Coworker does Douchey thing, now must work with douchey coworker tomorrow. Please Advise

ANTVGM64

So, I came into my tech support job today after three days off to find my work desk filled with various computer equipment in boxes that I didn't get a chance to pack up the day before my weekend. I also received an e-mail essentially stating that "I have plenty of time" to unpack everything, basically accusing me of literally leaving ALL the equipment I took in on the floor. Which is not true.

Some background: I take in a lot of computer equipment like printers and credit swipers, along with some big machines like printers and oldish computers that are often times exceedingly well packed (with zip ties and plastic bags and bubble wrap and popcorn) or not well packed at all and in absolute shambled. In this case, it was a matter of both. I essentially received 16 of each item I had to unpack - credit swiper, scanner, credit swiper stands, monitors, and towers. I unpacked what I could, then sent a note to our hardware guy detailing what I was able to do, and what I couldn't do - mind you I am taking phone calls the entire shift, as well.

I come in today to find my desk literally covered in all this computer shit - like literally everything I didn't get to, down to a BOX, on my desk, packed up high, with my monitor unplugged and my machine turned off. Now, it appears the coworker who does hardware was on vacation this week, so a different coworker, who's a pseudo supervisor, had to cover for him, and work the night shift (which is when all the hardware stuff gets done). So, it's he likely came in to this mess and didn't really have a clue what was going on, and decided to react this way- including an e-mail with my boss copied on it using phrases like "the equipment you 'received' but actually just left on the floor behind you is on your desk' and that I should have more than enough time to get through it all. Which I disagree with because it was the day after memorial day and we got double hit with incoming shipments.

Now, I'm not normally one for excuses. I am pretty confident in the fact that I am serviceable / mediocre at my job, probably worse after being moved to a shift where I am on by myself the majority of my time. When I had other people on with me, and could focus on just one or two things at a time, I was much better - essentially the combination of taking calls, unpacking hardware, troubleshooting machines (with remote access software) and dealing with end users who don't know how computers work - is frankly a lot to handle, and I try my best, but eventually it just becomes a bit overwhelming and I fuzz out. At work I am always the first person to admit I screwed up, apologize, and try to do better and am keenly aware that I mess up far too often (or at least it seems I do). That said, I was getting over a cold, my mom was in the emergency room, and I had a particularly bad migraine that day - which are all pretty useless after-the-fact-but-none-the-less-true excuses.

So, that said, this putting all the hardware on my desk is totally bush-league right? I haven't felt this embarrassed and annoyed and ultimately mad at the world since second grade when my teacher dumped my messy desk out in front of the whole class - honestly I feel small, and angry, and want to lash out. Worse, I have to see the coworker who did this tomorrow for about 4 hours of a shift, and while I'm not a violent or angry person, I also want to make it known that, regardless of how bad he may think I am at my job, that this is simply unacceptable to me, and if he does it again I will <XYZ> (this is where you, PA, come in).

So, long story short, I unpack a lot of boxes, but not all of them, put away equipment, but not all of it, send an e-mail to the guy who's job it is to do this sort of thing to prepare him for what's left, he's on vacation, the guy who comes in for him finds himself bamboozled, and acts out in a manner befitting a cartoon character. I already replied to the e-mail with a "I had X number of Y to catalog, and I wanted to take my time to get it right, as I am ALWAYS told to do, but now I know better," and copied my boss. Not a fan of the snarky "now I know better" remark on the end, but I was steaming mad -I may not have walloped my monitor with an open palm about halfway through my shift after my 57th call with no support.

So, how do I handle my coworker tomorrow, how do I take responsibility without looking weak, and am I sort of in the right to be pissed about this, considering I didn't know the hardware guy was on vacation?

TychoCelchuuu

It sounds like you're overreacting in a pretty big way. I don't really understand all the details and stuff but it looks like form your coworker's perspective, you messed up, because your coworker isn't familiar with the whole "leave all this stuff for the next shift" thing. In fact even the bit of the email you quoted doesn't sound too snarky - if your coworker believed that it was your job to receive the equipment and do stuff with it, and he came in to find it all lying on the floor, I think he'd be totally justified in chewing you out. I would chalk this up to an honest mistake and certainly don't get super angry or anything.

Also the way you make like eight excuses about getting over a cold, your mom in the emergency room, the normal guy being out of town, etc. suggests that maybe you did screw up somehow? So in that case this guy is maybe even sort of right?

DevoutlyApathetic

Tycho has a point about excuse.

A bigger point is you do absolutely nothing to this guy. This guy who is sorta another department and sorta a higher level than you? You do not get into a fight with this guy. I suggest formally polite but not the least bit friendly. The reason I say this is because right now your boss has one problem, that his employee feels another employee treated them inappropriately. Being a dick tomorrow means your boss now has two problems.

Go talk to your supervisor. Explain what happened. (I'd ditch the excuses except maybe call volume and really only if that's verifiable.) Ask him if he thinks this is an appropriate response. Then let him handle it. Anything else is asking to get your ass kicked by the hierarchy.

ANTVGM64

Yeah....that's what I was worried about. I tend to have a very "why am I so bad at my job" attitude pretty consistently (mostly from my mom who has been worried about losing her job for the past oh, 25 years), so I wanted to give myself the benefit of the doubt on this one just a little maybe. I probably am getting worked up about much of nothing, but I guess this is probably a better way to get irrational anger out and venting, but somehow in the back of my head, even like, several hours (like 14 hours) removed from the incident, it still sits really bad with me.
Worky details (if you care, I completely understand why you wouldn't be bothered to read this - it kind of went in a bizarre direction)

A bit about my department. We're till and register support for a nationally traded company. There's...7 of us handling all the calls, depot, service requests, training issues, machine building, and shipping issues in the department. There are two shifts - namely 8am-5pm(ish) and 2pm-12am(ish), typically we have four people on during the day 8am-5pm (My boss, and then three other people), then one person on at night from 2pm-12am. My typical shift goes like this: I come in around 2pm(ish) and there's typically a bunch of equipment that needs to be packed up, brought to the mail-room, and shipped. Typically when I get in, the phones are sort of crazy, and I'll hop on those until I see what's going on, I'll have a coffee, and then get too it.

On the way back from the mailroom I'll grab all the incoming equipment, and since by this time the day is winding down for day shift, I'll typically be covering phones while they finish up anything. Once they leave around five, I have about an hour or so before I get slammed with calls for the next 45 minutes with people who can't figure out how to use their system properly doing closing. from 6-8pm is reallly steady with calls, and it's kind of impossible (for me anyway) to multitask between unpacking equipment then running over and getting in "tech support analyst" mode with all the databases and numbers and documentation that's spread out across excel, e-mail, access, and a bunch of other places. Around 8 I need to do something using an archaic computer program, and around this time I can typically start to unpack stuff and figure out what needs to be done - but calls keep coming in all night long.

There's nothing quite like making headway on something annoying like cutting a zip-tie with a box cutter only to get a phone call that very instant. It induces rage. Anyway, this whole gig creates this really, really, really awful system where I resent the phone calls, then resent the equipment we received because it's impossible to focus on one or the other, and more time spent with one, means less time focused on the other.

I used to work at home when I lived in the midwest, and being able to focus on just calls was cool, but the disconnect from the home office made it harder to keep up on things that were changing, since important info would either be generally assumed, or sent in a single e-mail amongst the hundreds we get a day.

When I moved back, I was put on a pretty cool series of shifts where I was never by myself, and was able to focus solely on phone calls and asking other people what they *needed* me to do. A utility guy, ya know? This shift I loved. But eventually I was moved to salary, and moved to nights, where I currently am, and it's much harder to really get everything together, but it's all up to me in a given night - I mess one thing up, I hear about it. I have nightmares about this place, forgetting to send a document, messing up a store number, and things like this. So - this breeds this idea that I am really, really bad at my job, and I don't know if I am or not. But it makes it very very difficult to ask questions and feel confident in my abilities, because I'm sort of paralyzed by getting an e-mail addressed to me with "Going forward we need you to blah blah blah blah" - there are SO many idiosyncrasies to remember that it seems almost impossible to know them all, but somehow, I guess, the day shift does it. Or they screw up and I don't know about it.

Similarly, the HW guy I work with is pretty much in agreement with me that we're consistently under the gun because we have the entire weight of a publicly traded company's operations on our shoulders in a given night (and I know that's super melodramatic). But it *is* a lot of pressure, and even *more* pressure when you come into work every day dreading e-mails.

And if I'm being honest here, motivation is a factor. While I'm 'loyal' to the company because my Boss was pretty cool about letting me work in the midwest while I was at school, the fact remains that I've quit this job...twice now, and it hasn't taken either time. The first time was because I was moving out to the midwest and was told I could work from home (which was awesome), and the second time I quit was because I got an awesome job as a producer at a TV show on national TV, only to be told by the executive producer *literally* the day after my two weeks notice was up, that the show was being cancelled - thus after thousands of dollars of education and a brief, fleeting, glimpse at a real paying job in the TV industry, I had to move back home after three years, back to the same job I had before I left, like, literally, that three year period never happened. So I'm bitter in a George Bailey sorta way?

So when I got back, we had a couple of new faces, and it seemed like we had a decent little nucleus going: the two HW guys (one of whom is now the coworker who piled all the shit on my desk) my two bosses, and our other employee who just takes calls and has been with the company like 30 years. I was in as a coverage guy on weekends and weekdays to allow them to not have to worry so much about the paltry tier-1 phone stuff, I had a weird shift 10-7 one day, 9-5 the next, 1-9 two days later, but I got 40 hours and was pretty happy.

I traded that for 40 hours in four days, and three days off, and a whole lot more headache (literally). So while I'm greatful and thankful for the job, I'm not good at it, and I don't have a mind for it either. I have to deal with numbers, SQL code, and things like that on a daily basis, and I routinely end up screwing up numbers like 2187 and 2817 without fail, which is a problem because all our stores have numbers like that (2113 2131, 2311, etc). Normally I use a notepad on my computer - though coworkers seem to stress that a physical notebook would be better. Which I've tried, but after 6 years of doing things one way, going to another felt like a serious step back from my normal kind of icky work flow.

At the same time, my BIGGEST issue is that I tend to go too fast, and miss things. I've gotten a few e-mails over my...good lord, 6 years with the company about slowing down and trying to work smarter and not harder. Which is tough because something...I don't know what, makes it difficult for me to leave calls in the queue for any longer than I have too - it's like seeing a stain on a cafeteria table and not being able to focus on anything else until you wipe it off, despite being told not to worry about the stains.

So, then, I guess it stings that I sort of took my time doing this hardware stuff, putting away literally dozens and dozens of pieces of equipment, plugging them in, verifying they work, putting them away, only to find that 1) No one really cared and 2) worse, everyone seems to think I barely did anything at all, and 3) they felt the best way to talk to me about this was the thematic equivalent of running my dirty XXL laundry up a flag-pole.

Worse, I think pretty much everyone in the department knows that I know that I'm not the greatest at this gig, but I try. I don't want to incite ADHD, but after being so bad at this job for so long, then looking at my grades from school, I'm thinking maybe it could be that. Either I can't focus, can focus and mess stuff up, or end up SO stressed by phone calls that I end up just chilling out at my desk surfing facebook because my brain is fried and I'm pissed off at a whole bevy of work related circumstances.

I'd also like to note that I do like to make up for this by saying yes to pretty much anything: cover a shift, sure, work late, sure, I give absolutely no one, any grief, what so ever, I rarely complain (I leave that for internet forums) I'm pleasant to everyone, and I've taken 3 sick days in the last three years, and have chosen to take days off when it's easier to find coverage, instead of taking full weeks off.

Anyway, this turned out to be far longer and more in depth and far more...crazy(?!) then I expected it to be. I guess maybe my question is now, WTF do I do about my job.

I guess my big issue with the matter at hand is that that the coworker that piled all the boxes on my desk, turned off my computer and unplugged my monitor used to have my gig before he got promoted - so he *is* familiar with the system, and similarly on his way out the door on Tuesday, saw the literal mountain of boxes (Two pallets packed 4/5 boxes high, and a decent sized cart packed four boxes high) and had *THREE* days to put it away, and didn't, instead opting to be petulant.

DevoutlyApathetic

Seriously, talk with your boss.

Obviously we just get your side but even allowing for some bias, even say you did not get all that you should have done, he shouldn't be a passive aggressive dick to you about it. You did all that you could do, you notified the person next in line about the unusual load professionally. At the very least talking with your boss will let you express that you feel it was inappropriate. If you're totally off base then your boss should correct you on it and you'll know better in the future.

It seems pretty clear that despite your low opinion they were willing to make an exception for you to work states away without supervision. I'd guess they have a level of trust in your work ethic.

Essee

I really don't think anybody from your company or anybody posting here thinks you're likely bad at your job... It mostly just sounds like both sides here ended up doing things they maybe shouldn't have and things are understandably a little tense right now because of that. Making mistakes doesn't necessarily mean you're bad. Similarly, unless I missed some of the backstory, one person getting rude about an aspect of your job doesn't mean everyone feels the same way about what you do. Don't extrapolate like that from this one incident!

I know it's tough because the other guy did something he shouldn't have, but I think you should try to cool down the situation a little bit. You should try to remain on amicable terms with everybody involved, especially if this is the first time something like this has happened... Letting this interfere with your work is going to do way more harm than good, as easy as it is to get upset. So don't let it mess with you. I think talking either directly to the guy (do NOT get into an argument with him-- it needs to be a peace offering kind of conversation if you do this) or to your supervisor and saying you felt what he did went a little too far even if you did accidentally increase his workload is a good idea. If you do actually talk directly to the guy, you guys should be able to remember that you're both human and maybe apologize for upsetting each other, agree to do better next time, and move on without this becoming a 'thing'. (Disclaimer: I do not have extensive experience dealing with coworkers I have a problem with and I don't know your coworker at all, so I'm not sure which option is a better idea. It does seem like your supervisor has already been involved so that might affect which action you should take.)

The Ender

Uh. Well, it sounds like dude had a temper tantrum; like everyone else has said, the best response is not to then have one yourself. Talk to your boss if you're concerned about it (but also be prepared for your boss not to care, or to take Tantrum Man's side. In my own experience, people who get away with being Tantrum Man tend to be buddies with management) - personally, I'd just shrug and be apathetic about the incident / forget about it.

finral

Just my two cents, it sounds to me like your coworker reacted very poorly. You can talk to your boss about it, talk to HR about it, or approach your coworker about it. If you approach your coworker, be polite, explain the situation, and that you don't feel he reacted properly. Above all, remain calm, cool, and professional. Also, you should probably stop being so hard on yourself. If you don't believe in your ability, that perception can leak through to your managers and coworkers.

zepherin

In all fairness. I have been bad at a job before. It happens, sometimes your in a bit over your head, and in my case I got assigned a project that had fallen apart and I had no business handling a complicated HVAC system, that had some dodgy bugs and my first day as a superintendent on that job site was the punchlist. I was really bad at that job, something that should have taken a week, took a month. Sad thing is now, with my current experience and hard knocks, I could have whipped that projects ass, but I didn't have the perspective and experience I do now.

You don't sound like you are bad at your job. It sounds like you need to have your load slightly adjusted, but maybe your manager is just seeing how much you can handle. Sometimes we do that shit just to see at what point is too much. Generally to maximize productivity your manager should have it so that you walk in and you just feel like you need to work fast to barely stay ahead, and with minimal downtime. Then give you a work reprieve a couple days a month where you have slow fuck off days so you can recouperate.

That is the first problem, the second is you are working with a passive aggressive asshole. I will echo the response that you need to send that up to your supervisor.

Reverend_Chaos

Maybe I missed something, but if I read this correctly, then he was filling in for the guy that puts the equipment away......so instead of doing the job of the guy he was covering for, he piled everything up on your desk......and did what exactly?

Obviously you are doing well enough at your job if they feel like they can trust to leave you alone for the majority of your work shift. If you were routinely not getting enough work done, I would expect you to have been talked to about it already, and probably more than once. It sounds like you put forth a solid effort with your work.

I would definitely talk to your supervisor, as I feel that this guy's behavior was unnaceptable. Other than that, just understand that this guy has his own side to the story. Maybe he too was having a bad day, etc.etc. I doubt that it was anything directed at you as a person. I would talk to your boss, tell him how you felt, and then forget about it. Holding a grudge will only make you feel miserable.