Friday, November 11, 2011

My boss is an utter douchebag to receptionists everywhere

Here is an example script of a phonecall that just happened.

He makes a call on speakerphone in his office.

Receptionist: "Hello, such-and-such office."
Boss: (almost cutting her off) "Extension 350"
Receptionist: "Who is that?"
Boss: (probably misunderstanding her question) "Joe so-and-so. Extension 350."
Receptionist: (Trying again) "May I ask who's calling?"
Boss: (actually cutting her off) "Yes it's _Last Name_"
Receptionist: Attempts to repeat his last name in a questioning voice, as most normal people use either their first name or a full name, not last name only.
Boss: "Yeah sure, that's it. Whatever."
Receptionist: Puts him on hold.
Boss: (to me) "Fucking people. You don't get it. (To me, as I give him a look like he's being an utter asshole.) When you answer the phone you need to just transfer people. People don't have time to wait for you to ask them a thousand questions." (I shake my head in disgust. To be clear - digust with the boss.)
Receptionist: "He's not available, can I give you his voicemail?"
Boss: (cutting her off again) "Yeah that's fine just put me in voicemail." (Leaves a rambling voicemail for the person he is calling. Because apparently that guy's time isn't valuable.)

OK, I hope the problems with this are apparent to any normal human being. He uniformly acts like this about the terrible trials and tribulations he faces when having to speak to receptionists. By the way, he gets extremely annoyed with other people who act exactly like he is acting. He followed this up with another quick lecture to me about how I don't understand how important it is to transfer people quickly.

I have been a receptionist. In fact in many cases receptionists are NOT trained to just transfer calls as quickly as possible, many times they are asked to screen calls. And I guarantee you that if I received such a call from a person behaving as he did just now in my days at the front desk I would make quite certain that he had a very hard time getting through to anyone in my office ever again.

Fuck you, you're not too important to follow the normal rules of society, asshole. Treat the receptionist with some courtesy and stop making yourself feel special by doing things like using only your last name which obviously confuses the fuck out of everyone. You're not goddamn Madonna.

Thursday, November 03, 2011

Not everything is about you, boss

Just came from a meeting with all the admin staff and the new President. Boss asked me to come in to his office and said, "Not that you have to tell me but..." and then asked about whether it came up that he also has regular meetings with the admin staff.

I tried to explain that it really wasn't that kind of meeting. This was about him just hearing about each of us a little, any immediate thoughts we had about things that do or don't need to change, etc. It wasn't about what our bosses do. He didn't get it. Seemed disappointed. Then annoyed.

God, everything is not about you. Stop being paranoid and ridiculous. Calm the fuck down.