Category: I Work With Idiots

And the beat goes on.

It's said some people as adults have the awareness of a typical three-year old; i.e. their awareness extends to a three foot radius around them and then abruptly ends).

About six weeks ago—before the madness started—we got a request to upgrade the a/v equipment in the main conference rooms on three floors. We were all busy at the time so it got put on the back burner and life went on. Well, today we got an email from one of those perpetually-clueless individuals asking when these upgrades were expected to be completed because, "we have meetings with the public coming up."

Excuse me? Meetings with who? Who is this "public" and who, exactly, is going to be physically coming back into the office to conduct these meetings?

My colleagues and I maintain a group chat via Skype during the day, and even before anyone said anything, I could hear their collective eyes rolling. Finally, my supervisor's boss said, "I. just. can't ," immediately followed by, "I'll take care of it." Less than a minute later we all received a cc'd email to the user reminding her that there was a spending freeze in place for all non-essential purchases and laying out exactly why this project was non-esssential and now officially on hold for the foreseeable future.

I swear that some people—even in the midst of this crisis—continue to think only about about themselves and their needs; that everything is still "business as usual."