The Horrors of the "Professional" World - Stories that will make you wonder how we exist.

[Vince McMahon]

I really should learn not to trust people. I picked up a new refrigerated trailer, and noticed antifreeze running down the front. I pointed it out to the mechanic, and he said "no worries; I just spilled some when filling the reservoir." I accepted this instead of climbing up and looking.

Liar; it WAS leaking. I barely avoided losing 60k worth of product.

Why do people prefer to lie over admitting they don't know something?

Because majority of people have created a self-image that does not correlate with their real self. Admitting ineptitude is a blow to the self, psychological injuries are no small matter, just look at Yaniv.

 

[Malagor the dank omen]

A year goes by and touristic season is over, meaning that i'll be out of a job from tomorrow onwards until march next year. I don't want to make an insanely long post about all the horrid shit that came down my way these last 2 months so i'll keep it short and sweet and if you people want more i'll be happy to oblige.

My contempt and hatred for chinese people has reached the point where i can be deemed an honest to god racist against them. They are a never ending source of annoyance and problems. One of the things that happened is that we got a group of 4 chinese tourists in one of the family rooms. It was still summer so they brought a good amount of drinks, but i filled the fridges with frozen bread and marmelade because last weekend we had a lot of people for breakfast and we had to fill up. With no room to keep their drinks cold, the chinks came up with a brilliant idea. Far smarter than asking me to make room for them in the fridge: to use the sink in the room to keep their drinks cold by keeping them in cold running water. Bad thing from the start because the suckers placed the bottles in such a way thta partially blocked the drain and so barely any water was being drained, causing the whole room to flood after they left the water running for 6 hours. I only realized when i opened the room under theirs and saw the entire ceiling dripping with water. Called my boss and he was as pissed as he could humanly be and saw him kick out those people. First time i've ever seen him throwing out someone.

Also, at the end of August i caught bed bugs from a couple of german bikers. Thank god i realized in time.

 

[Varg Did Nothing Wrong]

Far smarter than asking me to make room for them in the fridge: to use the sink in the room to keep their drinks cold by keeping them in cold running water. Bad thing from the start because the suckers placed the bottles in such a way thta partially blocked the drain and so barely any water was being drained, causing the whole room to flood after they left the water running for 6 hours. I only realized when i opened the room under theirs and saw the entire ceiling dripping with water. Called my boss and he was as pissed as he could humanly be and saw him kick out those people. First time i've ever seen him throwing out someone.

Also, at the end of August i caught bed bugs from a couple of german bikers. Thank god i realized in time.

Even if they didn't flood the house, this is such a monumentally wasteful thing to do. How many cubic meters of water did they run up by keeping the faucet on full blast for 6 hours straight?

 

[Malagor the dank omen]

Even if they didn't flood the house, this is such a monumentally wasteful thing to do. How many cubic meters of water did they run up by keeping the faucet on full blast for 6 hours straight?

Dunno, but my boss didn't wanted to talk about it. He just told me it was the highest water bill he ever had.

Also, it shouldn't surprise you with chinese people. Efficiency isn't in their vocabulary and even less in their culture. Just to tell you, i usually have to wash twice as much dishes with chinese tourists around than with other people because they hog as many as they can for themselves and don't reuse the ones they already have, even if they are fairly clean.

And another thing that i learned was from a taiwanese coworker i had here. One day we got a group of chinese people and we showed them their room and thankfully, she helped me when it came to explain everything because they barely spoke english. Once we showed them the place they started to hog everything for themselves: they left their food and drinks in the living room, their shoes by the stairs, they hanged their clothes in the balcony railing... But the best was to come. They started blabbering to my coworker and she told me how they were demanding that we made a shitload of things for them: made them food, book tickets to visit the castle, wash their clothes... That already pissed me to no end and she told me that they had the idea that because they paid us they were entitled to make us do absolutely everything for them.

So i told the chinks to hold their fucking horses and that the only thing that i would do is their laundry... For 10 euros. They started to bargain with me, saying that if i could cut it to 8 euros for them. Already at the limit of my patience, i told them it was 10 euros to which they kept insisting to make it lower. "4 Euros and we wash it ourselves", something i couldn't allow. I gave them the ultimatum and they backed down, asking me if there was another place to wash clothes in town. I told them there were no laundromats and the hostel was the only place that offered that service in town. And they stayed with their clothes dirty for the remainder of their stay.

Since then when i chinese person steps out of bounds i don't go easy on them and i instantly demand money from them as a deterrent. Works like a charm and whenever i'm around they do their best to scurry away.

 

[Varg Did Nothing Wrong]

Also, it shouldn't surprise you with chinese people.

Oh believe me, I know. Mainland Chinese are a fucking plague and bring nothing but misery and garbage with them everywhere they go.

Fuck the Chinese.

 

[Malagor the dank omen]

Oh believe me, I know. Mainland Chinese are a fucking plague and bring nothing but misery and garbage with them everywhere they go.

Fuck the Chinese.

This is one of the reasons i hope there is an outbreak of a massive and deadly disease or their economy tanks so they cannot leave their country.

 

[Karl der Grosse]

The Chinese have a peasant culture, since they spent 40 years killing the upper classes. This is why they have no manners, are rude and pushy, and have absolutely terrible personal hygiene. Or maybe it's just because they're Chinese and think they're the only real humans and their country is the center of the universe. Either way, I wish we could just ban mainland Chinese. I got in serious trouble back in college because some bugman Chinee heathen hawked and spit right in front of my dorm room door and I yelled at him.

 

[Godzilla1984]

Professional here, of the geologist variety, which shall be the extent of my power level.
There are days where I want to lodge a rock hammer into the nearest non-professional supervisor.
The word professional as a title is a joke to most, let's not kid ourselves, but it does carry some ramifications.
Legal ramifications.
As in pound me in the ass legal ramifications.
You may want me to do X, Y, or Z, fine, but if all three are balls to the wall ILLEGAL, I ain't doing SHIT.
I ain't pouring four years of university, four years of slave labor (work experience, but I repeat myself), begging three other established professionals to sign off on me, and a god damn ethics exam down the drain just so that you get your god damn key performance indicators.
Good, fast, cheap.
Pick two and piss off.

Edit: Grammar, plus story:

So Bre-X. Archive.
Read. Learn. Know my pain.

So one time we got back a bad assay on a drill hole we absolutely-super-dee-duper needed in our next press release.

Supervisor: Young Godzilla!
Me: Yo.
Supervisor: This assay value is garbage!
Me: I know.
Supervisor: Fix it!
Me: I can't.
Supervisor: Just type in our current cut-off grade!
Me: No.
Supervisor: DO IT SERF!
Me: No. *Points to registration certificate* I ain't doing it.
Supervisor: THEN I WILL!

Supervisor is still around but I still have my job and certification.
On that day I learned that I could get away with murder and have been the most productive member of my company you have ever seen.

 

[Malagor the dank omen]

The Chinese have a peasant culture, since they spent 40 years killing the upper classes. This is why they have no manners, are rude and pushy, and have absolutely terrible personal hygiene. Or maybe it's just because they're Chinese and think they're the only real humans and their country is the center of the universe. Either way, I wish we could just ban mainland Chinese. I got in serious trouble back in college because some bugman Chinee heathen hawked and spit right in front of my dorm room door and I yelled at him.

This so much. My simmering hatred goes to mainland chinese because people from Hong Kong have a modicum of civility, education and they are at least civilized. Same applies to Taiwanese and in both cases, we can speak about how much we hate China. Mainland chinese are truly the worst scum on the earth and i see it every time i go out to the old town or the more touristic parts in town: the spit on the floor, they move in a solid group blocking the street and they don't move even if you ask, they try to bargain with everyone even after seeing the pricetag and the worst of all they cross the street while the light is green for the cars. Unfortunately, none of them have been brutally ran over and i hope one day it happens so they learn their lesson to not block the traffic only to get to the chinese restaurant (yes, they never try local food) faster than the other group of yellow devils down the street.

As for the smell, my worst experience has been with a couple of chinese backpackers. But on average indian people smell really fucking bad. Fortunately, i can deal with it because they tend to be the most pleasant and generous people on earth.

 

[Ginger Piglet]

This so much. My simmering hatred goes to mainland chinese because people from Hong Kong have a modicum of civility, education and they are at least civilized. Same applies to Taiwanese and in both cases, we can speak about how much we hate China. Mainland chinese are truly the worst scum on the earth and i see it every time i go out to the old town or the more touristic parts in town: the spit on the floor, they move in a solid group blocking the street and they don't move even if you ask, they try to bargain with everyone even after seeing the pricetag and the worst of all they cross the street while the light is green for the cars. Unfortunately, none of them have been brutally ran over and i hope one day it happens so they learn their lesson to not block the traffic only to get to the chinese restaurant (yes, they never try local food) faster than the other group of yellow devils down the street.

As for the smell, my worst experience has been with a couple of chinese backpackers. But on average indian people smell really fucking bad. Fortunately, i can deal with it because they tend to be the most pleasant and generous people on earth.

Which country's this in exactly?

One thing I have noticed is that mainland Chinese tourists in bongland really, really, like Bicester Village because they can buy tasteless designer shit at low prices. Last time I was there they had bouncers on some of the shop doors and velvet ropes to make it look more high end and exclusive.

 

[Malagor the dank omen]

Which country's this in exactly?

Germany. More exactly, next to Neunschwanstein Castle, in south Bavaria. This place is crawling with foreigners all year and chinks come here in gigantic herds. In the peak months of the summer you can see up to 8 buses loaded to the brim with those fuckers as they do their best to block all traffic going to the castle area.

At least the shops near the castle are expensive as all hell and do a good job at parting those idiots with ther money selling them all sort of inane shit at sky high prices.

 

[Shmidty Werbenmanjenson]

I love my job.

I wuz burning a field spaced from my crew, and a chucklefuck in a red hardhat came up to me, a green hardhat, and said "Hey, I need you to burn this mountain" and I was like "No, I don't have a radio and king green hardhat wouldn't know where I was", and he said "I have a radio and king green hat said for you to come with me and burn this mountain". So I went with him and I threw burning diesel everywhere and burned the mountain. It was fun.

Color of hardhats changed to preserve anonymity.

 

[tasty humane burger]

Which country's this in exactly?

One thing I have noticed is that mainland Chinese tourists in bongland really, really, like Bicester Village because they can buy tasteless designer shit at low prices. Last time I was there they had bouncers on some of the shop doors and velvet ropes to make it look more high end and exclusive.

Posted in the retail thread but the experiences I had with Chinese tourists in retail was disgusting. Their tour bus would come in just before close on a Sunday - the day when we had to ensure the shop floor was spotless because otherwise our manager would take a tantrum.

Spoiler: Not professional but about chinese students

My university is full of Chinese people who if from anywhere but China would not even be considered to study here. The neglect they have for the campus is shocking. Worst of all, whilst British and European students get in trouble by staff for doing the smallest thing wrong, the Chinese can do literally anything with no consequences because of the big bucks they pay to come here.

I went to a 'quiet area' to study on campus last week as I don't like using the limited library space unless I'm really busy. Funnily enough, library space wouldnt be a problem if Chinese students didnt use it as a second bedroom. The study area was mostly full of individual students with their headphones in reading and eating lunch. There was a few groups of two or three quietly talking as well. It was ideal as the campus is full of social areas where you can barely hear yourself think shown these spaces are special. Staff would come time to time to move on loud students using it to socialise.

When the canteen next door started serving lunch and the area filled with massive groups of Chinese students yelling, watching videos without headphones and eating loudly. Not once did staff move them on or tell them to be quiet. Eventually, they left but didn't clean up after themselves and were quickly replaced by more of them.

 

[Picklechu]

In August, my employer changed their travel policy. Now, I can't get reimbursed for nice hotels in areas where there's at least somewhere to drink aside from fucking Applebee's. For the second time in as many months, I'm stuck at a Days Inn with shitty wifi in a Boomer suburb.

 

[Pope Negro Joe the XIIIth]

In August, my employer changed their travel policy. Now, I can't get reimbursed for nice hotels in areas where there's at least somewhere to drink aside from fucking Applebee's. For the second time in as many months, I'm stuck at a Days Inn with shitty wifi in a Boomer suburb.

Hey, look at the bright side! At least you can throw ice cubes at Sargon while you drink.

 

[BrunoMattei]

A minor vent: I work at a call center. Pay is decent and I'm just starting to get back on my feet. I'm about a month into the job and it's fine. Good company, atmosphere and benefits. Last night the shift is just about over and in call centers for whatever reason they don't want you to go into unavail in the last 5 or so minutes of your shift. They'd rather pay a little over time I guess? I never understood the reasoning behind that policy.

I get a customer, she missed her delivery, wrong phone number on the account and maybe the driver never showed (even though she tells me she left for less than 5 minutes after getting the pre call). I can reschedule for next week and she gives me a sob story and threatens to cancel and refund. I have less than 10 minutes left on my shift and another co-worker will give me a ride. I'm just about to transfer her over to someone who could give her a discount and talk her down but my supervisor comes by. Nice guy but a fat fuck at 4-500 lbs easily. He decides to take it. So I have her on hold waiting for him. First he walks over to someone else, appears to either be helping or chit chatting. Then he finally wabbles over to his PC, I have 3 minutes left. Another person comes up to him and they chit chat. I audibly say "I need to go soon, I have a ride." Get ignored. 2 minutes past my shift, my ride is waiting for me to get off the phone. My sup say's 'ok' and just gave the customer a 10 percent discount. Didn't take the call like he implied. 5 minutes after my shift is over, co-worker still waiting, and this is the kind of customer that needs to be talked down -even though my supervisor knew all of this- so, I hung up while she was on hold and signed out for the night. Nothing was said to me as I left and it's not fair to my co-worker to make her wait too when I could have originally just transferred the call most likely to someone who would get off later anyway.


No idea if this will bite me in the ass tommorow when I get back in so I don't know.

Edit: if anyone asks "Bruno, why not just get another ride?" The busses stop running before my shift ends and taxis are expensive where I live. There's Uber but why should I waste an hour of my paycheck on a ride when someone is offering it for free? If I had a car I'd stay to finish the call but like I said, this is unfair to my co-worker.

 

[Meat Poultry Veg]

I have yet another post script on the godawful Chinese company I left eight months ago. You can find my earlier rants here, here and here. The tl;dr version is--working for a Chinese company is miserable and proof that hell and Satan exists and that it's packed to capacity.

I wouldn't give that shithole a second look, but one of my trainees is still stuck there and seriously languishing. I think about her from time to time especially as she is trying to find a way out. The team at my current job has a vacancy which I'm taking advantage of to help her. (BTW: no romantic intentions on my part--she's married with a son. I get a referral bonus for doing this, but I would do it anyway because I want to deprive my old company of workforce).

As I expected, the old workplace has seriously deteriorated since I left. My department changed leaders to an engineer who is clueless about molecular diagnostics. They started talking shit about my old boss (to be fair, the guy was a weenie and a brown noser, but I think he suffered from the Peter principle when he would have done better as a normal scientist) but that's moot, since he got a job with a reputable company. They hired an R&D director who was Japanese. I don't know any details about how well THAT has gone, other than questioning the wisdom of hiring a nationality you hate who hates you equally. Anyway I think I would have liked Japanese R&D director guy since apparently he hates the excessive meetings they have (seriously--we'd have three goddamn meetings a week, hour long each!) citing that they are a waste of productivity.

 

[Adamska]

I have yet another post script on the godawful Chinese company I left eight months ago. You can find my earlier rants here, here and here. The tl;dr version is--working for a Chinese company is miserable and proof that hell and Satan exists and that it's packed to capacity.

I wouldn't give that shithole a second look, but one of my trainees is still stuck there and seriously languishing. I think about her from time to time especially as she is trying to find a way out. The team at my current job has a vacancy which I'm taking advantage of to help her. (BTW: no romantic intentions on my part--she's married with a son. I get a referral bonus for doing this, but I would do it anyway because I want to deprive my old company of workforce).

As I expected, the old workplace has seriously deteriorated since I left. My department changed leaders to an engineer who is clueless about molecular diagnostics. They started talking shit about my old boss (to be fair, the guy was a weenie and a brown noser, but I think he suffered from the Peter principle when he would have done better as a normal scientist) but that's moot, since he got a job with a reputable company. They hired an R&D director who was Japanese. I don't know any details about how well THAT has gone, other than questioning the wisdom of hiring a nationality you hate who hates you equally. Anyway I think I would have liked Japanese R&D director guy since apparently he hates the excessive meetings they have (seriously--we'd have three goddamn meetings a week, hour long each!) citing that they are a waste of productivity.

I've found that regular meetings like that are only done so that the management can pretend they're doing something to help and to scope out which person they're going to blame for their own ineptitude.

It's not quite as obvious as "work hard, play hard" (translation: we'll run you to the fucking ground and will reee if you even try to "play"), or "we treat you like family" (translation: we treat you like unpaid help and/or act like you abusive uncle not invited to parties anymore), but it's something to note.

 

[Ginger Piglet]

I've found that regular meetings like that are only done so that the management can pretend they're doing something to help and to scope out which person they're going to blame for their own ineptitude.

It's not quite as obvious as "work hard, play hard" (translation: we'll run you to the fucking ground and will reee if you even try to "play"), or "we treat you like family" (translation: we treat you like unpaid help and/or act like you abusive uncle not invited to parties anymore), but it's something to note.

Here's a prime piece of bollox I've learnt about. A while back I interviewed for a job at a firm which offered to pay quite well and had interesting litigation work, albeit according to their website the ugliest staff I'd ever seen. But then again, I'm no oil painting so I thought I'd give it a go.

In comes the boss. "Here at Blackwell & Beckett we believe very strongly in transparency and accountability" she said. And explained what that meant:

- They believe in holding each other to account for things
- They have weekly meetings at which billings for that week are disclosed to the entire firm
- People are encouraged to check on each others' work and challenge each other for things they did or didn't do
- Clients are encouraged to complain if e-mails aren't responded to within 15 minutes
- The staff member with the highest billing each week, in the spirit of healthy competition, gets a plastic crown
- The staff member with the lowest billing each week, in the spirit of healthy competition, has to sit in the Slap Seat (self explanatory)

I was then asked not about my experience, about my legal work, or the whole competence-based "tell us about a time when you did [thing]," but about how much I thought colour printing cost. I asked whether this was by page or by mass or what, and was told how much I thought it cost in general. I didn't know but I had a feeling I was about to find out. Apparently colour printer ink costs the same by mass as gold. And guess what - in the spirit of transparency and accountability, you would be no doubt encouraged to call out people who are profligate with their printing.

I blew the place off after that. Several months later they were still advertising for the same position, probably because they didn't find anyone mad enough to work for them.

This sort of everyone versus everyone setup, in my experience, is a hallmark of bad management. It is how a workplace would be set up by someone who denies the existence of people skills. With the constant competition to avoid the Slap Seat and encouragement to rat on your colleagues, that very quickly turns into a deadly decadent court situation where anyone who is doing consistently well is ganged up on and called out repeatedly and anyone who is having difficult is stomped on to deflect attention from one's own failings. The emphasis on billing at the expense of everything else also gives a perverse incentive to pad things out or to gouge your clients.

 

[Kheapathic]

Been looking through job postings all around the country because I'm a bit of a marauder and am willing to move. See a good number of postings wanting CCNA/MCSE certs for what is a Level 1 position; that or wanting up to 5 years experience for a Level 1 position. Just has me wondering who is writing the job posting; because either of those wouldn't have people wasting their time with a Level 1 position. Other problem is a lot of Government Contractor work that wants active security clearances. Problem is that OPM clearances have been backed up for over a decade; so unless you hold some sort of Godhood skill that's required, no one is willing to front the cost of sponsoring you for a clearance. See the same job postings from the same companies get renewed every 30 days, put my shit in "You have no clearance." - "Neither does anyone else who's applied, I've seen and put in for this opening every month for the past 6 months." I know I'm shooting myself in the foot by smart-mouthing the HR gatekeepers; but beggars can't be choosers. You're gonna need to eat the cost of at least an interim clearance if you really need to fill those positions.