Where’s Nico?

My last gig before retiring was with a midwestern bank. It was a great company, and I worked with a lot of great folks. One thing they were big on was appreciation – which I totally get. I’m big on focusing on the things I have to be appreciative about. It seemed like every couple months, it was Team Member Appreciation week at the office. I’d guess there’s a not insignificant chance that it’s a Team Member Appreciation week there right now, as you read this!  I’m all for team member appreciation, but I’m also a huge fan of counterprogramming.  Let’s face it, no one would watch, or even be aware of, the Puppy Bowl if it wasn’t for Super Bowl counterprogramming. 

So, in that spirit, if there’s a Team Member Appreciation week happening in your office this week, here’s some counterprogramming – a list of employees I do not appreciate:

If you need anything, my name is Betty

I’ve always been baffled when wait staff says this, and they say it all the time.  Wouldn’t it make more sense to say “My name is Betty – let me know if you need anything”?  This is the linguistics freak in my head talking, but it almost sounds like your name is conditional on my need for service.  “If you need anything, my name is Betty, but if you need nothing, my name will be Marsha.”  When people are in the delivery room at a hospital, they don’t say “what a cutie – I think we’ll name her Rachel, unless some random annoying customer needs something down the line, in which case, she’s a Betty.”  I always wonder if it’s not some multiple personality disorder issue – “If you need anything, my name is Betty.  If you want to play catch, my name is Shoeless Joe Jackson.  If you make me angry, get ready to meet Jonathan.  You won’t like Jonathan.”

And one other thing… maybe I’m beating a dead horse here, but most the time, if/then statements take the form of “if [this situation arises], then [here’s how we’ll work through it]”.  I’ll give you a good example – “if we experience a loss of cabin air pressure, gently tug on the mask to start the flow of oxygen”.  They don’t say “if we experience a loss of cabin air pressure, your flight attendant’s name is Walter but his friends call him Wally”.  The “my name is Betty” line is more in the form of “if [situation arises], then [insert random, unrelated, and unhelpful factoid]”, which doesn’t get us anywhere.  They may as well say “If you need anything, African elephants have much larger ears than Asian elephants”.

Okay… I need to move on, but one tangential note here…. While the air mask sentence is perfectly phrased on a plane, I can’t be the only one that looks at this rickety construction and thinks, there is NO WAY this thing saves my life.  I mean, it looks like a Dixie cup attached to a sandwich bag attached to a cheap plastic tube.  My kids came up with more reliable looking designs in their third grade science fairs.  And “gently tug on the mask”?  If we lose cabin air pressure, I can guarantee my anxiety level will have a different definition of what a “gentle tug” is than what that bendy straw tube is going to be able to support.

Anyway, I’m way off topic now.  Back to employees I don’t appreciate…

Thoughts?

Okay – this one is kind of my own little pet peeve.  And I’m sure a lot of well-intentioned people do this one – it’s not at all uncommon, and it doesn’t mean the person is like the boss in Office Space.  But it always struck me as slightly off back in my working days when someone forwarded me an email, and at the top, simply wrote “Thoughts?”.  If I were to answer that email honestly, let’s face it – I was an old guy who drinks a lot and was near retirement.  There’s a good chance I was just thinking about the last beer I drank or the next one I’ll get to drink.

And by the way, as I’m typing this out, really my thoughts right now are on what a brilliant move the Puppy Bowl was.  I hope the guy or gal who came up with this idea is treated like the legend they are over at Animal Planet – that person deserves their own personal employee appreciation week.

And by the way, if any of you are reading this and wondering “have I ever forwarded Ken an email and just typed “Thoughts?”?  Is he talking about me here?”  – don’t worry, I’m sure I was referring to those other folks and I love you all…

The empathetic and ineffective phone/chat rep

We’ve all experienced this employee, right?  We are frustrated by some bad experience with some company, and in talking with their support folks, they tell us that they appreciate how frustrated we feel and yet they will do nothing to alleviate that frustration.  This behavior, in and of itself, just adds to my frustration.  I would way prefer to have the phone rep just say “yeah – sucks to be you!”  or “you know we already cashed the check, right?”

The sigher

I have to admit, I’m ashamed to say that I’ve been this guy.  In my defense, I spent 28 years in IT, and that’s just what you do in IT.  Just kidding – there are tons of great guys and gals in IT, but there’s no denying that there is definitely a “Mordac, the Preventer of Information Services” element in the IT ranks, too. 

The sigher is the guy or gal who, when you walk up to their cube to try to get whatever it is you need from them, starts with a sigh.  The pros at this even add a slight shoulder drop and either a semi-eye roll to the side or a scrunched brow and closed eye expression.  It’s an incredibly effective technique if you don’t want to have to do whatever the person approaching you is asking for, because that person will absolutely dread ever going back to your cube again.  But know that if you do engage in this behavior with any frequency, your co-workers probably all hate you.

The escalator

Hey – we’ve all had hot issues that needed to get escalated.  But there’s always the one who is quick to copy your boss and your boss’s boss on an email – and not just to tell them what a swell job you’re doing.  I remember years ago, I was a developer for a back office system used by a major cable company whose name rhymes with “bombast”.  We had an escalator at the cable company who would pull this all the time.  I wasn’t terribly worried – this is kind of like the guy at the poker table who bluffs too often.  They win a couple hands early on until everyone realizes their game, and they’re the first one out almost every time. 

The first time or two the escalator takes this approach, your boss may care, but after a few times, they’re as annoyed as you are.  Anyway, this guy from the cable company was worried about an issue and in an email that went all the way up to the division director asked for hourly updates as I was diagnosing it.  So every hour, I sent a reply all that said “Spent 57 minutes working on the issue.  Spent 3 minutes sending this update.” On the third or fourth reply all, I changed it to include time for a bathroom break, which I documented with possibly a bit too much detail in the email.  After that, the escalator replied to say that hourly updates were no longer needed.  Anyway, my point is, be very selective about when you want to be an escalator.

• – Ken 5/10/24