Why Do I Bother To Talk To You?

[AFK]

Honestly, please tell me!  When we sit down and talk for 30 minutes, and I carefully, painfully, lay out for you specifically and EXACTLY what I need from you, and why.  I tell you EXACTLY what questions to ask and EXACTLY what information I need.

I told you that I need to know x, y, and z.  Yes, AND z.  Not x, y, or z.  I need to know all of them.

Not only do you not ask about z!  You don't really ask about y.  We talked about this, over and over.  I told you in about 5 different ways what I needed.  I didn't say I wanted half-assed information.  I didn't say I would accept ballpark.  I asked for precision. 

I might as well have asked you to ask them about their feelings on jackals, badgers, and watermelon chewing gum, because that information would have been just as useful as this bullshit I'm going to get from your poor-assed guidance. 

Jebus, I could've spent that 30 minutes I wasted in that goddamned meeting doing work.  I've got shit that needs to get done, I took 30 minutes out of my day because YOU scheduled this stupid meeting.  Did you come prepared?  Were you ready to walk some walk instead of just chitting some chatter?

Nope.

Complete waste of time.

Next time you ask me to meet with you, please be ready to be a full participant.  Someone who is going to do the job. 

Otherwise, don't bother.  Really.  Competence is a virtue. 

Go fucking find some!

[The Rev]

I like watermelon chewing gum.

[AFK]

I like competent co-workers. 

Do you have any? 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I like competent co-workers. 

Do you have any?

Yeah, but Lilly has the additional quality of being a sociopath, and Jim is too good of a boss to give up.

Other than that, the rest are up for grabs, but it sounds like you already have your quota.

My crew is competent as hell, and you can't have them.

[The Rev]

I like competent co-workers. 

Do you have any?

Sorry.

[AFK]

I have two that can't follow simple, easy to understand, precisely laid-out instructions. 

And both are holding up my work because of their ineptitude. 

It's one thing to be surrounded by idiots who fuck up their own work.

But when that shit starts seeping into my work, then we have problems. 

[Cain]

Sounds like most of my students.

For instance, it has taken nearly 7 months for them to master the art of "using the sign in book to log whether you are in are out of the building".  Any conversation with them will almost certainly get side-tracked into strange greivances or attempts at bribery, regardless of topic, and as for giving them paperwork....I fill it in myself and just make them sign it now.

You may have two incompetent co-workers, but imagine twenty incompetent, English-impaired underlings.

[AFK]

No thanks, I'm all set with the two.  One nearly cost me my paycheck.  She didn't seem to understand the concept that the deadline the Feds gave us for this continuating funding application was a firm, mandated deadline.  It wasn't a polite suggestion.  They didn't say, "No biggie if it's a day late."  It was basically, if they didn't get it when they wanted it, funding goes by by and I'm looking for a new job.

Next year, I'm doing this shit myself, I don't care who's feelings I hurt. 

[Juana]

Can you fire these morons?

[AFK]

Nope.  I have no management authority.  It's my job to coordinate this grant, to make sure we accomplish all of the objectives, etc., but I can't do anything when the human resources are part of the problem.  The organizational structure here is all kinds of fucked up.