I work in a hospital. The one thing that makes me crazy is the super long fingernails - some of which almost look like claws. I am always afraid someone is going to accidently stab a patient with one of them, not to mention the crud that must live underneath.

I worked for a government contractor as a writer and editor. While I was never in a management position, I often a task leader on different projects. For one project, I managed a group of about 15 fellow editors, most of whom telecommuted. All of them did a great job except one person who, by her own admission, "could not figure out technology." Bad news for a telecommuter. Over the course of the project, this person routinely sent in assignments late (by weeks sometimes) and would reply to e-mails hours after they were sent. That's not a big deal in the office, but it spells disaster if you work from home. And the excuses centered on her computer connection. The worst part? The employee could come into the office whenever she wanted--she didn't have to rely on the home computer. My position was unique in that I couldn't reprimand this person, and I was uncomfortable directing her because she was 20 years my senior. So after trying diplomatic ways to solve the problem, I reported her to my manager, and my manager asked her to work at the office. When assignments were still late, she was removed from the project.

She was a nightmare because she was the "last straw" in our troubled telecommuting structure. Because of her, our managers had a reason to distrust telecommuters and had more ammo with which to criticize the system. Established employees who had proven themselves were allowed to continue to telecommute, but new employees were never given the option.

My worst employees were always the ones that understood how far they could push the rules in the workplace. Like petulent children they would get right to the edge, then back off.

I have learned that putting just three women in a work group is the worst mistake you can make. The emtional politics that women play when the situation is always two on one is unreal. And the two on one changes combinations several times a day so there is no good way to keep up with, or correct, the problem.

I had an intern who volunteered to take urgent, priority first-delivery to FedEx - which he lived next to, because I was working on a tight deadline and wouldn't be out of work by drop-off time. The next morning all 25 people called because they didn't have the packages. He had forgotten to drop them off at night, so did it first thing in the morning! And then Devil Boss scream me out because I should have done it in the first place.

It's made it really hard for me to delegate work to anyone.

Had to laugh at Leslie's comments. I have observed mostly younger women on the Metro who look like they're dressed for work, except that they're dressed in such a low-cut shirt that their "girls" (as Stacy and Clinton say) are practically falling out.

Perhaps they changed for a hot date? Somehow I think not and they're clueless.

About 13 years ago I worked for about 6 months with a young admin asst. who thought she was oh-so-smart and intelligent. But her work was only average at most, and she proceeded to use the office as a place where she starting her own business. So she would use the work phone and computer for her home business. They finally let her go, and no one was sad about that.

I worked in HR in a large non-profit company for a short while and it was my assigned task to speak to employees who were not dressed professionally... at least not for office work.

One young lady who worked in our marketing department was fond of wearing outfits that were "up to here and down to there" as her boss would say. It was such a problem that we would joke about her "Wide Belts". Thankfully, she had a great sense of humor and would come to my office each morning and ask if her belt was too narrow. She kept a pair of slacks in her office for the days when we asked her to change.

I never figured out why she didn't just wear the slacks to start with!

one day our intern in the IT dept took his bag with him everywhere he went. We thought it was a little odd. he disappeared for a few hours and we found him in one of the spare rooms with his xbox hooked up to a tv. it had been in his bag the whole time!

This summer my office has hired several teenage children of employees as interns. They are doing an OK job from what I can tell, but the girls have all taken to wearing those low, wide waistband, floaty leg "gaucho" pants that are always wedged up their butts and don't leave anything except the color of their skin to the imagination. I just can't belive their parents, who work in the same office, let them out like that!

I supervised someone who took unscheduled days off even tho it was against policy and even after she was warned several times. We weren't unreasonable with her, she was calling in every other week with an unscheduled vacation day, usually Monday, leaving a message around 5am on my voice mail even tho we'd asked her to call during regular hours so someone could speak with her in person (ie, ask some questions). Nothing doing, she would call in every other Monday, say she wouldn't be in, no reason, and not answer the phone at home if I called. Next day she would tell me she had to take the day off to go to a funeral. Eventually even she had to admit she'd run out of relatives, so she switched to telling me she had to have the day off to go to a funeral for a close friend. Then it was former neighbors. Everyone she knew was dying. I finally asked her if she could go to a funeral and then come to work afterwards, since it seemed she had become a professional mourner. Nope, she informed me, she had to have an entire day off to go a funeral because she might have to drive out of state. And, she told me, no way was she going to make any changes, she would take off whenever she felt the need. Thankfully, when I told my boss about this conversation, it was the last nail in the employee's coffin and she was downsized shortly afterward. Before she left she told everyone she knew that I got rid of her because I wanted her job.

I used to work at a company that developed some rather large web sites during the late '90's and early 2000's.

As this was the height of dot-com madness, we had a few just-out-of-college employees who had demanded obscenely large salaries, and enjoyed the perks of our company (a game room was our largest extravagance, and many people didn't even use it).

But they also thought life was one big game. One that sticks in my mind in particular was a colleague who would roll in around 10 (despite living in the next building over in Arlington), take a long lunch around 12:30ish and then be out the door no later than 5:30 (some days it was earlier), because there was a Happy Hour somewhere.

Including the days when we were on a tight deadline to launch big sites, and he was supposed to be a major part of the production team!

Our managers tried to talk to him, but he kept brushing it off. When bonus time came around (and our bonuses could be considerable), he got the bare minimum because of his lax performance. And he actually complained about it to anyone who would listen, instead of taking the criticisms to heart.

I became a controller and office manager of one of my companies subsidiaries a couple of months shy of my 22nd birthday. I supervised just three women (all older than me - one late 20's, one mid-30's, one early 50's), but it was certainly trial by fire. Within about 9 months, 2 of them (the younger two) were having affairs with plant supervisers. All four were married. :o/ I realize that intracompany romance is common!, and they were discreet - sort of - but it was still a difficult situation for me!

When my wife and I were first married, she had a few outfits she would wear to her office that I thought exposed way too much cleavage, so I dropped a few quarters in the slot, pressed the button, and asked her where my soda was.

The maintenance guys that worked around her office loved her!

What is it about the flip-flops that gets people so riled up? I personally don't wear them, but is it the thwack-thwack noise? Or their appearance?

I had a legal secretary one time who I hired at a high salary based on her resume that sounded like she had great skills, they turned out to be devoted primarily to watching the time clock. On one occasion she called in sick claiming that she would be out for several days. Coincidentally, I was departing the next day for an extended weekend skiing trip to Lake Tahoe. On my return flite at the end of the weekend, bad weather caused the plane to be diverted to Las Vegas where a few new passengers embarked, among them my secretary and a bevy of her party friends, all laughing and in high spirits after an apparent lark trip to Las Vegas! You should have seen the look on her face when she saw me sitting on the plane!!!! (She quit very shortly after that stunt!)

Complaining about your fellow human beings is a sign of low self esteem and dissatisfaction with life. Focus on what you are doing. I have met people who caused me trouble, and I have caused a lot of trouble for people. It is not interesting to discuss.

Flip-flops seem to be the new standard of "too casual" - personally I wear them walking to and from the metro only and I see alot of women doing the same. But a more conservative pair of open toed shoes lives in my desk drawer to wear at work.

The best devil employee story I have is a former co-worker who had a multi-year dispute with HR to the point that HR didn't speak to said employee on instruction from her boss (the CFO).

"I have observed mostly younger women on the Metro who look like they're dressed for work, except that they're dressed in such a low-cut shirt that their "girls" (as Stacy and Clinton say) are practically falling out."

God bless these women. God bless every single last one of them..........

I once had the misfortune to supervise a woman who felt compelled to send what she (wrongly) felt were uplifting emails to everyone at the firm. She was actually the reason the "NO EVERYONE EMAILS" policy was created. The last straw was a message she sent encouraging all of us to get down on our knees to praise the Lord and drive out Satan from our hearts and minds. She was also the one who ended up trashed or crying at all firm events. After a holiday party, I had to order the car service for her because she was so wasted, and she threw up all over the backseat on the way home. The firm was presented with a bill for cleaning and disinfecting the upholstery. Lovely.

Thankfully, she resigned after 18 months (the longest 18 months of my life). As soon as she left my office after "breaking the news" to me, I ran up to HR and did a dance with the Director.

preslopsky seems to have no sense of humor.

We had a girl in our office who went out every night to clubs and would come straight to the office afterward. One day she came in wearing a black mesh shirt with large holes, so you could just see her bra.

We have a girl who leaves her dirty dishes in the office sink or at her desk for days at a time. Once she went on vacation for two weeks. A colleague and I discovered a mouse in our office and went around to see where it could have come in. We saw five dirty dishes laying on the floor under this girl's desk caked in mold and mouse droppings.

We had a guy who was hired to redesign our database system who came in every day at 10am. He wore jeans to the office. He never did a single thing for the two months he worked here (before he was hired) and admitted to sleeping for two hours a day under his desk.

I have never understood why the way a person dresses is more important than the work they do. I can do a better job in a T shirt, jeans and sneakers than in a a dress shirt, tie, and dress shoes - basically because I'm comfortable!!!

I am an attorney and manager at a federal agency. The worst employee was a young attorney who pretty much never understood the facts or the law on any matter he worked on but assumed that he knew more than anyone (I think his tendency to assume may have been the source of his analytical problems as well). He would regularly get into heated debates about how little I or whoever was managing him knew and would fight every edit tooth and nail. He is one of two people I have ever yelled at in my career. Every manager in the division tried to work with him and the same thing happened every time. He was so good at arguing, we thought he could not be that stupid so we kept giving him different things to work on hoping he could be competent at something. He made two of the best attorneys I have ever worked with (by best I mean smart and thoughtful with excellent writing and people skills) doubt themselves. His name has become synonymous with nightmare employee around here.

'What is it about the flip-flops that gets people so riled up? I personally don't wear them, but is it the thwack-thwack noise? Or their appearance?'

at least with the thwack-thwack noise, you know where people are, and no one can sneak up on you!

oh, we have this other employee in our accounting department who is just a pill. I work for an international organization and she can't point to most of the countries we work with on a map. Anyway, this woman has zero communication skills. For example, I just got some invoices back from that department with a post-it note on top saying "not clear." That was it, no explanation. Standard for her. But the strangest thing this woman ever did was quit. She had taken some work home to do over one weekend, but she took some files that were not supposed to leave the office because they had bank account information. No one knew, though. Still, she came in that Monday morning before anyone else and sat a letter of resignation on her boss' desk, telling him she had taken the files home and that she was sorry for it. An email was sent around announcing her departure. We all rejoiced, of course, but her boss called her and told her to come back, that she didn't have to quit simply for taking the files home. She came back to our dismay.

"at least with the thwack-thwack noise, you know where people are, and no one can sneak up on you!"

LOL, but these usually aren't the ones you have to worry about sneaking up on you.

To Question:

I know it's off-topic, but I have to say, flip-flops bug the bejeebers out of me as office attire. I think because I grew up in the era where officewear = more formal, and flip-flops were something you only ever wore for that one week a year you got to escape work to go to the beach. So to me, they epitomize that lazy, ultra-casual beach feeling, where the whole point is you're NOT working, and the only reason you're wearing shoes at all is because you need something to shield your foot from the heat of the sand. So flip-flops in the office feels just as wrong to me as a business suit at the beach.

Oh there are so many...

One was a consultant hired by my company to write a required OSHA safety plan, the company was a small startup and we had just broken through certain thresholds in amounts of chemicals used etc so we needed this document. This guy charged BIG bucks but did hardly anything. He stretched this out for weeks while he mostly sat in our joint office openly making phone calls to new prospective clients (for HIM not us!). A bunch of us finally ratted him out and he was fired, but the most annoying thing is that one of the women happened to add that he sat at his desk reading Playboy - true - and he loudly told everyone that the real deal was that us radical feminists got him fired for THAT, not for totally goofing off and being incompetent and shameless. None of us really cared what magazine he was reading, honestly, we just thought it was a sign of his misuse of paid time. And the kicker is that after he was gone, one of the women working there finished up the document (well almost started it from scratch actually) in a few days where this overpaid slacker had "worked" several weeks on it. I have a generally bad view of these overpaid consultant suits but this guy took the cake!

"I have never understood why the way a person dresses is more important than the work they do."

I don't think there's any job in the world where how you look is *more* important than what you do, unless you're Linda Evangelista. But come on, if you work in a white-shoe firm or at the White House or the Pentagon, no, you're not going to be able to get away with a T-shirt and jeans.

And there's plenty of fairly formal businesswear that's just as comfortable as T-shirts and jeans. I'm so tired of people saying "But it's uncomfortable!" Not if you're buying clothes that actually fit you, it's not. If you don't like dressing up for work because it's indicative of a workplace that's more structured than you're comfortable with, that's fine, but don't beg off with "It's uncomfortable."

I once worked as an art therapist for an organization serving severely troubled children. My assistant at one point was a nice woman, but extremely flakey. One day she thoughtlessly left a SHARP KNIFE in the classroom sink (it was usually locked up.) Immediately, one of our charges noticed, grabbed the knife and began threatening the other kids and us with bodily harm. Eventually, the only course of action was to leave the room and lock him in until the police came. In the meantime he sliced up all the other kid's artwork, detroyed a display that I had stayed up several nights to finish, and got himself into a whole lot of dangerous trouble. I watched the police use pepper spray to subdue him and take him away, handcuffed, in a squad car. The boy was 12 years old (although he had 100 pounds on me). It was very sad for everyone. I left the organization the next year and don't believe the assistant was rehired.

I worked loyally for a small company for 7 years and was the third in command after the 2 partners. I could basically run the company since they were out of town most of the time and should have been offered to partner. Then one of the partners decided his out of work stepson could come in as a consultant, learn the business, and be in their succesion plan. Fortunately for me, my DH got a job out of state and I had to move so I didn't get to be in charge of training him like the partners wanted. Well, he did basically what someone else complained of consultants. He rarely came into the office, turned in as little work as possible, was supposedly sick a lot, and hardly returned our clients calls. This ticked off the other partner and now he is no longer with the company let alone be part of the succession.

I work for state government, and the number of "devil employees" I have supervised is huge.

There was the college graduate with a Masters' in Engineering who couldn't read a contour map, was basically useless in anything he tried, and wanted to start his own business where he could work from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm (he did and he closed in a year).

There was the technician who was trying to have a baby, and came in every morning telling us all the details of their attempts to conceive that day.

One trainee who was well endowed had a tendency to stand behind whoever was reviewing her work and lean against them.

Another technician (and a very good one at that) would get upset whenever he had to make a change to what HE thought was a good design, so upset he would just get up and go home to get drunk.

And finally, there was the assistant who never let a chance go by to stab her boss in the back, blame someone else for her shoddy work, or claim responsibility for anything that was well done on her projects. She had worked for a consulting firm where that was the normal way to get ahead, but in my state agency it didn't work that way.

Laura,

I don't think it's the era you grew up in. There are standards of professionalism and flip flops simply aren't professional. It's that simple.

I wear flip flops in the summer if I have to wear anything on my feet (and am not going to a restaurant where they are inappropriate) but I would never even consider wearing them to the office, even if they were allowed.

Professionalism is about respect. Try meeting with a client wearing flip flops - you aren't going to get that job, that's for sure.

The fact is that standards of conduct in this country have become extinct. I wake up every morning at 7:30am to the sounds of lawnmowers because there is no such thing as common courtesy anymore. People behave in a manner that tells the world they are only concerned about themselves.

Oh, and I'm not yet 30 and feel this way. I must be one of the last in this country to have respect for others.

I just can't resist...

I, too, don't totally understant the flip-flop hate out there. If you'd wear them to the beach or in a dorm shower, no, you shouldn't wear them to the office. What about my dressy leather thong-style sandals? Yes, you could say they're "flip-flops." But they they show no more of my feet than fancy-pants coworkers in their dressy sandals, and they make a lot less noise than anyone in any other sort of open backed shoe.

Annoying coworkers? How about that guy who only uses speaker phone in an open office environment? Not only can we hear every call he makes, but we also know that he calls IT pretty much every single day to get something fixed. It's gotten to the point where I've seen IT people duck and hide from him!!

I had an assistant who actually did a pretty good job, but she was rather sensitive. I shared her with my boss, who could get cranky occasionally. I had learned to deal with him (just let him vent and then move on with your life), but she took it all very personally. One day, when we were working on a deadline (and he was particularly cranky) she took a late lunch and never came back. I ended up having to do two jobs for the rest of the day, which considering the deadline was not fun.

My offfice doesn't have casual fridays and most of my friends offices do! Iwould kill to wear jeans one day a week! My office's dress code is a little more strict, nonetheless most of my fellow staff (we're all girls 1-2 years out of college) pretty much ignore it. Gap cargo pants and white flip flops are not uncommon most of the week. I do my best to stick to simple and more dressy (lots of sweater sets, innumerable black skirts and black pants, black heels). I feel fo teh guys in my office though--it bothers me that the other girls wear this stuff while I make an effort to dress more professionally, but it must annoy the hell out of them--they wear suits everyday (tie and everything)!

I think in college we get so used to just throwing whatever on and being very casual ALL the time that when you leave, you (unfortuantely) have as much of a sense of whats dressy and whats not. There is a difference too between looking "nice" or pretty or being dressed professionally. I look adorable in my halter top polo dress, but I couldn't wear it to the office! It's backless sleeveless and the fabric is very casual-looking.

Ladies! If you see a newbie in your office who looks like she's haveing some trouble, point her in the right direction! Give her some shopping advice ("You know I always have good luck at ____. They have great pants/skirts/suits for inexpensive prices.)

ok, I'm done :)

I am merely a lowly support staff, the lowest of the low and treated likewise by the higher-ups. At one point I worked in our Firm's document processing department on the midnight to 8:00 am shift (yes, folks, we're staff 24/7). One co-worker who lives in DC would come in late every single night, although rush hour traffic couldn't have been the cause at midnight. Our dept. manager wrote her up several times but nother ever came of it. So she'd arrive late, sleep at her desk (had a pillow in a drawer so she could crash any time she felt like it). She even slept on an overtime shift a time and a half! She took all her entitled smoke breaks, even though she had a raging case of bronchitis. At 7:00 when the fax machines and phones started jumping to life she'd take more entitled smoke breaks, leaving me alone to handle the whole department. Then when others started arriving for their shift she'd chat and talk and go to breakfast with them. I was finally reassigned to another department (Thank you, God) and she --- get this --- was promoted to supervisor! Equal opportunity at work.

>>>> 9:44 - I have never understood why the way a person dresses is more important than the work they do. I can do a better job in a T shirt, jeans and sneakers than in a a dress shirt, tie, and dress shoes - basically because I'm comfortable!!!

Because those of us who sell deals can't close them if our employees look like unprofessional slackers! It stinks when we lose deals (commissions!) because buyers think the company down the street is more professional.

I have been really lucky to work with great people, so it's been hard to come up with good stories. But the worst situation I dealt with was our IT support guy. We were under a huge deadline -- had to get two massive documents filed by a 4:30 Tuesday afternoon deadline, and I had been working round the clock with another associate to get them done. Sunday night, about 1:30 AM, the document freezes, and then we get the Blue Screen of Death. Computer ate the first document.

I immediately paged our IT guy (first time ever), apologized profusely for bothering him in the middle night, but explained our deadline and said I needed to recover the document right away (at that point, didn't know if we'd lost just the changes or the whole thing). He basically said, "I'll get to it tomorrow when I come in." I explained again that we needed it now, and he said, "if it's not due until Tuesday, I don't see why you can't wait until tomorrow." I again tried to explain that we needed it now, because we had two documents, and unless we could finish one tonight, we wouldn't be able to get the second one done tomorrow. To which he said, "do you know what time it is?"

I absolutely lost it -- first (and last) time I have actually yelled at someone at work. I started screaming that I knew %&*^@%(@ well what time it was, because I'd been there working on this document since 7 in the morning, on 3 hrs of sleep because I'd done the same thing the night before, and was going to be doing the same thing again the following night, for which I needed a document to work on. And turns out, when he got his butt out of bed, he was able to log in from home and recover an earlier version of the document for us in under a half-hour, so we only lost 2 hrs of work -- if he'd just TOLD me he'd try that, instead of giving me flak, I'd have been happy as a clam.

Luckily, he was let go within a couple of months. But that associate I was working with never forgot the day she saw a completely different side of me!

I work for a global telecommunications company. We had a 3rd shift employee that had apparently lost his ID badge. Each night someone from the 2nd shift crew would let this guy in.

After a couple of weeks we started to notice a very foul smell around the office. It turns out this guy was peeing in a particular storage closet and various large potted plants around the office because the restrooms were located in the office building's common area, outside of the secured doors. Instead of requesting a new ID badge, or even temporarily blocking the door open to use the restroom, he elected to violate the place. He actually thought his actions were justified.

I felt sorry for the cleaning and maintenance crews that had to remove the carpet from the closet and sanitize this guys handy work. Unfortunately, many of the plants didn't survive either.

Needless to say, HR got rid of this guy in short order.

What are you talking about--flip flops are very professional.

I had one employee, who after being on the job for about two weeks came into my office practically in tears. She needed to go to Kansas City for a few days for "personal reasons," she realized she didn't have any leave, but it was really, really important that she get to Kansas City right away. From her attitude and the desperation in her voice, it sounded like a relative was dying, so I gave her unpaid leave; I personally picked up the slack from her absence. She came back the next week and handed in her resignation--she had gone to KC for a (successful) job interview.

Another, a young secretary, sent a company-wide email one afternoon inquiring if anyone had seen the fork she had brought with her lunch. She went on to explain in great detail how this was a very important fork, it had sentimental value to her mother, and she simply could not go back home without the fork or her mother would be devastated. Not really a bad employee, just a weird, weird, story.

Early in my career, I worked as a paralegal for a very high maintenance partner who went through 10 secretaries in about a year. At one point, he hired a male secretary who seemed to resent me and refused to take directions from me, even though it was his job to support both me and my partner. He also believed that the way to keep the partner organized was to let him lose documents (rather then making an extra copy for the file), thinking that if the partner lost enough documents, he would learn to be more careful. He could not get along with the other secretaries either and every little thing that happened was blown into a huge drama. Things were just not working out, and after a month, the partner had had enough and fired him. For weeks afterwards, he stalked us on the streets near the firm, yelling at us that we were evil liars. I was afraid to go out to lunch for a while. Finally after a few months, my boss hired his former secretary back (one who had worked for him for 10 years previously and knew how to handle him). I was so happy to see her back I sent her flowers.

"I think in college we get so used to just throwing whatever on and being very casual ALL the time that when you leave, you (unfortuantely) have as much of a sense of whats dressy and whats not."

True. This is how you get women's lacrosse teams wearing flip-flops to the White House, and saying, "What are you talking about? This is no big deal" when their outraged mothers call them and demand to know what they were thinking.

Okay, here's a 30-for-one:

I was a mid-level manager in one of the local dot-com consultancies from '99-'01. This very paper did a bunch of pieces on us and our controversial CEO. We had a bunch of unique perks including a full gameroom that had a ping pong table and two been fridges.

Well, in Summer 2000 we hired about 25 college kids with no projects to put them on, and they decided that since they were bored it was acceptable to play beer-pong all day in the game room. For about a week, we wound up with multiple drunken new hires for the second half of each day.

We all got downsized eventually, but I wasn't sad that these folks and the recruiters were the first to go.

Jimmy Dean wins, hands down. That is both disgusting and funny!

We have a guy who was caught twice by our IT guy masterbating at his desk. He comes in on weekends, and Sundays are the day when the IT guy gets a lot of work done since no one is in the office.

Regarding the flip-flop wearing women's lax team, when the President thinks it's ok to give back-rubs to another head of state, I think it can be safely assumed that his White House is a "casual" one. And I don't think it's bad they wore flip-flops.

I had an intern who posted scripture all over her cube. Not that there is anything wrong with loving Jesus, but just not at work where people can be offended. If I said it once I said it five times-she is an intern and doesn't know any better.

She also painted her nails white with white out when she was bored.

My sister, a crunchball if ever one walked, reported the first company she worked for to the county for failure to follow the city's recycling laws. They were fined a ridiculous sum (in the thousands) and made an example of in the local paper. Gee, wonder why she wasn't ever promoted and got pathetic raises . . .

Dressed like a hooker. Worked as often as Santa Claus. Felt as smart as Einstein, but really was as a Pee Wee Herman intellectual. Took 4 weeks consecutive, unexcused sick leave and screamed unjustified dismissal lawsuit while being helped out the door. Perhaps, genetic engineering could help free the workplace of such beings.

If you are not dealing with customers, then I think it's fine to wear whatever you want, as long as your outfit is clean. :)

It's not uncommon where I work to kick your shoes off toward the end of the day and walk around the floor in socks.

If you are comfortable working, your work quality will be that much higher.

The problem with flip flops is that apparently some people do not know their audience. I am sure there are some offices where they are fine. In most offices, however, flip flops are not fine. Open toed shoes can be fine, even nicer sandals in the summertime if there is a casual dress policy, but flip flops, only in the most casual of offices. If you do not know if you work in a casual office, you have more problems than wearing flip flops.

Have people ever heard the saying that you should dress for the job you want next, not the one you have? If management cannot see you in that "next" position, you will not be getting that promotion. Quality of work matters, presentation matters too.

Lawyers are known to be the worst to work for, which is why they have to pay such high salaries. Thankfully in government, abuse doesn't fly too well.

I once worked in an office where the lawyers were pretty low key and the admin assistant was excellent and had 20 years of experience on any of them. This hotshot lawyer comes in and starts demanding things he's not entitled to, like a cushy chair (tells the AA to sign a doc saying he has back trouble rather than giving proof), tech toys he didn't use and seemingly the right to scream whenever he felt like it. The AA was taking it all in stride, even the weekly verbal assaults, biding her time until he left. Then one day he wanted something no one could give him, simply because it was ILLEGAL. So he threw his desk phone at the AA. The AA called security and he was fired that same day.

Flip-flops at work are ghetto. Get over it.

Scarry,if she limited the scripture to her cube how is that offensive? I do the same thing and it's to give me inspiration not to offend others.

Daedalus,
you aren't talking about working at the AIDS Marathon, are you?

Wow, with a few notable exceptions (peeing in the closet?) it sounds like many of these people have achieved work/life balance. I don't know about you, but if a colleague called me at home at 1:30 on a Sunday to harangue me about anything I only HOPE my response would be, "can't this wait 'til tomorrow?"

A beloved colleague has a mantra she recites when things get tight at the office. "Nobody's gonna die and noone's going to get hurt if X project doens't make it out the door by 3:00." This really helps put things in perspective. She's a great worker, by the way, who always meets or exceeds expectations with grace.

A couple of comments:

To Father of 4: You sound like a real creep. Why would you tell a story like that about your wife? Or is she your ex-wife by now?

To daedalus: Don't quite understand your objection to lawn mowers at 7:30 a.m. Many people prefer to mow the lawn before the day gets too hot. Lawn care firms have to begin in the early morning to get in a full day's work. What's the problem? Where's the lack of courtesy?

General observation: Seems like the biggest issue employers have with employees is what constitutes proper attire. Does this say something about our priorities?

My own worst employee story: I had a couple of occasions, years ago when I was a manager, when I had to address employee hygiene problems. Neither of the people in question were devil employees, but they stank, and their coworkers complained to me constantly. I felt badly having to sit them down and talk about the problem, but I had an obligation to their coworkers, so I had to do it. Among the worst experiences of my management days.

"I think in college we get so used to just throwing whatever on and being very casual ALL the time that when you leave, you (unfortuantely) have as much of a sense of whats dressy and whats not."
My small liberal arts college had a dress code for classes--jackets and ties for men, skirts for women. It was a church-affiliated school, but that had nothing to do with it. The argument was that education was an endeavor that demanded your respect, and the way to demonstrate respect for an activity is to dress appropriately. The code was waived for "inclement weather" (and, as a friend put it, sometimes she'd wake up, look at the sky and see a cloud, and say, "Look! Inclement weather! I'm wearing jeans!" and we could get VERY creative with what we did with those skirts and ties and jackets (ever seen a tie with overalls?) but for the most part, people stuck with it, though I don't think there was any real enforcement mechanism. By the time I graduated, you'd hear the administration admit that one reason for the code was to give people at least a hint of what their future work life would be, and I have to say, graduating with a closet full of skirts did give me a leg up on my friends who had to shop for a whole new wardrobe when they graduated.

Not doing your job when it is not convenient is not balancing your life.

Some things do actually need to be handled right away. I think there was a discussion yesterday about the nature of some IT work (it sounded like technical support issues but I am no IT person) and the whole point was that it meant being on call 24/7. If a person's job is to be on call 24/7 then that is what it is. The reason people are on call is because sometimes things cannot wait until morning.

I am a lawyer that left litigation and private practice to get life balance but I have not forgotten it. Sometimes, everyone working as hard as they can, it is hard to meet a deadline and if the deadline is not met it is a really big deal. Courts have been known to not accept documents late, deals fall apart if contractual deadlines are not met, etc. I do not think the attorney giving the example was out of line at all being pissed at the IT person, the person was refusing to do his/her job and it sounds like did not appreciate that others would not be working in the middle of the night if they had a choice.

Different jobs require different hours. Doctor's are on call all night sometimes. I recently had a medical emergency where a sonagram technician had to be called from home into the emergency room in the middle of the night, I am glad he did not tell the caller to go fly a kite because it was 1 am. I did not choose when I had to be there.

Scarry,if she limited the scripture to her cube how is that offensive? I do the same thing and it's to give me inspiration not to offend others.

I wasn't trying to start a god vs. non-god fight on the board. It's distracting from the stories but...........

It didn't offend me it offended other people. And it wasn't like a little post card piece of scripture it was huge poster board pieces of scripture that you could see from the hallway. I mean we don't actually own our cubes and many different people work in this city, so I think it is best not to plaster your views all over your cube where eveyone can see them.

1. The guy who had a fantastic first week and seemed super eager to learn the business but would take naps behind supplies. He also accidentally stabbed my hand - that was weird.

2. The kid from Atlanta who, on his first day, used the color copier to try to counterfeit money. He claimed to have done this successfully in Atlanta. His process was to xerox and then put the fake money in the dryer to give it a worn look. His first day was his last.

3. We had one of those people who runs around acting busy all the time, but really does little. He kept claiming that he was assigned to re-organize parts of the office. Basically, he didn't want to do any work. This went on for a number of years. He also never came to work on time and would always leave early. The problem became his time sheets - he never acknowledged his attendance problem there. Further, he had an excuse every day - metro, car troubles, funerals, getting mugged... he must've been mugged at least twice a month and witness to car accidents that demanded his attention nearly every week.

It's soooo funny when people take Father of 4 soooo seriously. Thanks for the laugh.

I once supervised a young woman who had the worst, most offensive body odor. I believe she did not shower every day... possibly not even every week, given her scent. I felt awful, because no one could bear to be around her, especially in the summer. It was unbearable. None of us knew quite how to handle it. She quit after about 9 months, and unfortunately, I was glad to see her go. Everybody has a bady body day now and then, I guess... but this was chronic, and enough to make you dizzy.

This is going to be long.

I ran a copy center for a large law firm in Boston for eight years. I have stories that you wouldn't believe. Unfortunately, they're all true.

One night-shift guy came in one afternoon and started taking off his clothes in the middle of the room. Standing right in front of the large window where secretaries dropped off their requests. And several secretaries were standing there, shocked.

"What are you DOING?" I asked.

"Changing. Why, what's the problem? Am I turning you on?" (with lots of attitude).

"No, it's just TOTALLY UNPROFESSIONAL! Go change in the bathroom!" I said, pointing to the men's room which was literally right outside the door.

He snickered, and for the next several weeks he and the other employees threw "totally unprofessional" at me often, in an orgy of sarcasm. They knew that HR wouldn't back me up on discipline.

We later found out that that guy was bringing in beer and drinking on the job.

Then there was the temp who worked for us for six months. He arrived late every morning, took a two-hour lunch, and left at least half an hour early each day.

He started taking orders for candy around the office, ignoring any work that needed to be done. When the candy finally came in, he dumped it all in a delivery cart and spent the day - the WHOLE DAY - delivering it.

Now, if you haven't worked in a top-line venture capital firm, I may need to explain something here. Partners are God. Clients...are God's boss. Meetings between partners and clients are sacred beyond all imagining. Mere mortals dare not trespass.

I later received reports that the temp simply walked into a number of high-level client meetings that day, pushing his cart, and shouting "Here's your candy. Now where's my MONEY!"

We later found out that he'd faked his time cards the whole time he'd been with us, claiming that he'd arrived early, worked through lunch, and stayed late. His temp agency was so desperate to keep the firm's business that they refunded the entire amount of the overcharge - all six months.

But those two were nothing compared to #3. A guy built like Frankenstein, about 6'8" tall, ex-military. Who, among other things, brought a knife to work - a big one - and told me that he "probably" wouldn't kill me. The situation got worse from there, and once again, HR wouldn't back me up - it turned out that the guy had been going up to HR every morning and complaining about me. So we were both brought into a room, verbally spanked, and told to shut up or they'd gladly replace us both. We were, and I quote "as replaceable as used Kleenex, and worth about as much."

I gave notice the next day. I later found that the guy with the knife got my job after I left.

My current job is much better; now I'm a technical guy, and I don't supervise anybody. Which is just as well; I wasn't very good at it, obviously. That firm recently went out of business, and good riddance.

Okay, I'll stop now - even though I have plenty of other stories, believe me!

Not a devil employee, but funny, to me at least. I worked in a job where I had to work closely with IT temps. We had a regular who was good at his job but was frequently late. He was in his mid-forties and his mom would call to see if he was scheduled to work, make sure he made it to work, that if he was late he was on the way, that he needed the work so please don't fire him, etc., etc. There were three of us who answered the phones and it got to the point she knew us by name. She was so nice, we would just say, yes ma'am...

KJ:

You have to read this on a regular basis to know that Father of 4 is joking. Or not, but overall, it is funny.

Maybe lawnmowers at 7:30 during the week aren't so bad (8 would be better), but on a weekend, it is absurd! Our trash guys come at 5:45 some days (weekdays) and, by law, they aren't supposed to come around until after 6. A call to the company fixes it for a few weeks.

It must have been awkward asking employees to shower more often.

My husband is an IT person and you wouldn't believe the ridiculous requests that come in at all hours of the day and night. He is never technically on call. He doesn't get paid to be on call and he's not contractually bound to be on call. Some people go nutty when their computers are buggy and lose all sense of perspective. He helps out when he can and sets reasonable boundaries around what he determines to be hysterical requests. (1:30 AM? Come on, we're not talking a medical emergency here.)

So yes, not doing what something THINKS should be your job even when it's not IS balancing your life.

" How about that guy who only uses speaker phone in an open office environment? "

I worked in an office that was mostly open-plan but had few private offices. When one became vacant, my supervisor moved into it on his own accord, without vetting it with the office management (in an office that prided itself on egalitarianism). But then he would make all his calls from a cell phone in the hallway, apparently because his new office was too small, and was one of those awful people who thought that to use a cell phone you have to yell really loudly. It made me absolutely INSANE!!!

And Lizzie, I'm with you on the office wear. And I'd take business formal over business casual any day - suits are just so much easier to put together in the morning, just choose what color shirt, no complicated outfits to figure out. It's great for those of us completely lacking in fashion sense.

I worked with a woman who was constantly late for work. The job was near the Capitol Hill metro station. We knew she took Metro, so one day I asked her where she got on.
Kris: The red part.
Me: Oh, you mean the red line?
Kris: No, the red part.
Me: What line do you take?
Kris: Orange.
Me: What red part are you talking about?
Kris: You know, the bricks.
Me: Nice chatting with you, I have to get back to work.

For those of you that don't take metro here in dc, every metro station's floor is red tile. (I guess they sort of look like bricks.) She was an attorney, btw.

Turns out, she lived right above the Courthouse metro station and just took the orange line in. Why she was late everyday, I'll never know. She also chewed 5 pieces of gum all at the same time in meetings really loudly and was rude to pretty much everyone. We were so glad when she left.

My personal favorite: we have a good sized group of 20-something girls who work in our office. They prefer to dress so that everyone can see all they have to offer. Then they complain about the middle-aged men staring at "the girls." What exactly do they think men are going to do if you put "the girls" on display?

"So yes, not doing what something THINKS should be your job even when it's not IS balancing your life."

I agree. But, when that is your job and one of the requirements is to be on call and offer support 24/7 or at least during your shift, IT IS YOUR JOB.

I had an employee who refused to do anything that was not specifically referred to and/or defined in his job description, such as report on the progress of his projects. That wasn't his job. He refused the updated job description and was subsequently fired....I guess it's not his job anymore!

A number of years ago, there was a guy in my office who was obviously a hoarder. He used to buy stuff off out of catalogs by the dozen (i.e., umbrellas, pillows) and then hide them in filing cabinets or wherever he could find space. He had newspapers stacked to the ceiling and he also did things like spill sugar in his space, leave food around, etc. that attacted bugs and other critters.

Our supervisor tried to get him to clean up the space, but he wouldn't do it. A number of other employees stepped in and filed a grievance with the Union because this fellow was creating an unpleasant work environment. So when the supervisor went to the employee with the grievance in hand and again asked him to clean - he still wouldn't do it. The messy man ended up filing his own grievance against our supervisor for not respecting his cultural background. We always wondered about that cultural background thing.......

From a safety perspective, an open shoe invites more serious injury, even in an office (dropped objects, hot coffee spills, etc.).

In case of a building evacutation, closed shoes make it easier and faster to get out and away from the building, without scrapes or cuts.
We all watched the DC offices clear out like a bad 50's sci-fi flick when the private plane went off course.
(btw, on 9/11, I was close enough to see the smoke at the Pentagon.)

After walking on city streets, Metro, etc., don't you want to boil your feet when you get home?

I worked for a bookstore, and we needed to hire help for the holidays. One applicant made a big deal about how she was a Christian and would really prefer not to work on the Sabbath. We told her that wasn't an option, and she took the job anyway.

Guess who got wasted and puked all over the manager's house at the Christmas party?

My least favorite type of employees are the ones who sit around complaining about how another employee never works. I can handle goofing off, but the convoluted logic drives me crazy.

I'm right with chinesebones - I used to work with a guy who was so lazy (how lazy was he?) that he would spend 20 mins trying to find someone to do something that would take him 5 mins to do if he felt it wasn't "his job" to do it.

"I don't know about you, but if a colleague called me at home at 1:30 on a Sunday to harangue me about anything I only HOPE my response would be, "can't this wait 'til tomorrow?""

Wow, guess that just shows there are two interpretations for everything. Honestly, if this guy had just ASKED "can't this wait 'til tomorrow," I wouldn't be telling the story. My problem was that he TOLD me he'd "get to it tomorrow," because HE thought that would give me enough time to get my job done. Even then I stayed polite, until he got all snotty about the time (which, having been there for 18 hrs straight, I didn't really need pointed out to me).

"Another DC Mom" pegged it: this guy was hired to be on-call 24/7, and he was paid well for it. If you're not willing to deal with an occasional middle of the night call, then don't take a job that makes that part of your responsibilities. Yeah, grumble and b*tch all you want in private, but at least do the job. This guy flat-out refused, to my face, to help me (didn't even tell me he'd look into it at home, which he ultimately did -- just said no, he'd deal with it in the morning, and left me hanging until he called back an hour later with a solution).

And just to be clear, this was as big an emergency as a law firm can have. It wasn't some made-up internal deadline, or "the client wants it by X." This was a filing deadline for a major rule -- meaning if we didn't meet it, our papers would be trashed, our clients would have lost any right to contest the rule, and we would have been sued for malpractice (and lost). So again, you don't want to deal with that, don't take that job -- but if you do, don't turn into a smart-ass and refuse to do it just because it's inconvenient.

I'm waiting for the bosses to post about their employees wasting time on a work-life blog instead of WORKING. ;)

Some of us who are working have computers that are so slow that we have time to read while they decide to work ;-(

My boss is right here in my office having a personal conversation with my office mate. I wish he would leave pretty soon so I can blog without the fear of getting busted. but, as of now, he thinks I'm working on a Microsoft Access project.

It's not the work you do, it's how you play the game!

Oh, man, I worked with a guy who was a hoarder, too. His office was full of jars of spaghetti sauce and boxes of cereal. Once the VP came in over the weekend to clean out her office; the following Monday all the recycling bins were full of things like Korea studies from 1995 and books about the structure of Soviet defense budgets. Hoarding Guy came up to me and said, "Is she just gonna throw those out? Those are perfectly good resources!" He put every single one in his office.

He also added so many USB devices to his computer that he completely destroyed it.

After he screwed up a huge report for our most important client, the VP fired him. He begged for his job, though, and said he was willing to stay on as an intern. So that's what he did. He went from being a senior staffer to someone who reported to me (I was in my mid-20s at the time), at a $20K pay cut. Unbelievable.

Dress code. Good thing!

Yeah, it means work clothes are a bit like "uniforms", but they serve the same purpose that school uniforms do - they make it easier for everyone to fit in and concentrate on work.

Still, codes are difficult to enforce when it down comes down to details and "letter of the law".

One of our most intelligent, productive, and personable employees apparently could not keep up with her laundry. Her clothes sometimes smelled bad, looked rumpled, even rather dirty, and she often wore the same outfit repeatedly. This topic was addressed with her several times and she always made a good effort for awhile. She would made apologies with excuses about her washing machine being broken, or the scent from her cats climbing on her, or water problems in her old house pipes, etc.

She could not really be fired for this "offense" (pun intended) but she did not get any raises or promotions, either, and eventually quit because she was getting married! We liked her but we were all relieved.

To 11:09 am, it sounded as if it was that person's job to be on call. The person responded to a page. If I were not on call, I certainly would not be responding to work pages at 1:30 in the morning. Some people are on call because sometimes work requires that someone be available.

Perfect timing, just yesterday one of the summer interns asked me "Where do we go so we can sleep?". I had ask her what she meant and she replied "like if we want to go take a nap where do we go?".

I work for a government research lab, I know gov. workers have a reputation for sloth but this seemed a bit worse than normal

Thought this would've come up already.....bathroom etiquette or lack thereof. We had a lady who would make sounds as if she was in pain while in the stall next to you. Also would were sweatpant/stirrup like pants and had bedhead almost every day.

Another doosy is the IOR (in office retiree) that sleeps at his desk with one hand on the mouse and when you turn the corner to ask him a question, shakes free from his dream and acts like he's working on something. He also sleeps through most meetings. It's pretty bad!

Scarry-it's her cube-no big deal. If people are offended that's there problem. How you do know what will offend others? Maybe the NASCAR poster down the hall is offensive to me. People need to get a little tougher.

My pet peeve, and I am dealing with it currently, are employees who feel they are entitled to a paycheck and have to do nothing to earn it. And I work in a field that pays large salaries! I once sat next to a woman that spent all day, every day, on the phone making personal phone calls. She called each of her kids, grandkids and friends each day to chat. She, rightfully, was eventually fired. I now have a coworker that spends all day surfing the internet and playing games, and making personal phone calls (on his cell phone, so it can't be traced). Unfortunately, this guy is intelligent and a master of BS, so he has the boss totally snowed. He always has an excuse for why his assignments aren't done, or he manages to delay enough that the other team members get stuck doing them. He has the boss totally convinced he is wonderful, and she has even handed him a non-compete promotion! How do these people look themselves in the mirror knowing they are bilking the company?

oops-wear and their....it's been a long week.

>>>Flip-flops at work are ghetto. Get over it.

Hey, I'm from the ghetto, and it isn't us. Go blame the suburban slackers ;-)

I have never understood how some people "know" that their coworkers are surfing the internet for hours at a time. Do you stand behind them with a stopwatch all day and time them? And isn't that just 2 workers wasting time instead of one? Mind you own business people, you'll live longer.

I once had a co-worker with fly-killing perfume. She used to bathe in it.

Many of today's posts are about young people being clueless about work wardrobe. Maybe no one has bothered to teach them.

One of my sons attended an expensive, selective, small college where he got a great education. This education luckily included some "finishing touches" - the seniors were taught how to dress, interview, write a resume, eat and act at a business or other formal meal, make introductions, engage in conversation using good listening skills as well as speaking, write thank you and follow-up notes, etc.

This was not 100 years ago - just a few years ago! It works well. Maybe finishing schools could make a come-back!

"...and left me hanging until he called back an hour later with a solution."

Hmm... So he DID do the job, and within an hour no-less? That sounds entirely within the range of acceptability to me. What's the problem? That he was grumpy about it? That you were grumpy? I'd be grumpy if I was working around the clock on a weekend too.

But how did this profoundly unbalanced situation arise in the first place? Did a judge not allow enough time for the papers to be filed? If so, why didn't you petition for more? And if you did, and it was refused why didn't the powers that be at your laws firm throw more resources at the problem so it could be resolved during reasonable business hours?

One guy in my office has covered his walls with pictures of almost naked men (and what grosses me out even more is his pictures of Prince William and Prince Harry (children). He also uses a cup that says "I am the queen" on it at staff meetings. Once, he asked to scan a photo of himself in drag (which was apparently taken on a vacation cruise). I think it's a little over the top for a professional setting.

I had a co-worker who spent about 6 hours of her "working" day, every day, on personal phone calls. Everything that happened, every thought she had, she would call her mom and at least 3 other people and share it with them. Loudly. She could be heard through the walls. People on the other end of the phone would ask me what was going on, because they could hear her. Everyone complained, but the Dept. head refused to do anything about it, because she couldn't stand any confrontation. The most she would do was send out an e-mail asking everyone to keep their voices down. For some reason it wouldn't have been "appropriate" to single out the loud talker.

The loud person also refused to do any work on Fridays. If asked to do something, she would say, "I make sure I get all my work done by Thursday so I can relax on Friday." So the rest of us would scramble while she read a magazine.

Another co-worker (at the same place) refused to use e-mail. So if you sent her work via e-mail, it wouldn't get done. And it was not her fault, it was the fault of the requestor, because we were all supposed to hunt her down and give it to her in person. She spent at least 20 minutes our of every hour on a smoke break. She would refuse to talk to you about a job if she felt she had been "interupted." Anytime there was a change in the way we did something, she would say "We never did it that way before" and refuse to do it. The Dept. Head (same one as above) said she couldn't do anything about this person because she was "close" to retirement (4 years away when I started) and too "set in her ways."

This was years ago. Our law firm hired the daughter of a client as a summer associate, who was attending a New York City law school. She seemed nice, dressed well, and was intelligent. However, she never used deodorant, and you could tell, quite a while later, when she had walked down a corridor.

I currently work in a cubicle next to a woman whose mouth never -- absolutely NEVER -- stops flapping. She wears one of those headsets so she can be on personal phone calls all day long and still look like she's working. Her voice is like a fog horn and everybody can hear her discussing personal things, talking baby talk to her grandchildren. She also has pictures all every relative and person she's ever met in her entire life in her cubicle, framed prom photos, baby picutres, nephews, neices, Got-children, the whole litter. I can understand making your cube comfortable but to bring in all those personal pictures is a little too much, not to mention taking up valuable work space.

What is it with all the law people having examples of bad-smelling-women in the workplace? I have a lawyer friend (female) who has the same stories. I can honestly say I have never run into a bad-smelling women outside these stories, or the gym.

Is it something about the legal profession?

". . . why didn't the powers that be at your laws firm throw more resources at the problem so it could be resolved during reasonable business hours?"

Big problems that require long hours happen in law firms. That is why they have the bad reputation they do for requiring people to work crazy hours. This is also how they make a lot of money, working associates long hours. Both the attorney and the IT person knew where they were working and the nature of the work. Her point was that the IT person refused to do his job in a crisis situation, the kind of situation that apparently justified his good pay. The fact that he left her hanging for an hour and then called back with a solution does not absolve him. If he said, "I will see what I can do, I'll call you back within the hour," she sounds as if she would have been fine. He did not do that. He was a jerk, that is why his story is here.

"Many of today's posts are about young people being clueless about work wardrobe. Maybe no one has bothered to teach them."

I agree with this comment. I've had to learn by example and I just make a note of what others are wearing, then adjust accordingly. Though I work in a professional field, most of the offices in which I've worked have had very lax dress codes, if at all, to the extent that I was beginning to think flip-flops were okay, myself, since I've seen them worn in every office I've worked in over the last five years.

Apparently not. But though it may sound silly to some of you, with workplaces becoming less conservative, setting boundaries and limits about things that may have previously seemed ridiculous (tank tops, body piercings, flip-flops) seems more necessary now, especially in offices with no specific dress code in place. Being catty about what someone is wearing is counterproductive, especially when he or she may have no clue that they're transgressing what is often an unspoken, cultural standard.

I can read and comment on this blog because I have two solid months OFF! I don't care how much money I don't make--TWO MONTHS OFF! ( and I still get paid)

All of the employees at my school are great. I love my boss, the kids, the other teachers. I wish I had a 'uniform' of sorts besides the one I wear, because clothes shopping is not fun for me. I am a little like Mr. Rogers --I have 15 white shirts and one red sweater. I used to wear all black but it scared some of the kids.

Shew, the boss is finally gone. Before he left, I asked him a question about the database I'm working on. He was glad to answer. What a great boss!

As far as office attire goes, I go to work wearing just my underwear and wife-beaters.

Telecommuting is great.

Hilarious stories, thank you all.

No idea why flip-flops are so annoying at work but they just are.

"if we want to go take a nap where do we go?".

I usually try to find a meeting to go to.

"...and left me hanging until he called back an hour later with a solution."

'Hmm... So he DID do the job, and within an hour no-less? That sounds entirely within the range of acceptability to me. What's the problem?'

sounds like maybe you've never worked with attorneys or IT people!

Wow, there are some pretty gross things posted here today...

As for office attire...I was in for a complete culture shock when I left the WDC area and moved to Arizona. People here believe that flip flops are presentable anywhere, including the office. And tank tops. And shorts.

However, our agency has a stricter dress code than most. We're okay with business casual (skirts and blouses) in the summer (it reached 113 yesterday) and suits the rest of the year.

I'll be in Baltimore on business next week and visiting NoVa, so I am thrilled to be back, even if only for a week!

"Another co-worker (at the same place) refused to use e-mail. So if you sent her work via e-mail, it wouldn't get done."

I used to work with one of these but she also refused to listen to her voicemail in a timely fashion and didn't think it was her place to know what was on our website even though she was the person who handled answering questions about what was on the website. She told us she was just too busy doing HER job. A coworker and I had both held the position prior and we had always gotten the job done with time to spare. One of us was also responsible for doing her job when she was away and we always did twice the business on those days. And, becuase it took her so long to do her job she was approved to get extra pay for extra time. Too bad we couldn't deduct the time on the phone she used to tell her teenage daughters and her husband what to do everyday and all the PTA functions she perfomed while working.

To those who think attire in the office is superficial---what one wears says a lot about you as a person and how seriously you take your job. I work in the medical profession and we had a physician who would wear short tops that bared her midriff, pants that she got in the Junior department (she was in her mid-30s at the time) and wore open toe shoes in the ER (a hazard). She was constantly flirting with the male employees and making a big fool of herself.

At the same workplace we had a couple of back stabbing jerks. One would tell lies about other employees to boost himself up. He would obviously treat white patients better than black patients and the African American staff complained about this a lot. I don't know if he realized that EVERYONE thinks he's a jackass.

I was a recently a supervisor of a group of physicians and I couldn't believe how unprofessional some would be. A group would come late all the time to their shifts. I sent a polite e-mail reminding them why it is important to come on time (to relieve their colleagues, so we could open another section of the ER, etc). At the next meeting, I was accused of causing "bad morale" when I sent that e-mail. I told them that coming late causes bad morale. Can you believe the transgressors complained about being asked to do their jobs?

And I had an employee who was in the army reserves. She told me she was being deployed. I asked for a copy of her deployment letter from her commanding officer so that I can make sure she gets the leave and gets paid. She was very angry with me and didn't provide a letter. Instead she told me 5 days before the supposed date that the deployment was cancelled (those things almost never happen). This messed up the schedule for the entire group. Obviously she lied. This same person thought that she could dictate her schedule based on her child care issues. She had 8-5 day care, had a husband who was also an ED physician and worked shifts at night. I told her that the department could not bend to her schedule, it was not fair. I gently explained to her that the rest of us have nannies. She began to tell others in the department that her childcare was none of my business and who was I to tell her this and that... I told her it was my business when her childcare was preventing her from doing her job in a professional manner.

We had even another employee who on more than one occasion made sexual comments to patients. I had to let him go (a whole big to do with HR). Some in our group were angry with me for letting him go. Can you believe that?

And I also worked with another physician who was a complete pervert. He would send dirty e-mails to people, make sexual comments to staff, took a shower at work and then stood naked in front of staff members, etc. HR knew about this, but he was allowed to keep his job. He has created a hostile workplace and many have left because of him. The rumor is that management was afraid of lawsuits and if they fired him would be admitting wrong-doing.

The one who said something about lawnmowers early in the morning is so right on. Someone mentioned they couldn't understand what the big deal is. Common courtesy in this country is you don't make a lot of noise before 9am and you stop at 9pm. It's like with phone calls, too. Young people are so clueless about these general rules of courtesy that they are flabbergasted when you mention them. I suppose we should blame a generation of parents on this, a generation who grew up in times when selfishness was no longer considered a character flaw. Sigh.

As for the person who said they need to teach how to dress in college, you make me sad. You go to college for an education, not a job. Universities are centers of knowledge. They are not babysitters. What is wrong with your parents that they could not teach you how to dress yourselves?

Sorry it's not her cube, it belongs to the company and Nascar doesn't equate to religion. And I know it offended people because people told me so, everyone is not a Christian, or for that matter believes in God.

I am a democrat, but I don't put campaign flyers all over my cube, religion and politics shouldn't mix at work, especially the non-profit where I work. We are neutral in politics and religion. Part of being an intern is learning what is appropriate and what is not, small bookmark citing a scripture or a calendar appropriate. Large poster board with scripture throughout cube where it is visible to the whole company is not.

Another DC Mom, once again, you've hit it dead on. If he'd just said, "give me an hour, let me see what I can do from here," I'd have gone into the Office Manager's office Monday AM praising him for his responsiveness.

Why did it happen? Because rules have short deadlines for comments, and the agency refused to move this one back. Because the client and the partner kept revising the documents and providing more information and raising more issues. Because I was the low person on the totem pole and sh*t flows downhill. It's kinda what happens sometimes in this job -- not a lot at my firm, thank God (witness my time on this blog today!), but when it does, everyone has to do what's necessary to get it done, without complaint (except for the inevitable b*tching over a beer afterwards).

My husband related this story to me.

He worked in a military association as a writer for their magazine. In the office, the highest-ranking guy had this secretary who was a horror. She was allowed to be because the boss liked her and they had worked together for year.

One day the entire office gets a memo telling them to stop wearing cologne. Apparently the secretary had "a hightened sense of smell." A few days later, there was another memo about reheating fish or bringing in fish for lunch. Apparently the smell of cooking fish was also very unpleasant for this woman. The last memo my husband received before he left was a memo detailing the types of deodorants that were "too strong" to use in the office.

A story that comes from another friend: She worked in an office with a middle-aged woman who my friend said smelled really bad. My friend had the cube next to this woman's and said that the smell made her lose her appetite on most days. My friend eventually brought it up with the boss who talked with the woman about it. It turns out that she was incontinent from her last pregnancy and birth. My friend was a little ashamed to say the least.

"What is wrong with your parents that they could not teach you how to dress yourselves?"

Let's see...My mother (who was widowed when I was only six), only went to the eighth grade and I was first generation college out of a very, small appalachian town. She didn't believe in me going to college in the first place mostly becuase we didn't have money. She did other peoples laundry, cleaning and childcare for a living. But getting scholarships I was able to go. Do you think I learned anything about the business world from her or my community? I am 30 something and I'm still learning. I really wish colleges and even high schools would teach more about going out in the world. I'm sure it is the same in inner-city locales as well as the very rural places. I was at least lucky enough to learn some common sense and good manners from her. And, on a funny note, when she saw the other students at my college she said to me "I will never complain about you wear again."

Now I know this doesn't really count, considering I'm only in high school, but I have a project-partner horror story that will
bring back all your bad memories!!

I had to work in an assigned group with three girls and two guys (one of the guys being me). The other girls and the guy were all okay, the girls were actually really productive and thoughtful, but the last girl was a pure brat. She got into serious personal arguements and insulted people on sensitive issues over project problems. It all came to a head when the groups had to work together to close a "trade deal" (I'll leave it at that). She proposed a deal that was horrifying to think of, because other than a couple of good aspects it would devastate everybody involved. Besides her, I was the only group member at this little conference. When I protested, she told me that I should "be quiet, this isn't real life". ("Our bad grade will be", I wanted to tell her). Finally, after being ignored and talked over for about 10 minutes, I lost it: "Would you shut up and listen?!". Naturally, her dignity was hurt by my senseless and meanie-bo-beanie remark. The next time I tried to talk to her, she puckered her face, like she was going to cry, and waved me away, saying "I hate you!"

This girl was sixteen.

Our group wasn't able to stop her in time. All we could do was lecture her on the consequences of what she had done. I was really angry, because I realized that all those midnight bedtimes I had suffered for this project meant nothing. My favorite teacher gave me a C. Way below normal for me or my groupmates. Of course, the last I heard of her, my uncooperativeness cost our otherwise wonderful group a good grade.

Hey, just cause we're kids doesn't mean we don't have idiots for partners!

I have had four separate people advise me that my sister is known at work as the "Bch from Hell" . How silly to think while growing up that I was the the only one to have to put up with her....

"What is wrong with your parents that they could not teach you how to dress yourselves?"

My parents did not attend college. They work blue/pink-collar jobs in a very small town with only a Wal-Mart for their clothing needs. Neither of them have ever filled out an application for a job. My father is self-employed, and my mother has received her employment from word-of-mouth and one-time interviews. Neither of my parents have ever prepared a resume, neither own a suit, and neither have ever held a job with a dress code.

In spite of all of this, they've taught me a lot of things, but apparently there's "something wrong with them" for being unable to teach me about the fine nuances of proper business/casual attire. I'm learning a lot today!

How's this for a devil employee:
She shows up late consistently, then has to wander around the building chatting. Late morning, she'll squeeze maybe 30-45 minutes or work in, then take a long lunch. After lunch, she makes the rounds to gossip again. If time permits, then comes another 30-45 minutes of work. Finally, she leaves work early to "beat traffic".

Why is she still working her? She files EEO and other official complaints on a regular basis. Her bosses are or have been recently tied up, trying to get their names cleared of the charges and are reluctant to challenge her in case she files more charges.

This employee recently has been complaining that she hasn't received a grade increase (promotion) in a long, long time. She says that a grade increase might inspire her to try and work harder. How sad is that?

I really don't see what the big deal is about dress at work, unless someone is wearing something disgusting (e.g. fat person wearing tight clothes with skin showing).

These hyperconservative people need to leave their uptight views at home. I personally find it refreshing to see people (women especially) dressed to kill. It's a welcome distraction from the boring day to day routine, and unless you have hyperconservative customers coming in and out all the time, I just don't see what the big deal is... bring it on girls!

HA! My situation is similar to Dlyn's. My mother also was from an Appalachian town and did not go to college. If I followed my mother's fashion sense, I would be wearing blue eye shadow. Good grief, she wore bright red to her mother's funeral...as did her sister.

When I was in college, I had a boss who was a tough mentor (much like Miranda Priestly in Devil Wears Prada), but I did learn a great deal from her, including how to dress for success.

The boss was applying for a PhD program, and I had to copy her college transcripts for her. I saw that she failed ethics...not surprising. She asked me if I would work on her doctoral dissertation for her (NOT kidding here). I had ghostwritten several journal articles under her name, getting paid $6/hour, and she would collect upwards of $500 for my work. I was a college student on financial aid, and on top of her salary, she had a trust fund.

I also learned what I did not want to be when I grew up : )

Employees who chew with their mouths wide open during client lunches. Yuk.

This person works with my sister in private industry:

A woman received permission to "telecommute" three days per week. She dutifully would carry a laptop home with her. About six months into her "telecommuting", she had her annual review with her boss. He asked her how the telecommunting was going and she told him how productive she was working from home. She didn't realize, though, that the boss had found out she hadn't done a single thing. It turns out that when you dial into the work computer system remotely, you need a different password than the one you use from your desk. The IT department had called her boss just before the six month point to ask why the "telecommuter" had never requested either the dial in number or the external password.

This woman did, actually, get fired.

"If I followed my mother's fashion sense, I would be wearing blue eye shadow."

Hey, ya'll what's wrong with that. I luv blue eyeshadow, flip-flops, and showing lots of cleavage. People don't understand me. I'm country.

Most, if not all, of the career centers in colleges have specific advice on proper business attire, resume presentation, general office etiquette and even "manners." These range from checklists, to brochures, etc. Most career center directors, I am sure, would be more than happy to sit down (or have someone sit down) for a half hour with someone to provide tips in any of these areas--it is their JOB to make sure that companies that hire graduates are pleased with their decision to do so.

No one expects a fresh-from-college person to be perfect, or to have a super-extensive wardrobe that runs the gamut from "Friday casual" to "business casual" to "semi formal". But for a pending college graduate (and fully adult human being) not to take an hour or two to avail themselves of at least some (free!) basic knowledge and preparedness for the workplace is not excusable, whether you come from a one-Wal Mart town or Park Avenue.

And three cheers for father of 4. I wish I could telecommute from school. I could sit around drinking soda in my boxers. Awesome, dude.

Our receptionist is out of the office so often, the organization hired a permanent backup to man the front desk. The receptionist apparently has diabetes and stuffs herself on an occasional Sunday so she can go to the hospital and have an excuse to miss work for extended periods of time. She is always eating at work, and if we have cake, she'll eat it even though she isn't supposed to.

And three cheers for father of 4. I wish I could telecommute from school. I could sit around drinking soda in my boxers. Awesome, dude.

Grow up,

Amen to that! There used to be a little something called common sense. Apparently, though, sense is not so common anymore.

"Most, if not all, of the career centers in colleges have specific advice on proper business attire, resume presentation, general office etiquette and even "manners.""

You're exactly right. My college did as well. I learned what color blouse to wear with what color suit and that women must always wear hose with their skirt suits.

This doesn't particularly help those in a casual office with a lax dress code, which is what seems to be the source of question. I think most people can figure out what "business attire" means. It's "Casual Friday" that leaves a lot to be questioned.

Opinions on flip-flops, capri pants, visible body piercings, and casual dress codes seem to be very office and employer-specific, to me.

Not all IT people are on call 24/7, and even for those of us who are, we're on call for system issues. I've never worked anyplace where desktop support was on call