Working w/the crabby public-vent/advice wanted

[ame]

You have a partner in crime at work? That's perfect!

The only way I survived my crappy answering phones job was because my partner in crime was there with me. We were very naughty, but the nature of the job required it if we were to maintain our sanity. We had this horrible boss who spied on our inter-office IMs (we were strongly encouraged to use them instead of getting up because it saved company time.) Once we realized she was spying, we sent messages to each other that made her paranoid about a ton of different things. We'd also wear suits to work every now and then and go to different wings of the building and pretend one of us was interviewing another for a job. We'd ask random employees to tell the interviewee how much they loved working there. My favorite was the high five awards--we'd photocopy one of our hands, write "High Five Award" on top, and give it to random people we didn't know in other wings of the building. We'd see them up on their cubes weeks later.

It was one of those Office Space-esque workplaces, where everyone was fake, nobody did much work at all, and I basically would have become a very unhappy person had I spent many years there. So, I had to get creative.

If I were you I'd start collecting ridiculous quotes from angry people and publish a book of them. Someone published a book of the most creative wrong answers on exams, so I don't think this is that far off.

OMG there is so much win in this post.

 

[tuffyluvr]

UGH!!! First of all, I feel like people who are verbally abusive and all-around horrible and rude to others are generally flawed in character, as well as completely boorish and tacky.

I worked at the front desk of a hotel in Maui for about a year when I was in my early 20s, and people were rude, abusive and horrible pretty much daily. You would think that people on vacation would be relaxed and happy, but it seems like a lot of people are just miserable and nasty by nature, or act like jerks in an attempt to bully their way into getting what they want or getting something for free. Some days it was almost comical, and other days I wanted to cry. One very hot Sunday night the AC broke down and I had a crowd of about 50 angry guests ready to lynch me! I had to tell them that we wouldn't be able to get a repairman out until the next day, and people were furious! I felt terrible because there was nothing I could do to fix the situation, yet people were taking their anger and frustration out on me.

I still have to deal with angry customers from time to time. I have to echo other's sentiments--what has helped me is learning not to take it personally and not becoming emotional. When someone is in that kind of state they want to suck you into it too, and if you don't let them, typically the situation de-escalates and resolves itself, or they get frustrated to the point that they walk away/hang up the phone.

I'm sorry that you have to deal with such lunatics. It would drive me crazy if my boss didn't back me up in those situations. It's shocking that she allows her patients to treat her front office staff with such disrespect!

 

[packrat]

Ruby, a webinar would be a good thing to look for, thanks! I'll mention it at work.

Sparklyheart, maybe I should pretend they're kids-since they're obviously acting like them!

Holly, I'm like that too! I've been places where people have been new, so slower and unsure, and places where crap happens, like the computers break down etc and what's the point in getting upset? It happens, it happens to ALL of us, all of us were new someplace at some point in time, all of us have had it happen where the phone cuts out or computer crashes, the register conks out, someone you need to see is running late, there's paperwork to fill out, cards to present, it's part of life and I don't get why it brings out such anger. It's more of an inconvenience to the *worker*, not the customer, generally.

Ame, I agree, I don't like management like that either. It's not really..management. It's a pretty easy going office, generally, as far as time off or needing to switch hours around, but it's also awfully grade schoolish at the same time. Dr.'s take on it is, we're adults, we know what we're supposed to do, we should just handle it. And w/the patients, she doesn't like to upset anyone and refuses to take sides until it's down to the point that someone's ready to walk off the job b/c of a patient, or she witnesses it w/her own eyes/ears.

Haven, oh how I laughed reading your post! I'm totally stealing the High Five Award, just to let you know! I am the..I guess resident whackadoo nut job at the office. I used to draw stick people for one of the nurses, to coincide w/how her day was going..usually involving a crazy looking stick person pulling his hair out, one had a gun, one was a caped hero, and I'd leave them on her keyboard. When the drug reps were banned from handing out pens and sticky note pads, I got into the box of pads in the bathroom, wrote "new office sticky pads" and stuck them on everyone's computer.

However..my Wednesday front desk coworker is the only one who shares my sense of humor. We sing the songs that come on the radio together, but we'll do it in a speaking voice, like we're having a conversation, we bust out the moves on YMCA. She knows about every dang song ever written, and I don't, so sometimes I'll sing what I know and then finish with "sumthin sumthin I dunno the wooooords.." and if it's Sittin on the Dock of the Bay, I can't whistle to save my life so I say "Fweet fweet fweet fweet" in place of the whistles and then we fall over laughing. Or I'll completely botch the tune and make my voice sound all weird and then give her a side look, wink and say "S'good, right?" and she'll bust a gut.

You know how they say to answer the phone w/a smile on your face b/c the person on the other end can "hear" that? I'm like that ALL the time-sometmes the patients will say "Oh wow, HI! You sound so happy, what are you guys doing?" I may say "Oh, drinking"..or I may explain that my coworker is walking on her knees pretending to be ME and making fun of the fact that my feet don't touch the floor when I'm in my chair, they dangle like a little kid.

She calls me Peaches and I call her Herb. One time after she'd been on vacation, Reunited came on when I got to work-it was fate!..we danced together. Got a lot of eye rolls and heavy sighs and "jeez you people are weird" but whatever. It's how we handle the madness!

Ohhh one time Dr. had told us we were having a mandatory office meeting at her house, she'd have some wine there and we'd just talk about how things were going, and she told us to make a sign for the board. So on the computer we put FREE WINE* taking up about the entire page and then at the bottom in itty bitty need a magnifier to read it letters, *mandatory office meeting. We thought that was damn hysterical! NOBODY but us did, sadly. Well, Dr. did, she thought that was a good way to ensure everyone came. Everyone kept looking at it "I don't get it, what does this mean? Free wine? But it's a meeting too? Huh?" sheesh.

I've gotten an email a few times about how to handle stress at work, or how to make the workplace more fun..it's been a long time, but it was in list format. One was to put the trashcan on your desk and label it "IN BASKET", hide behind the potted plant w/a hair dryer and pretend it's a radar gun, different things like that..I need to find it again and take it to the board at work.

 

[Deia]

You know...it's just something about the word assistant/secretary etc that somehow changes some people's perception of you.I work as an EA in finance and although now I have a great boss who backs me up and values me and I have learned to deal with people's attitudes alot better that I just shrug it off most of the time or mention to them that I did not appreciate their behaviour if it happens more than once. I had some lady come in from our Milan office and I went to greet her upstairs...she looked me up and down and said "well..you are young. You probably haven't been working here very long." (keep in mind I work for one of two most senior people in our office - you would think she'd be a little more respectful, just based on that fact) So I said "Ah, well thanks, I appear younger than I am, which I am not complaining about! And I've worked here for 4 years" I really had to hold myself back on that one...

When I first started here I worked in the front office and I had people yelling at me on the trading floor in front of everyone, for things that were completely out of my control, and it used to upset me. It does make you feel inferior to others because, at least at my office, or in finance in general to be honest, they just assume that you are some moronic school leaver who can't possibly have any idea what THEY are talking about. Well I passed my FSA exams first try, which many ofthe traders didn't, so HAH! lol anyway...
Unfortunately there are some assistants that I wouldn't exactly call smart, or pro active for that matter, but you can't paint everyone with the same brush, at every level you get people that are just in for a ride and put not effort.

I really suggest you see if there are any online courses you can take in people management or something similar. These kinds of people will always be around but if you can help yourself to handle it better and get less upset over it, then it's worth it.