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Coworker is OVERLY thankful for everything we do!

Mapper71

By Mapper71,
in Business and Professional Relationships

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Mapper71

Mapper71

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So our dept. of about 15 people works with one woman who is in her early 60s and has been at the company for 25 years. She used to be our manager, but a year after I got here she was moved to another area and we have our current manager, who is awesome. This woman really had no background in what our dept does because when this company was a start up, everybody pitched in everywhere. Our current manager has a background in what we do.

 

So anyways, this woman was, I don't know if you'd call it demoted, but moved to another area within our dept to work on sort of an individual project which has quickly bled over into our dept so we all still work together. This woman is SO over the top with apologies and overly thanking people for miniscule things. Things that we are supposed to do in our job. She insisted that two people come over to her office and have some snacks together after simply finishing up something that was supposed to be done anyways. These people were irritated because they had to take 15 minutes to go over and make chit chat with her when they needed to work. She also gave them bottles of wine for simply doing their job. She came over a few weeks ago and asked if I could add something to the text of what she was doing. I said it was no problem and had it done in 10 minutes. Not only did she profusely thank me over email, she then came across the street to our building right after the email and thanked me again and asked if she could give me a hug! A few days later she came over and over-explained that she needed a file name changed. Something she could have easily done on her end but comes over and asks me to literally change one number in the file name. She over thanked me for that.

 

When she talks to us she'll go "Stop me if I've told you this before" or "Do you have time for me to tell you something?" or "I just want to take another minute of your time and tell you this". She has to explain that she's going to tell us something before telling us!

 

It's just over the top and everyone in our dept knows it.

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CautiouslyOptimistic

CautiouslyOptimistic

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how many cats does this women own?

 

LOL!!

 

But seriously, I think this woman probably does not want to lose her job due to her age if she isn't ready to retire. She probably knows she was replaced with a younger (I assume?) manager. She may be bored, too. Maybe they stuck her in a job with not much to do.

 

I'd go easy on her. Whenever I get irritated with my mom who is in her late 70s, I just have to keep telling myself, "XXX, she's an old lady..." :)

 

(No offense to people here in their sixties.....especially you young 60 year olds!)

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GunslingerRoland

GunslingerRoland

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I think it's good to be appreciative of the people who do work that support you, even if it's in the scope of their day to day work... I don't see anything wrong with that.

 

The bigger concern is that she seems to be lonely and want to take everyone's time with inviting people over for things, and making a big deal over things like the file name that she could have just quietly fixed herself.

 

But really that is a pretty normal thing to have some people like that in an office, you don't have to always engage them just because they want to talk...

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basil67

basil67

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This woman is afflicted with the same degree of insecurity as you are inflicted with shyness. Perhaps use the same compassion towards her as you would like others to use towards you.

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Mapper71

Mapper71

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LOL!!

 

But seriously, I think this woman probably does not want to lose her job due to her age if she isn't ready to retire. She probably knows she was replaced with a younger (I assume?) manager. She may be bored, too. Maybe they stuck her in a job with not much to do.

 

I'd go easy on her. Whenever I get irritated with my mom who is in her late 70s, I just have to keep telling myself, "XXX, she's an old lady..." :)

 

(No offense to people here in their sixties.....especially you young 60 year olds!)

 

Oh she won't lose her job. Even if she's not totally competent in what she does, the boss of the company has known her all this time and will not get rid of her. And she has got PLENTY of work on her plate. She's basically taking a new project that we have no time to do. But I mean seriously, coming over to give a coworker a hug for doing a 10 minute job...that they are supposed to be doing anyway??!!

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CautiouslyOptimistic

CautiouslyOptimistic

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Oh she won't lose her job. Even if she's not totally competent in what she does, the boss of the company has known her all this time and will not get rid of her. And she has got PLENTY of work on her plate. She's basically taking a new project that we have no time to do. But I mean seriously, coming over to give a coworker a hug for doing a 10 minute job...that they are supposed to be doing anyway??!!

 

I'm self employed now and work from my home completely alone, but I had many, many years before this in a traditional office environment. I know there are so many personality types you encounter in this environment, and frankly I miss it. Unless there was someone seriously impeding my ability to get my work done, I embraced it all like we were on The Office :). It takes all kinds!

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anika99

anika99

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It seems that people are damned if they do and damned if they don't. You complain about friendly people and unfriendly people, talkative people and people who don't talk to you. You find fault in everyone. Maybe try to appreciate and embrace all the different people and personalities you get to interact with.

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Chris2016

Chris2016

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Wait until you come across someone who is a beach/arse. Not sometime beach/arse. All the time beach/arse. It's who they are, their personality. You dread helping them, but you have to put on a fake smile. Now this person who is overly thankful? Is a breath of fresh air in comparison and you're thankful that people like them exist in the office.

Edited by Chris2016
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gone_girl

gone_girl

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Maybe she's treated badly in other areas of her life, so she sees simple colleague support as something extraordinary. Tbh I'd invite her to lunch or something, but this is just me. I think this kind of people really need a friend. I've been this kind of person before and still have some leftovers from it.

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some_username1

some_username1

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It is an interesting (and very sad) indictment on human nature that someone being too nice can wind another up so much they have to post about it on a forum and vent frustration.

 

It also shows that what you might think is the most foolproof survival strategy (being nice to everyone) is still as flawed as just being an a$$ h0le.

 

Humanity, dontcha just love it......

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