(no subject)
I've got a coworker who likes to complain.
You know, I'm very fortunate. This hasn't happened before. When I worked in retail, we complained, but it was generally about bad customers or the more absurd ideas handed down by Corporate. And I complain sometimes. Mainly when my clients freak out about something. But this person complains every day about the same things. Many of which are the reason we have a job. 'Cause the point of our job is to correct mistakes, fill in gaps, and generally make the logical and intuitive leaps that computers can't. If those problems didn't come up, the bosses would be justified in sending us home.
Furthermore, I like my work. It's not my dream job, sure. It gets repetitive. And Quarter End makes me want to hide under a rock. But honestly, I like tracking down missing data. I like correcting mistakes. There is something quite satisfying about solving problems. There are parts of the job that are inefficient or byzantine, and nobody - nobody - likes working with data from this one company that uses screen-scraping. (It's not their fault. Screen-scraping is as reliable as converting an image to text. But for some data, that's the only way we can get it.) But I don't think there's reason to complain about it every day.
To cap it off, she talks down about herself. She's always saying she's stupid or slow. Jokingly, in a "look at me being self-deprecating" kind of way, but holy cow, lady. It's not funny. I make "my brain" jokes, and we all talk about "been looking at the screen too long" when we miss something, but after awhile it gets old.
I'm beginning to think her spirit got broken some time back and she never recovered. I don't know if there's anything I can do about that. I feel caught between pity that someone would end up like that and the fervent wish that she would please, please stop.
You know, I'm very fortunate. This hasn't happened before. When I worked in retail, we complained, but it was generally about bad customers or the more absurd ideas handed down by Corporate. And I complain sometimes. Mainly when my clients freak out about something. But this person complains every day about the same things. Many of which are the reason we have a job. 'Cause the point of our job is to correct mistakes, fill in gaps, and generally make the logical and intuitive leaps that computers can't. If those problems didn't come up, the bosses would be justified in sending us home.
Furthermore, I like my work. It's not my dream job, sure. It gets repetitive. And Quarter End makes me want to hide under a rock. But honestly, I like tracking down missing data. I like correcting mistakes. There is something quite satisfying about solving problems. There are parts of the job that are inefficient or byzantine, and nobody - nobody - likes working with data from this one company that uses screen-scraping. (It's not their fault. Screen-scraping is as reliable as converting an image to text. But for some data, that's the only way we can get it.) But I don't think there's reason to complain about it every day.
To cap it off, she talks down about herself. She's always saying she's stupid or slow. Jokingly, in a "look at me being self-deprecating" kind of way, but holy cow, lady. It's not funny. I make "my brain" jokes, and we all talk about "been looking at the screen too long" when we miss something, but after awhile it gets old.
I'm beginning to think her spirit got broken some time back and she never recovered. I don't know if there's anything I can do about that. I feel caught between pity that someone would end up like that and the fervent wish that she would please, please stop.