Climbing the “not my job” walls

Whether it’s at work with a co-worker or at a retail store with a member of their staff, we’ve all met the people who send signals, subtle or otherwise, that say, “That’s not my job!”

When I’m the customer and I encounter this, it makes me feel pretty negative about that particular business. I generally keep my mouth shut but avoid the place in the future.

When I’m at work and I encounter this, it makes me wish I spent more time playing first person shooter video games, especially the sort with extreme amounts of unnecessary gore. I wonder if there is a way to digitize an image of fuckface into one of those games?

This is how it typically goes down. A co-worker asks me for something, say it’s a fish. I stop what I’m doing and offer to teach them the method for getting that fish. “No, no, no!” they exclaim. “I don’t have time for that. Just give me the damn fish!” Fine, here you go, asshole.

It just so happens that this is something they need to know, because it’s going to come up again sooner or later, and next time I’m out of the office and they are fucked because no one has any clue what to do, who do you think they are going to call and hassle because it’s an “emergency?”

That’s not the end of it, though. These same people are usually the ones who go far out of their way to make sure you know how to do every single damn aspect of their job, and they give no quarter about accepting their work from you, instead responding, “you do it.” The same folks who couldn’t be bothered to learn anything from you are suddenly frickin’ gurus and you are their student so you can know how to do their work. Perhaps most amazing of all is that they actually expect you to go for a fucked up scenario like that. Truly sub-moronic.

Incidentally these are also often the same folks who blather on about the fact that you should be a “team player” and all that jizz. It’s so important to them about what you are and that you can be properly labeled – by them – in a manner that is satisfactory – to them – while they are in the middle of attempting to control every aspect of your interactions with them and/or your work-related duties.

So basically the person who this post is about won’t let me teach anything important about my job while at the same time he insists on teaching me about his – all while forcing “team player” bullshit down my throat. Congratulations! You’ve figured out how to tap an almost endless reserve of raw unadulterated anger in the middle of my gut.

Fuck that. If you treat me that way then that’s just one more tally in the “hate” column for you. I know it might be surprising to some, but I just tend to not dig one-way relationships that much.