I Will Call Him Boob And He Will Like It

Our new manager started last week. We had already assumed it wasn't going to go well. As a pre-emptive strike, we added an extra letter to his name, making it "Boob." It stuck pretty well. Management kind of snuck him in. The VP, who had been acting as our boss for the last year, mentioned that he'd be starting in "a few weeks." The following week, an email came out to all employees, telling us to give the new Purchasing manager a warm welcome. I'm not sure what day he actually started, but we didn't meet him for another two full days. On that day, he was in our area for a total of 5 minutes. I wasn't able to form much of an impression. He either talks kind of funny or he has braces. I don't want to stare at his mouth for too long to figure it out, though. The second thing I noticed was that he's shorter than me. That worries me not only because of Short Man Syndrome, but also because my unholy asshole boss from the other department is about 5"2' and probably bonds well with other people of his size. Those People tend to stick together. And the last thing I need is that assclown filling Boob's head with lies about my bad attitude. I wanted him to be able to form his own opinion of me and figure out on his own that I'm a nasty, bitter person. Sure enough, Assclown came in on his second day and invited Boob to lunch. I heard him say something about his favorite place, Pei's, being temporarily closed. He is so tacky. He tried taking me to Pei's on my first day, telling me what a great buffet it was. I told him I had recently gotten food poisoning from chinese food, hoping to at least get a $6 meal out of him, but he took us to Zio Johnno's instead. Way to impress someone on her first day, moron. I'm not sure where he and Boob ended up going, but I know for a fact that those f-ers talked about me. When Boob asked how long I had been at the company, I told him that I started in customer service. He started nodding slowly and said, "I know, that's what Jon said." Then he kept nodding, as if he was waiting for me to say something. I didn't take the bait.

So far, Boob seems nice, but a bit of a tool, which is why his nickname is now DoucheBob. He's given three unwelcome lectures. The first came when I was showing him how we place POs and he started explaining that if we can save money by combining shipments, it helps the company's bottom line... blah blah blah. It would've been the perfect time to "no shit sherlock" him, but I don't think he would've seen the humor in it. Instead, I explained that the supplier only ships once a week so it doesn't make a difference. Then today when I was trying to fill him in on the open issues with a supplier that is coming tomorrow (I don't know why the hell he wants to come to that meeting anyway. He can't possibly know what's going on, so he's going to look like a bumbling fool. It's also going to piss me off if he starts trying to muscle in on my free lunches when suppliers come, too), explaining that we accepted a 6% increase, he proceeded to tell me that if I negotiated that down to 3%, I'd be saving the company 3% on all our purchases from that vendor, which helps our bottom line. Once again, no shit, Sherlock. Also? It was the VP that accepted the increase, so Boob and his bottom line can kiss my ass.

I consider the plastic mat that my rolling chair sits on my personal space. It creates a perfect arm's length bubble around me. There's no reason to be in my bubble, unless you're me. Boob, however, has spent more time hanging out on my mat than anyone else in the company, besides me. He'll come out of his office to talk to all of us, but he will stand approximately two inches from the back of my chair. I don't like turning around because I don't want to encourage his bad behavior or look up his nostrils. There's a perfect spot in the middle of the room where everyone could see him and no one would feel violated. Is that asking too much, Boob?

Balls the Size of Cantaloupes

I was much more worked up about this little incident earlier today, but I didn't want to do this at work. I took notes, though. Really. I didn't want to forget details.

This started a little over a week ago. It was November 30, according to the email trail. A customer service rep came into our area with a piece of paper with a stinky note on it that said "Please advise country of origin for part #1111 ASAP." Wait, it was actually an Account Manager, not a customer service rep. The jackass boss in that department made this big deal of turning all the customer service reps into account managers. The only difference is the title. They're every bit as stupid as they were when they were customer service reps. This one in particular was VERY proud of her transition. It's on her email signatures and everything. It's like when my friend Jessica started wearing a bra before anyone else in fifth grade. She was always adjusting it, or the strap would fall, or it would somehow come undone in the back and she'd get to go to the bathroom to fix it. Big stuff. You gotta advertise shit like that.

Anyway, this Account Manager (we'll call her Jane) wanted some information from me, so she wrote it on a sticky note and walked it into our office. There was no reason she couldn't have emailed me the part number with the question or picked up the phone and asked. That's one of my huge pet peeves at that place. People just drop in all the time. They get bored, grab a stack of papers so they'll look busy and important, and come ask stupid questions. We have an engineer that's famous for it. She came in yesterday just to ask who bought from a certain vendor. Good thing she came all the way in, because that's WAY too complicated to put in an email.

*side note - I have used the f-bomb 4 times so far and gone back to fix it. This is tough. I hope you're happy, Josh.

Anyway, the other thing that pissed me off is the information Jane needed is right on the supplier's website. I came into a goddamn customer service meeting about a month ago to give them a refresher on the website. Jane was totally there, so she doesn't have any excuse. I showed them how to find whether a compound was domestic or imported. I also showed them where to find lead times and explained that if it was 13 weeks, the part came from a plant in Asia, but if it was 4-6 weeks, it's made in California. Stupid bitch could've just typed in the part number and seen that it's made here. Well, that's assuming she could figure out that "domestic" means that the country of origin is the U.S.

Instead of telling her what a lazy bitch she is, I just emailed her and told her that since the lead time was 6 weeks, the part was made here. THEN! Get this! She emailed back, "Thanks! Can I get that sheet back from you?"

Do I even need to go into how ridiculous that is? She brought me a sheet when she could've emailed me a part number of looked it up her freakin self. Plus, in the time it took her to type that, she could've waddled in and picked it up her freakin self. Why should I have to take it back to her? Not everyone needs to take twenty field trips around the office every day. I gasped for air for a few seconds before I could even read the email out loud to Bill. After some deep cleansing breaths, I followed his advice and deleted the email before I could reply and tell that dumb bitch a thing or two.

Today, over a week after she gave me a sticky note that said she needed the information "ASAP," Jane emailed me and asked if I still had that sheet. She has been in the room several times since then. I left it out in plain view so she could grab it. When I emailed back that I had it, that dirty, dirty asshole wrote back, "Cool. Just drop it off next time you're out here."

Are you f-ing kidding me? First of all, "ASAP," my ass. Second, she must have brass f-ing balls to ask me to do that. She's been on my shit list for the last month or so, anyway. She's the type of person that has "emergencies" all the time because she lets stuff sit in her inbox. Then she sends it off to us with those stupid f-ing red high importance exclamation points. I hate those f-ing things. My personal favorite Jane incident (besides this one, obviously) came up last week when she sent us a list of all these parts that had high usage in 2005 but were dropping off almost completely in 2006. The letter was sent to her in April. We got it seven f-ing months later.

Tanner and Bill wouldn't let me reply. It's probably best they didn't. They say it will turn into a pissing match. Can girls do that? But they also won't let me take it out to her. I thought about just dropping it on the floor in her cubicle on my way to the bathroom, but they say I can't. The worst part about it is that she probably thinks that I am the one being unreasonable and bitchy. Well, not the worst part. The worst part is her treating me like I'm her bitch. I'm worried I'm going to go off on her at the company Christmas party after a few free drinks, because I don't think she has any idea how pissed I've been at her for the last month. Stay tuned for that. That is, of course, if I make it that long. We're apparently getting a new manager in a couple weeks. I'm already assuming we're going to hate each other.