Things like "Did you guys go for lunch?" and hearing back "10-4". Obviously I know what they mean, it just annoys me.
What does 10-4 really mean then?
I think it's technically supposed to be an acknowledgement that the message was received.
Messaged received / ok / got it
I deliver pIzza and all of our in-store routing software is tied to Google. It's a good GPS but it gets so much wrong. During rushes it's the job of the managers to route us on doubles or triples and I've gotten routed on badly-chosen doubles (i.e. 3 miles from each other) because Google thought the addresses were right next to each other. Sometimes it's a customer issue, like a typo on the website but most of the time it's Google being dumb.
You can submit corrections to Google and most of the time they accept them. When I delivered pizza in a rural area I had to do it multiple times a week and most were accepted. Helped fix mileage and stopped me from getting lost the next time.
Random plug for openstreetmaps here, if you're already willing to submit updates to maps why not support a free alternative?
That's a good point, I should've done both. I only did Google because I know my coworkers used Google.
Good questions. I own priorities, my team owns operation. Fixing this is on our list of priorities, not high enough to get the amount of attention needed to really fix it.
literally everything. I hate the work, I hate the pay, and I absolutely hate the people. I'm quiting in December to travel the world for a while, which will be great, as long as they don't kill me first
Death to America