Please Shut Up
I conducted my first volunteer orientation last night to a group of 15 interested candidates. Before I was hired, the former coordinator would do "drop in" orientations twice a week - sometimes no one would show or sometimes two people. To me, that doesn't seem like the best use of my time when I can gather a group of people, give them the same talk and tour and have a stack of applicants to place after one group session. The more I shift how things are done in my job, the more new ideas come to me that would create greater efficiency, bring in more trained volunteers more frequently and make all the program manager's jobs easier. And, at the same time, I feel fear pulling back on my enthusiasm because so many people are stuck in their ways and might say, "That's not how so-and-so did it..."
They'd be right. That isn't how so-and-so did it. And so-and-so doesn't work here. For. A. Reason. So let's try to buck up people and go with the flow. There's a new girl in town and she's full of ideas. Don't mess with Sizzle. I need to stop caring so much what people think of me.
In particular, there is one co-worker who has a certain fondness for the former coordinator and while she is part time and is transitioning out of working in my department, she still sits very close to me and overhears my conversations and sometimes she pipes in. "Oh, when so-and-so was here we would do this and this and then this." Um ok. Thanks, buttinsky. I'm not so-and-so and I am not going to do things that way. Buzz off.
She's really annoying. You know when you meet someone and they just. . . bug. Like their manner of speaking, their style of dress, their 1989 eyeglass frames and bizarre enthusiasm for all things granny just annoy the crap out of you? Yeah. It's like that. Did I mention she is younger than 23? She does not amuse me. Seriously. If that girl doesn't bugger off, I'm going to lose it on her.
Is it September 12th yet? I need my cubicle!
11 comments:
Oh my goll, totally annoying! At least she's being transfered out of your department!
I hear ya! I'm on the other end of it... trying to keep my mouth shut with the new guy. I bite my tongue when I want to say, Chris did it this way. I really liked Chris and this guy? Well... let's just say a lump of meat would have more personality.
Good luck to ya... and yeah, just tell 'em to shaddup. (In a nice way, of course... )
I'm laughing out loud at "bizarre enthusiasm for all things granny" because I think I have one of those here. I don't know about yours, but mine talks so loudly on the phone that everyone in our open floor plan can hear her (she's louder at 20 feet away than my neighbor at two feet away).
Oh I work in a total place with a "but we've always done it that way" culture. Being a bit younger and having a little more expereince in the modern real life workforce (most the people around me are "lifers") I was a lot more open minded to change. I usually just oh, ok and then do it my way anyway. When it works, they tend to shut up. But I have no idea how I'd handle a 22 year-old telling me that. You may just have to say something like "I've been doing this for longer than you've been old enough to work so shut it." Hee.
If you do that, please record it. I would love to hear it. :-)
Bad coworkers are the worst. I hope that her time in her department ends quickly so she doesn't bother you anymore. She sounds like an annoying character, for sure.
Why did I love reading this post? You make me laugh. I would love to hear more about the co-worker! *cackle*
Say it with me, 5 more days (two of which are a weekend). You know how to do your job. They hired you because you know how to do your job (and offered more than their upper limit to get you.) Go in there and shake it up, they really needed you.
The 12th will be here very soon. Just 2.5 work days left and you're there.
And Melissa's right: they hired you so that you could do the job better than it'd been done before.
"Thanks for the suggestion, but I think this will be more effective, so I'm going to try it first." Maybe after you tell her that 3 or 4 times, she'll get the idea. ;)
I love annoying co-workers! They make for great blog stories! For us anyway.
I'm reminded daily that I no longer can remind folks I used to work in collections where we did do things differently. However we are told we are one bank, one team, one goal... and i'm needing therapy now i think because the new gig i have again with the same bank where we have one team, one goal does it completely differently than the other. See? I do need therapy.
Sometimes I think you are living my life from another coast.
I'm in a very similar situation here at work, only in mine, the person who came before did a crappy job, and now my department has a lot of stigma attached to it. There are a lot of things that I'm told I can't do simply because M did it poorly.
It sucks and it's just not fair! Good for you for not being afraid to change things up! I'm sure once they see how stellar you are they'll shut up quickly!
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