Office martyr

[Larryduff]

Been made to feel like a miserable cow but I'm hoping for some vindication.

We have an office martyr who buys all the leaving cards etc and moans about this while also insisting that no-one else can chip in or god-forbid actually buy them. Apparently that wasn't enough and now she's started buying everyone birthday cards, well not everyone just the people she likes. Fair enough if they were just from her but no, everyone has to sign them (about 30-40 people). So I told her privately that maybe it was a bit much and people would get sick of signing loads of cards and/or people who were missed would feel a bit shitty and unpopular. I've come back to work after a stressful 2 days looking after a poorly toddler and there's this fucking sickly sweet PA email obviously aimed at me about how some people may be a bit fed up of signing loads of cards but how lovely it is to receive them. Yeah I know this doesn't sound like much but she has form so it's really wound me up.

Anyone else got similar and how do you deal with it without coming across like a sour old bitch?

Ezzie

We have client teaspoons (and crockery) and staff teaspoons and staff get snotty emails from Ms Office Martyr if there is evidence that a client teaspoon has been used when there hasn't been any visitors of appropriate standing to the building (it would have to be customers or VIPs, not merely people from our other offices to qualify).

The PP who said office martyrdom was a work avoidance tactic is spot on. Our 'bring back the fucking cutlery' email never arrived this afternoon, because she was too busy planning the office Christmas lunch, which is not her actual job either, but I suspect she takes it on because a lot of the places we use do an offer where the organiser gets a free meal for two in January and I strongly suspect she snaffles these for her and her DH, despite the parties being paid for out of staff's own pockets - I think it would be fairer to hold a raffle with the free meal as a prize, or ask for free or discounted wine at the meal for everyone, or anything else where she isn't getting a free meal off everyone else's money instead, but one does not wish to rock the boat.

Slightly off the cards/presents/spoons but an office environment I found odd

Went into NHS 'team' on short contract and was gobsmacked by what I found. 1 senior secretary, not even office manager or team leader but had been there since the year dot, totally ruled the roost.
Examples: everyone was ' allowed' 1 pen and 1pencil but all of these had the person's name sellotaped to the end of it. Just like school.
Things like rulers and staplers had the owner's name tippexed on to them woe betide you if you were caught using anyone elses.
This person kept the stationery cupboard key and gave out pens, pencils, notepads etc. So you had to ask!
Mugs had everyone's name on and hers was kept in her desk drawer .
No desk drawers had keys and you'd frequently find her 'inspecting them'
I could go on.
As a newcomer I expressed my surprise and said to the 5 secretaries working under this regime that it was odd behaviour and they didn't need to put up with it, and they almost went off into a dead faint. They were unhappy but daren't say anything to anyone.

We even all attended a weekend course together, everyone casually dressed but the ogre - she wore her work suit uniform the whole time even to the evening meal.

She fascinated me and as a gobby rebel in all I do, I spent the whole 4 months I was there thinking up ways to challenge her authority in ways she couldn't refuse.
Really weird working experience.

Why aren't special teaspoons just kept in a box away from the general spoons?

I think it is seriously weird for adults to make a big deal of birthdays unless it's maybe a "significant" one. Whether at work or at home tbh.

I also take the view that I go to work to MAKE money, not to spend it on donuts and greetings cards.

I think I will pretend to be a Jehovah's Witness in my new job. Then I can avoid birthdays AND Christmas!

I have just realised I am a Spoon Loon . Although in my defence I am the office manager and I get fed up to the back teeth of people moaning at me that there are no spoons, so I do feel justified in sending spoon related emails to the entire office.

We've got one of these. It's an attempt at popularity and work avoidance. She organises retirement/maternity buffet which she holds a list for, we all have to add our name next to the item we are prepared to bring. Birthday cards, sweepstakes, stationery, office equipment, cleaning out the fridge, laminated signs in the kitchen, home made cakes every week, claims to be OCD. I love the eye roll and muttering under her breath when anything office related is directed to her as people think she is the office manager. She bloody lives the attention. Still waiting for Christmas meal to be booked but she's pissing about and everyone is too scared to take the initiative themselves. Mainly people let her get on with it because no one else cares that much and we feel a bit sorry for her.

Just remembered the woman I've previously described wouldn't let anyone where perfume. She wasn't allergic or anything just didn't like 'smells' and so none of them ever wore perfume. I did

EastMids, all our special client cutlery was kept in a different drawer, with soft cloth over everything to protect it so those bastards knew exactly what they were doing!

She's left now but we had an department martyr. In fairness it's a big department, and alot of people are crap at washing up after themselves. However they were getting better. But she decided to tackle it, she would just throw the plates, cups and cutlery away. It was very frustrating for everyone, as its the sort of job where you can get called away in the middle of lunch, to come back and find that your bowl with your half eaten lunch in it has been thrown away. She was also the self appointed fridge cleaner upper, and you'd better have labelled your dinner otherwise it's being chucked whether it looked dodgy or not.

EastMidsGPs
We have an office manager here who keeps all the stationery in one cupboard and watches it closely. I get great fun out of standing in front of the cupboard, and when she runs over, I tell her I'm just browsing. Then I start taking random stuff out while she hops from leg to leg dying control what I'm doing.
Even better, sometimes I ring the stationery supplier and order something off the wall for myself - her eyes pop out when she sees it on my desk.

Some of these are bloody brilliantly!!!

I wrote a rota for the shitty chores in my last job. Office martyr (got in at 7am, regularly left at 8pm and had no fucking life) was clearly being a sighing moaning hard done by cleaner alongside procrastinating and avoiding her job. Someone took the piss of my beautiful rota (on a whiteboard no less) sadly said person was the worst offender. He got the sharp end of my tongue 👅

i bloody love being self employed now!

Several good suggestions, to which I can't really add.

But about the cake thing. I'm diabetic and can't eat cake, so get pretty fed up with watching other people scoff it and badgering me to join in when I can't. I will buy cake on my birthday, but it isn't a treat for me. There are lots of us around - please keep this in mind when suggesting the cake thing.

Fortunately I'm now self employed, so the whole scenario doesn't come up. I don't miss it.

We have one....she even has full on 'strops' in the middle of the office and once tried to shout at me....

she's not gone full on spoon loon yet though

I would also reply that cards from everyone to the birthday person(s) are, of course lovely, but as some do not receive you are concerned that it is not an inclusive excercise and so may leave some feeling marginalised I would then send to ALL staff including HR, line managers, etc etc and let them sort it out as they should. She needs reigning in!

Oh god the NHS is a beast of martyrdom and passive aggressive pettiness daily. i said i had too much work on to take on another job and could my coworker do it. Que her ignoring me for two days. She goes out the office for sweet runs so she can stick fingers up behind my back. I have seen her do it! All because i can do my job and she is so outdated and slow she resents me.

Decline politely. My only suggestion is to be consistent and either only remember one or two close colleagues or perhaps even no-one.

It may not apply to your workplace but there are some who do not celebrate birthdays- Jehovah's Witnesses, or perhaps if a particular one coincides with a sad event.

Who buys her card?

Reminds me of a girl many, many years ago at a company I worked for. She never put in for the office birthday collections, yet always expected a cake / or chocs from the recipient (birthday person always bought cakes for everyone)

Best of it was she would moan and groan on her birthday when no-one had collected for her!

Love this thread

ChickenV
I think I will pretend to be a Jehovah's Witness in my new job. Then I can avoid birthdays AND Christmas!

Are JW's allowed an occasional pint? If so, may I invite you to my favourite local hostelry, The Bar Humbug, for a beverage and a natter about our common loathing of everything office related.

In one of my first jobs (a huge organisation - large mail order firm) there were collections nearly every day, Not just birthdays, but "Doreen in Bad Debts's mother is going to out-patients for an ingrowing toenail removal - we're collecting for flowers", and ""Tanya's cat has had kittens - we're getting her a "Congratulations" card", and "Fidelma in Accounts has been told she has to lose weight. We thought a cake would cheer her up" and similar, All of my money seemed to go on people I had never met or even heard of.

One day I just said "Sorry - but I have no idea who that is, or why we need to celebrate him having got rid of his STD.". (well, perhaps not exactly that, but ...) People actually stopped talking to me.

Pmsl at that past post :)

I spent the whole 4 months I was there thinking up ways to challenge her authority in ways she couldn't refuse.

Really sharpens your creativity doesn't it? (evil )

2kids - I think we may have been separated at birth.

If often screech "who the hell is Doris? If I haven't heard of her by now, then she won't be missed when she retires".

Let's sell a stamp we can use in every card to save time:
HappyBirthday/Easter/Baby/Retirement/Engagement/Wedding/whatever (delete as appropriate)

And DO NOT get me started on the "sponsor me" brigade. FUCK OFF. Or the Jamberry nails parties. I once posted a passive-aggressive facebook status saying something like "I'm so happy that you consider me not as a friend or colleague but a source of revenue".

Our office martyr takes all of the teaspoons and hides them if they aren't washed quickly enough.

Office martyrs bloody love stationery. We had one who'd sit moaning and sighing one day a month because she'd be doing the order and she just couldn't risk messing it up. She came up with some stupid system for signing out items so nobody would steal them. It involved a spreadsheet you had to fill in if you took as much as a biro.

When she went on maternity leave I took over her ever so important duties and it took about 3 minutes a month. Plus I spent about a quarter of what she did. She was not happy when she came back.