What really grates on YOUR nerves at work?

No, Margo's right. It's the standard duty statement for hiring new library staff.

Okay. Please tell me if I'm overreacting.
Last week I designed a small 2003 annual report for a new client. They had decided upon a theme and had all of their information, the mission statement, letter from executive director and chairman of the board, additional copy, everything. The only thing missing was the financial information which was supposed to be sent to me last Wednesday. In the meantime, the exec director had researched other organizations and pulled ideas on how to lay out the financial information and provided me with this, which was great. All we needed were the final numbers to plug in.
I received a call about two hours ago from the head of marketing. She informs me that it's been discovered today that the organizations' yearly audit is not until June so, there are no numbers yet for 2003. In other words, it's way too soon for the organization to even put together their annual report.
This struck me as so absurd, my blood was chilled. How do you put this piece together, develop a theme, write letters, create copy, select photo images, only to discover that the whole point of it all, the numbers you're focusing on don't even exist yet? How does an executive director not know when the yearly audit takes place? Am I being a hard-hearted perfectionist expecting better than this from a national organization or is this just an understandable mistake? The kind that anybody could make?

that's dilbertized managment at it's best girl.

Dilbertized management??!! I've never heard that term before but HOW TRUE!!!

there's something that really grates on my nerves during my commute to work.

i take an "express" bus (a step up in price from the local bus). depending on the time, it can get get crowded -- sometimes packed to the gills... luckily i get on near the beginning of the route, so i get a seat more often than not... also, more often than not, i have no choice but to grab the window seat of a double-seater.

what i can't stand is when someone takes the aisle seat and CROWDS me.
hey! i can't move over any more than i already am; do they not realize it? apparently not, or they just don't care... i've had battles for leg room that have lasted for the entire trip; who needs that kind of stress, especially in the morning? not i.

so, if any of you CROWDERS are reading this, please try to be conscientious of the guy you've got wedged against the bus window!

thank you

I'm a cranky so-and-so on the train myself. I hate people invading my space and especially get frustrated when a guy spreads out in the seat beside me so my legs are squashed.

Anyway, this reminds me of something once (phew, I get tingly when I think about it) this attractive guy sat beside me and his thigh was pressed against mine like I'd expect only family or intimate couples to do. I glanced at him, found him easy on the eyes, and smiled to myself all the way to work!

I am going to whack one of my co-workers on the knuckles. Soon.

She sits on the other side of my cubicle, diagonally opposite from our manager, who sits behind me. When she has a question for him, she climbs up on her desk, leans across my cubicle and talks.

When I'm on the phone trying to talk to a lawyer, I do not need him/her to hear her inane questions and comments coming from over the top of my head.

Been there too Heeven. More than once. I was a wreck, tho. The intimacy of it unnerved me.
ehbeth, you have GOT to stop that woman from doing that. How rude! Just tell her, in your nicest voice, not to talk over you like that, as if you're not there. It's completely disrespectful.

eoe - she just got promoted into our group, and doesn't seem to realize that things aren't quite as casual as they were in her old department. and that she's not quite as goldarned cute as she believes she is. she's about to find out. I'll be polite about it. Once.

Wish I could be a fly on the wall...

I have a funny feeling that our styles in this sort of thing are not that different, eoe.

Ooookay. Here's another one...this is with my 'creative director' for another client.
After going back and forth about a particular printing technique used on past projects (she likes it and I don't), last night she asked me to make the final decision for our current project, assumedly giving way to my expertise. Today, I spoke with our printer and we discussed the technique thoroughly, made the decision on what we would use and it was a done deal. Or so I thought. An hour later, the CD calls me with the printer on the other line and overrides my decision, saying that 'our client' really likes the old technique and we should stick with it.
So why did she even bother me with this last night, just to step over me today? Grrrrrrrr....

On Thursday my building did a fire drill and I had to walk down 23 floors after coming in late and feeling VERY sick.

Grated me to the bone. I could barely stand up and the fire alarm was making my head throb.

hehe - drink less.....teehee....

Craven, you had to walk down 23 floors! Unbelievable! I was on the safety team at my last job, in a 23-story building. The most anybody had to walk down was 4 floors -- at that point you were considered out of the fire zone and "safe"... I think it was cruel and unusual to make you walk all the way down! Poor Baby!!!

eoe, girl, your partner sounds loopy (and really, i mean eff'n loopy). Seems to me she's always doing something to overstep/overthrow what you've already done or decided. Does she have some kind of axe to grind w/ you? Maybe she's trying to show the people you deal with that she's in the driver's seat and you're just riding along...

I know, Onyx. She shoots me down often. But in the big scheme of things, I've got to give her props. She is still the most savvy, professional, fairminded person I've ever worked with, and I've been doing this for close to thirty years now, this woman and I working together now for over twenty of those years!

I bitch and moan about my clients getting on my nerves but I can't begin to express how blessed I truly feel to be doing something I love, making a living at it. It doesn't get much better than this.

Doesn't stop my nerves from being grated, tho. Sometimes, stupid things happen and I just want to scream!!

The job I'm doing at the moment. I'm wearing a pair of soft shoes to work (due to a broken toe) which prevents me going onto the plant. I'm stuck in the workshop so the supervisor asked me to get the drawing listing from Q & A onto MS Access. Transcribing 5 fields on each of 1145 records. Done about 400 so far. It's driving me nuts.

I have the satellite office experience right now. You know, where you don't work in the main facility, so you spend like a week developing a plan, and then you talk about it with your boss and she says, "oh, we decided not to go in that direction at last week's senior managers meeting. Sorry, I thought I told you about this."

GGGGGRRRRRRR!!!!!!