STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Kitty · Hermes

Sharing a cube/workspace with someone you hate?

greendiamond · Marc Jacobs

I can relate. My particular space mate is a space case!

Prepare for vent!

She talks to herself constantly or hums or whistles. She interrupts me to tell me stupid-ass stuff while I'm reading. I have tried ignoring her or putting my nose further into the paper, to no avail. She chews with her mouth open and always has something on hep lip, she is computer illiterate and asks me dumb questions that I've answered 100 times before, she picks up my personal phone line when I'm not there (we pick up each others personal lines of the other is away from the desk so that the other doesn't miss the call, but if I'm not somewhere that I can be waved down, I just don't get it. Plus she takes terrible messages), She lets little things bother her and will dwell on them for hours, out loud of course, and she is obsessed with the weather in an annoying way (today she came in at 10 am complaining how hot is was <today's high was going to be 97> and when I returned from lunch at 2:20 p.m., asked if it were warmer. Seeing as how it gets warmer throughout the day and has done so summer after summer I wanted to point out the obvious, but I just muttered 'yes' and hoped she'd drop it), and she tells the same stories over and over again, and always has something to say about something. If I parachuted out of a UFO with a purple parachute and landed on an elephant and won an elephant derby, then she has done the same thing before.

Ok, I have 100 other things to add, but I'll stop because just thinking about her afterwork is making my blood boil. They are a bunch of stupid things, but after 3 years, day in day out I might go bizerk!

-gd

Luv2Shop · Kate Spade

I worked right across from the worlds oldest, most bitter, disgusting, BITCH I have ever met and it was really starting to get to me!! My only solutions:

Is there any way to work while wearing headphones, or at least just one? If not here is what I did, I would tune in to the radio on my computer and let it play all day. Even if it was really quiet I found it much easier to get lost in the music and drown her out.

Have someone who would have the authority to send a "random" email about personal phone calls and having to tone them down. Maybe she will get the picture from that.

Do the same with the shoes, have someone say it is a fire hazard or unsanitary (which it sounds like it is...gorss!!!!

)

About the pounding and swearing and talking to herself, if you can't learn to ignore it or drown it out with music, beat her at her own game, each time she says something or pounds on something, do it a few seconds later and a little louder. She might realize what she's doing then and how annoying it is.

Good luck! I know how draining it can be to work in such close proximity with someone and want to kill them everyday!!!!! The thing that really got me is when I got to hear, in great detail, about a 60 something year olds GYNOCOLOGICAL VISIT!!!!!

I found another job shortly after or else I would have invested in ear plugs!!!!

-- Edited by Luv2Shop at 18:08, 2006-07-17

Dizzy · Marc Jacobs

Um, I know this only helps to a point. But finding something she does that is horrible and FUNNY and sending it to a good friend (rotate them, obviously) each day helps a lot. Because then you're sort of hoping she does something awful, so you can tell people about it. And it takes the water-torture effect out of it. Also, teasing the hell out of her is sort of acceptable as long as you can do it without exploding. Or just say "Ew!" when she does something really gross, look horrified and hope she has the social savvy to be embarrassed. I would hope someone would give me a clue if I were driving them crazy. And as the spacy, chatty, klutz that I am, I can totally see it happening sometimes.