Idiots at work

[Ronnie]

One of the girls in work has a tendency to be completely oblivious to world events outside the realm of make up, fashion and Katie Price. Me and another lad in the office were just talking general news and the Queens speech and Brown was mentioned when she chirped in with...

 

"isn't he the chef?"

"no that's Gordon Ramsay"

"oh, who's Gordon Brown then?"

"Prime Minister"

"What's a Prime Minster?"

 

I assure you the last quote is not a typo. I simply left it to my more patient colleague to answer that and following questions.

It's not Waterboy's girl moonlighting, is it? Please? Or do we have to resign ourselves to the fact that there could be a plague of the braindead out there?

 

[Frankie Crisp]

She's the team admin/assistant/do-er of things we can't be arsed doing. I would never have employed her in a million years, but I inherited her when we merged with another company last year.

 

She does so many insignificant things which individually don't mean much, but combined there are enough to warrant a role. She does most of them without a problem, but booking meeting rooms, faxing and scanning are hard to fuck up. She's had a good go though. You should have seen what arrived when she ordered a load of stationery last week. The back office was like fucking Office Depot.

 

There are a couple of other tasks she's been given in the last few months which she's made an utter balls of and as much as I will try to protect my team, she'd rather let people laugh at 'how ditzy she is for making a mistake' because she thinks people will find it endearing. She's pretty much on her last warning for being shite and having no desire to develop, and although I can guarantee that she will inevitably bring up the one-nighter when she gets her marching orders, I can't see her being here much longer.

 

As much as she makes me question my very own existence on a daily basis, I probably subconsciously haven't already sacked her because I feel I'll be letting the UKFF down.

 

In other words, you shagged a thick munter and have enough shame about it as it is.

Oh god yes.

Edited November 20, 2009 by The Waterboy

[Jaffa]

I was the idiot at work this morning.

 

I've been concerned about one of my staff underperforming at work: constantly late for submitting valuations, silly errors on cost reports, general poor work. I've left it for a few weeks, hoping that he'd pull himself together. He's only been back at work for 3 months after some gardening leave to deal with an online gambling addiction that nearly cost him his job and marriage.

 

As I was wandering through the office this morning, handing out sausage rolls/bacon rolls from the local bakery (I do this every Friday for my team) I saw him at his desk and heard his mouse clicking constantly. He was visibly distressed and was staring inensly at his screen.

 

Straight away, I decided he was playing poker online. I walked over to him, ready to tell him he was underperforming and how unhappy I was with him and that I would have to talk to HR about whether he stayed on with the company. As I got to his desk and saw his monitor I felt very, very stupid. He was clicking on the calculator on his computer. He was really struggling with the figures and that is why he was looking the way he was when I first saw him. We went into my office, had a talk about it and i've assigned him one of our admin staff to work with him. I now realise his underperformance is because he was having problems with some of the formulas, measures and calculations and he was too scared to ask for help.

 

I'm feeling very dumb about assuming he was gambling and that I didn't identify the problem sooner. I've learnt a valuable lesson today.

[Frankie Crisp]

You should bet him you won't do it again.

[Jaffa]

He gave me 5-1 odds he'd quit gambling

[tiger_rick]

We used to have a call logger who couldn't understand that an underscore was a character on the keyboard. So she'd log calls that said "Cannot access sales order, says order is locked when it isn't. User is logged in as charlieunderscorebrown". She never, ever learnt.

 

We've had so many takeovers and redundancies in the last 10 years that there are barely any staff left, let alone stupid ones, just the odd gullible idiot.

[kendal mint cake]

I worked with a guy who at first seemed really sound, but soon turned out to be a bit simple. Don't get me wrong, I liked this fella and had a lot of time for him, but as soon as I started working with him a bit more the sound facade started to fade.

 

I don't know how we got onto this topic, but alas...

 

Me: "... soon they will be restarting The Large Hadron Collider"

Him: "Oh yeah, that machine that the Russians built that is in a tunnel under Russia. It actually sent itself back in time to turn itself off because it will destroy the world"

 

He was being serious.

[Just Me]

Maybe he's the only one smart enough to understand the truth? They all laughed at Christopher Columbus, etc...

[kendal mint cake]

I reckon I could totally sell John Titor to him.

[CoreyVandal]

Waterboy, PLEASE enter the Secret Santa this year so one of us can get you a Dictaphone to document this brilliance.

[Joe_the_Lion]

Waterboy, PLEASE enter the Secret Santa this year so one of us can get you a Dictaphone to document this brilliance.

 

I read that and really didn't get it - I'm sure Waterboy has a very nice voice and all but I didn't see any extra benefit from having him tell us the stories in audio form, the written word seemed perfectly adequate. Then the penny dropped.

 

I'm at work and I'm an idiot.

[Loki]

lol

 

 

Waterboy, I really feel there's a book in all this. A collection of her greatest moments, perhaps with some amusing illustrations. Or a blog - you should start an Idiots blog. These are some of the funniest stories I've heard in a long time, and they have that ring of authenticity to them as I don't think you could make up such ignorance.

[kendal mint cake]

Yeah, it would be huge on Twitter.

[Frankie Crisp]

To be honest, she already has a small cult following with a few of my mates and their colleagues, who get these stories on email on a regular basis. Some of them are convinced I'm making her up, but she is real. Very real. A few of them have suggested the idea of a book or blog, but at this moment I can't risk making something too public in case someone gets on to it who has been witness to any of the tales. Like I said though, despite the entertainment she brings to many, I may have to do what I've been delaying and get shut.

 

Once she's out the door, this shit is going global.

 

In the meantime though, we could make this a bit more fun:

 

1) Conversation starters. Think of a few topics which you feel may be the catalyst to another gem of a conversation. Don't bombard me with too many as I try not to engage in conversation too much so it would look obvious, but feel free to suggest something that may confuse her. No, that's too broad a category. Try to think of something she may think she knows about, but doesn't. Fuck. No. Still too broad. Oh sod it, thrown your suggestions this way and I'll see if I can crowbar some into everyday office chatter.

 

2) Any suggestions which generate some more nonsense, will be pitted off against each other and we can have a pre-Christmas vote as to which is best.

 

3) Whoever made the suggestion wins. They get a prize. A prize I am going to crack on with over the weekend.

 

This idea might die a death, but my friends, her time with us may be short so let's get as much entertainment as possible out of her.

 

EDIT: Please email me with any suggestions. That way, we can keep this thread for just stories and also the winner will be anonymous until the votes are in. Obviously, the vote needs to include any other idiotic stories from other UKFFers; I don't feel it's fair to monopolise this with my little mate.

Edited November 20, 2009 by The Waterboy

[MRMIdAS]

Ask her about the bloke who's just got out of prison for strangling his wife in his sleep.