Venting

Good idea, nillindeiel My friends and I have a catch-phrase, "only 'they' know who is 'them'". I think its from Treasure of the Sierra Madres, maybe? can't remember now.

Anyhow, on another food related theme, here is an actual letter I wrote and fully intended to send to the company a few months ago, and never got around to doing it. Talk about frustrating! Read, enjoy, and take a folding chair and a lap tray to the lunch room tomorrow



I hope rant week is over soon. This is getting old. My latest adventure: Trying to obtain some take-out food from Chili's last night So I call an order in. As nearly verbatim as I can recall, the conversation went like this.

Chili's: "How can I help you?"
Me.: I would like to order the 'soup and house salad' combo.
"What is your phone number?"
xxx-xxx-xxxx
10 seconds of silence, then again,

"I'm sorry, what was that number?"
xxx-xxx-xxxx
"xxx-Yxx-xxxx"
No. xxx-Xxx-xxxx"
"Ok xxx-xxx-xx?? um what was the rest?"
XXXX.
another 10-15 seconds of silence

"what you you like?"
The soup and house salad combo.
"what kind of salad would you like?"
The house salad, like the menu says. With bleu cheese dressing.
ANOTHER 10 seconds of silence

"And you want soup with that?"
YES M'am, I want the menu combo. The Soup and HOUSE SALAD combo, for $6.49, that is on the menu.
"Did you want a cup or a bowl of soup?"
Well, the menu description says 'A delicious bowl of soup and a house salad, so I presume it comes with a BOWL of soup.
ANOTHER 10 seconds of silence

"What kind of soup do you want?"
The chicken enchilada soup. <to their credit, it is REALLY good>
more silence

"Ok that is a house salad with bleu, and a bowl of chicken enchilada soup?" <YAY, at this point>
Yes m'am. I'll be there in about 15 minutes.
"OK, thank you."
So ends the first half of the adventure.

I walk into the tiny 'to-go' pick-up room on the side of the restaurant, and there are 2 customers sitting with very disgruntled looks on their face, along with 4 other family members, and another customer at the counter, leisurely pondering through the menu, trying to decide what to order for multiple people. So I wait maybe 4 minutes while he changes his mind back and forth. And at this point, I am not even really upset. I figured from the phone call that the girl was new, and learning the register. Nothing wrong with that, everyone is new at a job at some point. And I'm not mad that it is crowded and backed up, even though the customers are waiting, and three orders are already sitting on the counter behind, waiting to be distributed. I learned at an early age that crowded restaurants are better eats than empty restaurants.

She cannot get the customer's order entered, and calls in a supervisor <suspicions confirmed>. He walks over, hits two keys, problem solved. He leaves. Another, mid-level supervisor comes in and asks her is she is doing alright. She says yes, so that lady walks away also. Finally, I get to the counter, and announce I am there to pick up a phone-in order of the soup and salad combo.
The new cashier immediately turns around and looks at one of the bags, then asks me what I ordered. I said, 'The soup and house salad combo, with chicken enchilada soup, for $6.49.". She reaches for the package, and starts to ring it up. She cannot do it. Re-enter the lady. She asks me what I ordered, so I repeat myself. She looks at the ticket, and asks me, "Is your name 'BEN'?

I replied no, my name is Gary. So she sets the package back on the waiting area, and is about to head to the back to check on my order. I catch her and say, "But no one asked for my name. All I gave was my phone number". So she looks at the ticket again, and says 'Oh well this is yours then'. <Hooray, because my patience is wearing really thin, and my tummy is growling>.
 
My smart ass alter ego starts to take over at this point, and I reply, "Well GOOD, because I have BEEN hungry for a while now". So the lady takes over at the register, and rings my order up. "That will be $9.39. <or something, I can't remember the exact cents>.
I of course balk, and say, NO, the menu said $6.49. She gets a confused look on her face, and finally asks me if I ordered over the phone. "Yes", I replied. So the lady tries to re-enter the order on the register. Fail #2.

She finally calls in the original supervisor, and explains the situation telling him that I ordered the take out special, for $6.99. I AGAIN correct her, and say, no, it is $6.49. Keep in mind, ALL THIS TIME the original two customers are still tapping their feet, staring at their orders sitting on the wait counter behind the register. As soon as the <I presume manager, or at least floor manager> comes in, they both ask him if they can go to the bar and pay for their order. He says absolutely yes, and they storm away. Ah, a competent person who is getting the big picture at last. Kudos for him. He finally gets me rung up correctly, I get my food, and cuss all the way home. And no, they did NOT get a tip.
And all I wanted was a bowl of soup and a salad...

I work at a rec center as a maintenance and janitorial worker.

For the last few months, on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, kids from the ages of 12 to 15 have decide that the rec center is the absolute best place to hang out, wreak havoc, and destroy.

These kids run in the hallways.

They get into fights over things like one person touching another person's basketball. (The basketballs are owned by the rec)

They cuss openly and loudly.

They buy Mike and Ike's and gummy worms from the vending machine and then throw them at eachother and walk on them, making the floor sticky. Then the candy is left on the floor.

They retaliate against adults who report them by throwing basketballs onto the track above the gym.

Or they retaliate by getting on the track and purposely blocking/slowing down their intended target.

They'll use the pool sticks (free to use by the public and used by anyone) as swords or javelins or jousts.

They'll find/make holes in the furniture and pull the stuffing out or shove food and candy wrappers in the holes.

They'll purposely bounce their balls in the hallways and off the walls because I ask them to stop.

They leave chewed gum in the vending machine coin returns, in drinking fountains, or on door frames.

If we ask these kids nicely to clean up their messes or stop a certain behavior they'll​ deny that it was them or quickly blame someone else.

They'll sneak their friends in the gym so that they don't have to pay $6 to go downstairs.

Best of all, if we, *the employees*, piss them off they'll find creative and unique ways to retaliate.

One day, it was a group of 10 or so girls that were the ones causing trouble on a particularly memorable night. Me and my friend who was the Facility Administrator that night (big person in charge) had been telling these girls that they could not do floor routines and gymnastics on the work
work out mats, could not run up to and swing on the punching bag, and could not play basketball without tennis shoes.

That night me and my coworker decided to skip cleaning anything but the bathrooms upstairs because when these kids are there, any cleaning we do when we're open is redundant.

We cleaned the upstairs bathrooms and got done by 8:30. We close at 9 so we headed downstairs.

Later after all of downstairs was cleaned, we went back up and did all the things we had skipped earlier. I went to double check the upstairs bathrooms and I found every toilet seat cover (the paper) and atleast a 100 sheets of paper towels scattered from one end of the women's bathroom to the other and even in all of the stalls.

At the same time I was dealing with that mess, my coworker was vacuuming the lounge. We couldn't be sure but it looked like the kids had bought chips, threw them on the carpet, and walked on them to make a sea of crumbs.

And we had to clean all of this after having to mop the gym in 8 places because of spilled soda and juice.

We were supposed to get off at 11:30 that night but ended up getting off at midnight.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that we've had to call the police 5 Friday nights in a row. So far in the year 2017 we've banned 18 people, only one of them an adult. Last year we banned a total of 7.

All of us young maintenance workers have agreed that we do not want kids after these experiences...

Find myself in a bit of a quandary at work (advice would be welcome).

Backstory: I've been at this job for 11 years now (will be 12 years come November). Several years ago (we're talking, what... 8 or 9 years ago, I think?) my mom also worked at this company though in a different department. During that time, a guy in my department (who knew that she was my mom, and is in general a nice guy) would joke (and he was clear that he was joking) around with her about how I'm "mean" to him (never have been) and naturally my mom wouldn't believe him. He'd also joke around with me about it. Now, I acknowledge that I probably should have put an end to that type of teasing earlier on... but alas, I didn't.

Present day: Here we are some years later (mom no longer works at the company by the way and hasn't for some time), and he's now in a different department, however, whenever he sees me he still 'teases' about how I'm so mean to him (or brings up how my mom would never believe him about me). For example, yesterday I was eating my lunch and reading and he walks by with his brother (and there's someone from another team putting stuff in their locker) and he's all "Oh it's nillindeiel* she's not going to say hi to me, never does." (not true because I say hi to him all the time in passing, so again... it's the teasing/joking around) I kind of ignored him because a) I was trying to eat my lunch and b) he's with his brother and there's the other person (I'm not a confrontational person, I'm introverted/quiet, in fact) and I'm not inclined to come across sounding like a bitch. However, (as evidenced by this post), I'm at the point where he's been doing it for so long that it's just become annoying. Not to mention most of the people that were around back then when he started it up aren't around anymore, and so there's people that don't know the history/might not understand that he's joking and that I'm not really a mean person.

So I'm trying to figure out how to get him to stop... I don't see him that often (since he's not in the same department anymore) - and when I do see him, he's usually with someone else (and as said above, I'm not a confrontational kind of person). Should I shoot him an email asking him to just let the joke about me being 'mean' go? Or should I bring it up with my manager and let it get handled that way? (or do both, shoot him an email first... and if he still doesn't stop then bring it up with my manager?)

As said at the beginning of the post, any advice would be welcome.



*Name changed to my screename because I don't give out my real name online, sorry guys

I agree with DoTheMath - you should try to speak to this person face-to-face, which I get is not something you're really keen to do. But putting anything in writing could backfire.

If you've got a real life example of someone else in your company getting the wrong idea then that's a good opportunity to say "Hey so-and-so actually thought there was a problem between us so maybe we shouldn't keep that running gag going." or something. Or if you don't have a specific case you can cite then just make a preemptive thought that someone might get the wrong idea.

It does seem like this person wants to be friends (i.e. doesn't sound like he's being an ass on purpose or anything) so I'd think he'd be understanding if the running gag has run its course. It's not like you'd be saying "don't say hi" or anything - just pick a new running gag.

Hope it works out.

Its a tricky situation for you, given today's work culture in the USA.  I think all the replies have good advice in them, and I will back up these two comments from haxemon .

The first because I have been involved with corporate dialog written with the best of intentions, and unexpected consequences. Not on the same type subject at all, yet still, the written word just never goes away. And lawyers are profoundly good at twisting your words.

And the second point, I can relate to with a much closer to home example. It sounds like it is meant in a good natured context, some people just use that way to communicate and form a dialogue because they are not skilled at other methods of establishing a rapport with someone. In general, they take those kind of comments, when directed at them, with a grain of salt. They (meaning I as well), just presume the other person understands that it is meant in fun. It is a lesson I learn repeatedly, and often forget, most recently with my good-natured teasing with ayanami .

I'm trying hard to change my ways about that, because it just seems like our senses of humor don't always align. Although, it comes from the very best corner of my heart.

I would think that a personal, verbal approach is a wise first option, as stated by others above.  If that produces no satisfactory results, I personally would consider the next step to be having a verbal communication with the personnel/human relations manager, if you have one.

In closing, any advice from anyone, on these matters, should be weighed carefully. The land can quickly turn into quicksand under your very feet.
Best of luck, and keep us posted. We all care.  And I'll ride shotgun with DoTheMath if we need to take a road trip

Glad to hear as I gather that's not an easy situation you were in.

I would only suggest at this point that if he's true to his word to find a way to thank him (nothing major, just the next moment like today you can say "hey thanks for dropping the 'mean' joke"). 

Conversely if he slips a couple of times don't get too worried as it's a habit he's had for a while.