So a few weeks back, one of my subordinates told me she had emailed my bosses' boss about some issue involved with the workspace at our office. To which I asked "did you CC me? Did you CC my boss", which she had not. I then proceeded to explain to her the unwritten rules of email etiquette (not to mention common courtesy and chain of command) which include, if you're going to circumvent the chain of command via email with a very nonsensical question, you might want to CC those you are circumventing so they don't get blindsided by the recipient of the said email.
She looked at me as though I was talking Greek and had lobsters crawling out of my ears.
Sweet Moses. Now I will give her this, she's in her early 20's and has never actually worked in an office environment before, but it just terrified me that this idea hadn't even crossed her mind. I then began to question myself about what I take for granted in terms of experience based knowledge in the workplace?
Thinking through all the office space etiquette and office norms I've learned over the years, this are a few that immediately come to mind:
- Unlike anywhere else, and as Guy Code dictates, if you fart in the office elevator, you never claim it.
- It is unacceptable to eat any one's food from the break room fridge, but for some reason, NOBODY else honors this rule. I mean seriously? How big of a shit-bird do you have to be that you purposefully chow down someone elses' lunch?
- If the Internet and/or email goes down, everyone is pretty much done for the day.
- Unlike the military, civilians think they can just tool on in to any meeting, regardless of who's running it 10-15 minutes late and think there isn't a problem at all with it.
- As above, civilians also think it's totally fine to dink around on their cell phones during a meeting.
- There is always that ONE co-worker that has worked for the organization since dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and for some reason SHE (because it's usually a she) is just adamantly against retiring and will work there until she dies faxing a TPS report.
- In advocating for the employee, most HR shops are about as useful as a shit flavored lollipop.
- Someone will always, for some reason, have a craving for popcorn at about 2pm, and will burn the ever living shit out of it in the break room microwave which in turn, stinks up the entire office.
- Any employee/new mom will always, at some point, find a reason to bring in her brand new kid to show off to literally everyone. IT, HR, Accounting, Me of all people...everyone. Never really figured out the reason.
- Too many working people have too many photos of too many personal things in their offices at all times.
- The mega-tools are the ones with not only too many photos, but also a screen saver slide show of their tooly vacations/weddings/camping/etc.etc.etc. excursions.
- Some female employee will almost always wear some type of shoe that sounds like you're setting off M-80's with each of her steps, regardless of whether the floor is carpeted or not.
- All workplaces have at least wildly inappropriate male employee, for various reasons.
- People who reek up the workplace at lunch with fast food are usually considered dicks right up there with the popcorn-burning-dick.
I could keep going but I won't. Wow, the more I go back and look at this list, I can definitely say that I have worked with a lot of ass hats in my small foyer into the civilian workforce (along with bits and pieces of the military). What I can say with some amount of confidence is that there are a lot of ass hats in workplaces everywhere, however, their type and style is apparently limited.
Maybe they requisition these types of idiots when they first start a company? Never-going-to-retire guy, burn-the-popcorn asshole, shoes-too-fucking-loud chica, etc.etc. I could almost see a checklist circulating somewhere....
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