I have always been a “Do it myself!” sort of person. When I was 2, I got mad if my mom dressed me, so I would take off the clothes she put on me and put them on again by myself. I know. I have control issues.
I am currently the only full time psychologist at my agency. One person does psychological evaluations twice a month at our agency via telehealth from her office in Florida. Another guy comes to my agency from the Human Service Center in Bismarck once a month to do sex offender evaluations.
Once every other week, the Human Service Center in Bismarck sends a young woman psychometrist to our agency to administer and score the tests for the other two psychologists. I administer and score my own tests. My agency has lost positions due to budget cuts. With only me full time, we can’t justify a psychometrist just for our agency. My supervisor, who works at the Bismarck agency, is always encouraging me to have the Bismarck psychometrist score my tests on the days she is here to prevent me from burning out. Sometimes that works. Usually, I prefer to do it myself, because I can do it when I need them scored and I don’t have to wait for her to come and do them. Last week I agreed to have her take some tests to Bismarck with her to score. That was a big mistake.
The psychometrist is a bright, bubbly, and bouncy young woman who drives me crazy with her bumptous, blundering ways. She doesn’t think before she speaks or acts, doesn’t read situations well, and often barges into my office when she is here, asking me in a very breathless fashion to do rather inconvenient things to help her and the other two psychologists out without checking what my schedule might be for the day. “Could you do a IQ test right now on Dr. X’s patient!? We don’t want to inconvenience him to come back to have it done another day.” (All hands-on testing like IQ tests have to be done by me, since the telehealth psychologist can’t reach through the screen to administer tests like that). Of course I couldn’t. I was booked solid the whole day. It takes an hour and a half, on average, to administer an IQ test.
Last week she took some tests to Bismarck to score, and then put the scored tests in the office inbox of the psychiatrist who works at the Bismarck Human Service Center and who also comes out to our agency. She asked the psychiatrist to transport my scored tests to me the next time she came out to Dickinson. We often have Bismarck folks transport things back and forth between our agencies. She didn’t check with psychiatrist in person. She just left her a note.
Today I phoned the psychometrist to ask where my testing was. She told me about her brilliant plan involving the psychiatrist. I informed her that the psychiatrist wasn’t coming to our center for another 3 weeks, and that I needed the testing immediately and that the psychiatrist came here only once a month, not weekly, as she assumed. She then went on a wild scramble to find the psychiatrist and the tests. She called me back in a panic and asked me if I miraculously knew where the psychiatrist might be, since she wasn’t at their agency but was supposed to be seeing clients from our agency. I told her I had no idea where the psychiatrist was. She finally tracked the doctor to her home in Bismarck where she sees clients at our agency in Dickinson via telehealth, and then got the testing from her and scanned and faxed the tests to me.
I think I will score my own test from now on. I don’t need this aggravation. I know. I have control issues.
Tell about your most annoying coworker. Tell about your best coworker. How do you cope with annoying coworkers?
Trail Baboon 
I love people .
I get into trouble all the time assuming people are not total idiots
Someone told me once people don’t intend to screw you up that’s just what they do
I try to find a happy side of ineptitude and be thankful that I’m so lucky to have five wonderful capable high-quality children as opposed to the twits I run into out there in the every day world
The last company I worked with was a Chinese company and they gave me three assistance to work with each of them was a nice person to have coffee with and I like to make people very much but none of them could get it through their head how I wanted them to work with me
he was fired and replaced with one that was worse than the one before
yesterday I had my teeth cleaned by a student at the dental assistant college
I go there because insurance doesn’t cover deep cleaning and get very expensive so I put up with the 2 1/2 hour appointment and the many questions for the questionnaire and waiting for the instructor to come by and approve before we go to the next step
the world is full of inept boobs… and then there is us… be thankful for your abilities and search out those who are joys to work with and forgive your less than perfect side
LikeLiked by 4 people
Oh, I remain patient with her. I suppose I annoy people at times, too. We have to be patient and forgiving.
LikeLiked by 3 people
People are so different; some of that is what makes us all so much fun. And the other part of that is what makes some of them so dang annoying and frustrating!
AT the college, I have had my list of people I hope I outlast. Just because I want to still work her when the new person comes in to see if they’re going to be better or worse. So far one person has left and the new person is great. Oh, they’re different. And there might still be some unknown baggage to come, but they’re different!
And there is one more person. They don’t have too many years left… and I’m not exactly sure what will happen when they leave. Might not be any replacement. But it will be different then won’t it.
Isn’t it interesting what it is about someone that might set us off? I worked with a guy who’s reply to almost everything was “Sweet!”. It got really annoying. But at least his work was good.
I had a work-study once. He never asked questions and consequently did a lot of things wrong. If you explained it so thoroughly that he couldn’t POSSIBLY do it wrong, he still would and then be mad that I was treating him like a child. (me banging my head against the wall). But I learned from that; I learned how to do a better job picking workstudies.
I’d rather work alone than work with someone like that.
Farming is often working alone. So is my theater job. Both are dangerous, I know that. But that’s the way it goes.
My best coworkers are people that are competent and don’t talk too much. They know and do what needs to be done. We talk just enough to know where we are in the process without having to double-check each others work.
My friend Paul is great. So is Erica.
Years ago a family friend, Josh, worked for me on the farm. He was such a good kid (at the time). He was smart, he knew what to do, and he just did it.
My last college work-study, Leah, she was great. We had the best conversations! And she helped me with my math homework. Sometimes it isn’t about getting the job done, it’s about how comfortable we are together. I was able to push her into a lot of new things that she wouldn’t have tried on her own. But if we were building something she was able to handle that too.
We tell the college kids often; there will always be an a**hole in your life. Learning how to work with them and deal with them is HUGE!
LikeLiked by 5 people
Ben, I hadn’t thought about it until you mentioned it, but I also am one who wants to out-wait the people who annoy me. And then thinking about it. as of about a month ago I think I out waited everyone I wanted to out wait. Woot.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yay You!!
LikeLike
I have a favorite coworker who is a champion whistler. She’s always very cheerful and has a song on her lips. I usually recognize the songs, since she’s about the same age as I am, and grew up hearing the same kinds of tunes.
At the flower shop, when we take an order, we print out a copy and highlight the day of the delivery with a highlighter before giving it to the designers. Monday is highlighted in yellow, Tuesday in orange, Wednesday green, Thursday pink, Friday purple, and Saturday blue. This helps everyone prioritize and keeps people from confusing a tomorrow order with a today order. So when Kathy is at the printer and she starts whistling “Monday, Monday,” I know she’s just taken an order for Monday. Or she will whistle “Saturday In the Park” or “Tuesday Afternoon”. At Christmastime she often whistles “Let It Snow”. (Haven’t heard that one lately – I think it’s been retired for the season.) Sometimes she whistles tunes with someone’s name in them, like “Martha My Dear”, “Lola”, or “Valerie”, probably triggered by a name in an order she’s taken.
One of her favorite songs to whistle is “If I Only Had a Brain”. Occasionally I wonder if this is something she only whistles when I’m around.
LikeLiked by 7 people
This is so delightful I can hardly stand it. Code whistling!
LikeLiked by 2 people
I was in on a webinar yesterday with the lighting designer of the superbowl half time show. His transportation people rent 100+ cars for the crews and they create a theme. This year it was 80’s movies and then every car got a name and that’s how they kept track of them.
His car was “Risky Business” complete with the image of Tom Cruise in his shorts.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Great story, Linda!
One night my erstwife was awakened by a phone call at a time usually reserved for emergency news. When she picked up, the person at the other end of the connection just whistled a tune: “Ding dong, the witch is dead. Which old witch? The wicked witch!”
Nobody needed to translate. There was a woman–a highly unpopular woman–running my erstwife’s area of the company. And now, apparently, she had been fired.
LikeLiked by 4 people
If I had received that message, I would’ve wondered if the woman was literally dead.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I have a couple of co-workers here that form a tight team with me. We have worked well together for many years, we know each other’s ins and outs and we have the same kind of anal retentive issues. I often say to both of these gals’ supervisors “can’t they come over and sit by me?”
LikeLiked by 2 people
OT. Anybody local want me to grab a copy of Chris’s new book tomorrow at his book launch? I would be happy to pick up a signed copy for you.
LikeLike
I already have my copy, but Chris will never be able to sign it. That’s the trouble with e-books.
LikeLike
I’m hoping to go to a different author signing later on.
LikeLike
I am also a control freak with do it myself issues. I often have to say to myself (when my first response is it’s just faster to do it myself than to show someone else) is that if I show them how, then the next time they’ll already know. This has bit me in the back side more than once over the years.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I often joke that’s why I do lighting and am not onstage; because I have control issues.
You are so right; it’s faster to just do it myself!
My daughter. She is so hard headed and opinionated! She always has to have the last word and she’s stubborn and she’s just maddening. She is just like me. We make each other crazy.
And every time we get going about something like that I hear myself arguing with my dad. Heck.
Just last night I finally said to her ‘We’re done talking about this!’ and I walked away. And she’s still going ‘Yeah but..’.
This morning I explained to her we have to “agree to disagree” and when I say ‘We’re done talking’ that means we both have to just ZIP IT and not say anymore.
We’ll see.
Hey- remember that squirrel in my wellhouse from a few months ago? He moved to the feed room. Then came back to the well house. The battle is not over yet.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow, Renee – I hope she isn’t the usual psychometrist you have to work with…
I’ve been very lucky for the most part with co-workers. Probably the most annoying, though, would have been the bi-lingual kindergarten aide the year I had seven non-English speaking kids… She spoke Spanish; the kids spoke Spanish (3), Portuguese (3), and Vietnamese (1), so it was not entirely her fault, I suppose. But it seemed like she had never been in a classroom before – she couldn’t anticipate what needed doing without my telling her every little thing (i.e. “That table needs clearing so we can play this next game”). It was a lot like having one more child in the room.
Best co-workers would be, hands down, the three people at the little consulting group in the late 90s. We were consulting other businesses on, mostly, communication breakdowns, and we scheduled one day a month to work on our own issues, and jam about what would work or not for the various situations. Also two weekend retreats a year on the South Shore (one of them had a cabin) didn’t hurt. You get to know people better when you spend that kind of quality time with them.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Good help is hard to find out here. Although most of test scoring is just entering data into a computer, the psychometrists must have a BA at a minimum.
LikeLike
I felt like the screaming baboon in the header photo during the test scoring debacle, but only on the inside. On the outside I was calm and patient.
LikeLiked by 2 people
By the way, I love the picture in the header today.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes!
LikeLike
Thanks!
LikeLike
Me too
LikeLike
I think this happens more than we’ll ever know – why I love that header photo…
LikeLike
At my volunteer tax gig, I have a fellow reviewer who makes odd noises and doesn’t seem to be aware of it. I try to ignore it, but repetitive sounds do get on my nerves. It’s a sound that is hard to describe, kind of a cross between a grunt and a whimper, with a whoosh of air at the end. Sort of like Ehhhmmmph. I would really like to have a mute button for Charles.
LikeLiked by 2 people