Thursday, May 7, 2009

Don't Take It Personally

Somebody keeps placing their phone on hold, which blasts new-age, groovy music onto the call for the rest of us to deal with. After three days of this, it was time to identify the one responsible, to avoid future occurrences. My assumption was they had no idea they were causing problems for others.

I thought it was a certain person, and finally said so. The guy immediately yelped, "It's not me!" To which I immediately replied, "Oh, sorry!"

Then the trainer guy says I'm "picking on" that person, who happens to be male. In fact, it is said I am picking on "men", that it is now "the girls against the boys" and that, because another female admitted she also had thought it was that same person (because he seemed to disappear from the call when the music came on), the trainer guy claimed we were ganging up on that guy.

Wha? Where did THAT come from?

How did this become a gender-based discussion?

Am I too insensitive? Or are they just too sensitive?

Meh. I am so sick of IT people. I want to belong to another group of professionals. The kind that doesn't use "irregardless" as a word without flinching.

8 comments:

Mama Dawg said...

I've found that men tend to have a more outwardly insensitive experience whereas women tend to absorb it and revisit it later.

blognut said...

I HATE hold music on conference calls. I did a whole post on it way back in December, I think. Ugh!

And I hate irregardless, too.

And I hate over-sensitive people who think everything is gender-based. Most of the time criticism is simply idiot-based, isn't it? It's not a male/female thing.

Unknown said...

OMG OMG OMG... when I was in IT, they hired a supervisor who used "irregardless" every single day. And I kept thinking "this guy's making 5 times the money I'm making and he's STUPID"... but I was probably just ganging up on him because he was a guy.

Patois42 said...

Oh, and I bet they say "orientated," too, right?!

Lawyer Mom said...

Sounds lilke you just impacted them the wrong way and they got disorientated. And then when you commentated they felt justified in blaming you, irregardless.

gudnuff said...

Mama Dawg - I have revisited your comment and wonder why you're siding with them...sniff...

blognut - thank you! yes...those were my exact words (in my head): idiot-based. Yes!

Hyphen Mama - Will you be MY supervisor?

Patois - When they conversate about orientating the material to the business's needs, I take notes.

Lawyer Mom - Um...it's "justificated"...geesh...you don't even sound edumacated sometimes!

CP said...

Annoying ring tones are THE WORST! In my opinion, Guys are so insensitive when it comes to other people's feelings but when it comes to their own, they are OVERLY sensitive!

P.S. I love the idea of Jacob deciding to wipe his own butt for Mother's Day!

Dagny said...

I cannot stand when co-workers let hold music blare out of their offices! Another pet peeve of mine is co-workers who yell in to their speaker phones while on a call. I really do not need to hear the details of every confidential client transaction that occurs!Anyway, good luck dealing with crazy IT people...But I don't think lawyers are any better!