Let Me Rephrase That

There's someone at work who does not knit, does not know I have a knitting blog, will not read this. So, I think I'm pretty safe in writing about this and not embarrassing that person. If not - I don't think he'll understand what I'm saying anyway so I'm safe.

Last week I had a conversation with a person at work, we'll call him Moe (as in moe-ron). It was a typical conversation and probably the reason I prescribe to the theory of "I kill so a do not kill people". He works quite closely with me, actually I'm his boss. In the world of being a boss you're supposed to mentor the team, help all your charges attain their full potential. I tell you, I don't think there's full potential here. I seriously think the little bridges between certain parts of the brain have been washed out and nothing is crossing them. After these conversation my brain hurts!

Me: Hey Moe. Do you remember when B used some of the supplies for a personal project and said she would replace it?
Moe: Yeah.
Me: That was over a month ago. I was wondering if she happened to come in while you were here and return it.
Moe: I don't know. You'll have to ask her.
Me: Moe, what I'm asking is - did she bring happen to bring it back while you were here?
Moe: I don't know. You'll have to ask her.
Me: Moe, let me try again. Was there ever a time in the past month when you were in this room and B came in and personally handed you the supplies and said 'here's the stuff I used. Thank you for letting me borrow them.'?"
Moe: No.
Me: Thank you. That's what I wanted to know.

Conversation #2: after talking about this topic all week with Moe. We have someone printing garbage and wasting reams of paper because they're trying to print using the wrong print driver but - this user name is someone from another state who was terminated in January. I've reported it to the corporate network guys.
Me: I still can't believe they haven't figured out how to stop this yet. It's so frustrating.
Moe: You should report it.
Me: Like I said before, I put in a help desk ticket and talked to someone there. We can't do anything else but keep the paper trays open so "he" can't print and waste paper.
Five minutes later after I get more info for the network guys
Me: This is driving me nuts.
Moe: Can't you report it to someone?
Me: The network guys at corporate have been told - by me - They are the only ones who can do anything. I have told them. They have a report. We can't do anything. The network guys have the information, are looking into it and will do something to fix it. We can't do anything. Do you understand?
Moe: Well, maybe you should tell R. (R is our laptop/computer guy in the office)
Me: Remember the network guys? The people at corporate? The ones I reported this to? The only people that can fix it? R is not one of them. He can't fix it. Trust me. The right people know ...
We went on another 5 minutes on this topic before he mentioned he thought Cliff Richards was about 50 years old. But that's another conversation......


Sadly, this type conversation happens at least on an hourly basis. It gets to the point where I can't even come up with another way to ask the same question. He is not going anywhere, anytime time soon. I am the supervisor who gets the "special employees". These are not people with mental handicaps as defined by the state but rather behavioral issues. I once had someone with vision problems I had to evaluate to see if she could do her job with helps we could provide but mostly it's short-term behavior things. Moe is different. He's been here for almost a year and my coping skills are wearing thin.

Monday I get a new person for a bit. I need to observe his people skills and coach him on customer interaction by how he deals with people in the office. At least I know the new guy has great print/computer skills so I can tell him to work on projects and know they'll get done right.

With all these people coming and going Moe thinks they have the issues. He doesn't realize he is an issue. I truly believe there were serious drugs in the past that have damaged normal thought process- it's the only theory I have for this. In the meantime - I knit so I do not kill!