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I'm actually surprised by some of the answers I got here. Am I supposed to belive that I am the problem for not being cheerful enough?
I'm a young guy, 32, and have less than 10 yrs of work experience, but since when it became acceptable to curse, talk and laugh loudly in an office environment?
The woman sitting behind me has a stereotypical attitude that it's very sad.
On a sentence she curses at least a few times, and is always gossiping about somebody. She always has visitors, and it's very distracting because they usually laugh out loud and gossip about everybody. She tries to avoid working as much as possible and when she's on a deadline she's blames everybody else but herself for being late.
Am I to accept this as standard office environment?
I agree with everyone else you should lighten up a bit. If I were you I would be friendly and talk with them, in order to build a good work friendship. However, be mindful to keep the socializing brief because you don't want to seen as a slacker. Once you have a good rapport with her ask her if she could keep it down when she is on the phone or talking to friends. Tell her it distracts you from your work and you can't hear the person you are talking to on the phone. If you have taken the time to break the ice and both of you feel comfortable with each other then you should be able to get some cooperation from her.
This. Exactly this. Be glad you are in an environment that has people getting along instead of people back stabbing each other.
Her saying to you, "Hey, it's Friday, lay off the work" is her being friendly with you. You need to return that to her. As the person I quoted said, build up a very good rapport with her so that you can, eventually, say, "Hey! Pipe down ya fricken lunatics!" and they will laugh AND respect your wishes.
I'm telling you right now, complaining is going to make life hell for you. If you think this is a place you'll stay for awhile, invest the time to "lighten up" and build that bond with your co-workers if for NO other reason than your peace of mind down the road. It will definitely be a good investment of your time.
I would ask to move. One of my co-workers had a similar situation and she just made up some lie and told her boss and it was too bright by the window when really she was trying to get away from a certain person. I'd try and make up something like that.
My former employer was full of this nonsense. I sat a few cubes over from a cantankerous senior "engineer" for years who spewed nothing but streams of obscenities all day at the top of his lungs. He hated everything and everyone, and made that fact quite clear. He also enjoyed giving people incorrect information so he could laugh at them later when they screwed up thanks to his "help." In short, he liked to "watch people suffer" - his words, not mine.
One could complain, but if that type of behavior is tolerated it is usually because of a rotten corporate culture that extends all the way up the management chain. For example, in the case of this joke "engineer," the department head was a foul-mouthed thug, the other senior engineers he worked with were all obscenity-spewing sociopaths, and so on. Their culture was accepting of this unprofessional behavior, and if you complain, you end up looking like the bad guy.
I'm actually surprised by some of the answers I got here. Am I supposed to belive that I am the problem for not being cheerful enough?
I'm a young guy, 32, and have less than 10 yrs of work experience, but since when it became acceptable to curse, talk and laugh loudly in an office environment?
The woman sitting behind me has a stereotypical attitude that it's very sad.
On a sentence she curses at least a few times, and is always gossiping about somebody. She always has visitors, and it's very distracting because they usually laugh out loud and gossip about everybody. She tries to avoid working as much as possible and when she's on a deadline she's blames everybody else but herself for being late.
Am I to accept this as standard office environment?
This type of behavior is tolerated by management. If the evironment bothers you that much then maybe you need to explore other job options. If you don't know how to play along, i.e. play 'the game', you will be targeted by coworkers and your time in that office will be hell. Throughout your government career you will see there are worst things you're gonna see have to deal with.
redd1skng is right. Despite the insanity of it, you're expect to "play the game" even if the other players are a bunch of unprofessional, useless clods. It's not fair and it's destroying this nation, but that's the way it is.
My favorite gag: despite regularly working with profanity-spewing thugs at my previous job, the place never missed an opportunity to pin Workplace Rules signs to the bulletin boards, all of which expressly prohibited profanity and thug-like behavior. Yeah, right!
Location: where people are either too stupid to leave or too stuck to move
3,982 posts, read 6,688,919 times
Reputation: 3689
lol ha
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