Cringe & Facepalm

This happened at work last year, thought you all would like it. So I work for a big tech company, as a building maintenance tech. I do repairs, handle contractors, move office furniture, that kind of thing. But most of my coworkers are tech types with engineering degrees. Some of them are nice, down to earth kind of people, but many of them let their "importance" go to their heads. This guy though, takes the cake.

So we had a very very nice desk set aside in an empty office. It was meant to be moved to the office of one of our bigwigs. But she was out of town for a few months, so we were storing it until we had her input on what she wanted removed to make room for it. This low-level, new hire engineer decided to set up shop in the spare room we were keeping the desk in. He was told that as long as his supervisor ok-ed it, he could stay, but that we would be coming to get the desk any day and not to get attached.

Well the day comes to move the desk and this guy. Lost. His. Shit. He was pissed. Yelling that he deserved that desk, he was an engineer, how dare we. My team just kind of shrugged and took the desk anyway, so he turned his rage onto the poor front desk guy, for some reason. Just went off.

Well front desk guy doesn't take shit from anyone and got the guy's supervisor and HR involved, which opened up an investigation into Mr. Bigshot Engineer. And guess what they found? He'd lied on his resume! He was in no way qualified for his position! I guess a fresh set of eyes saw some kind of red flag the hiring manager hadn't. So yeah, he was promptly fired. Amazing that he almost got away with it and blew it over a dumb desk.

So, a few days ago, I shared a story of an American Boomer couple who told me to accept Jesus because I'm a man and my nails were painted. Well, I have another one that happened to me, so I figured I may as well share it too.

This one also happened at my job at The Book of Kells. This American family was in the Old Library, and one of them was asking me about how the school system works here in Ireland. As I was explaining this, this Boomer woman asked me if I'd ever been to America. I said that yes I had, when I was 13. She then asked me if I'd ever go back, to which I said no. I then stupidly added, "because from an outside perspective, the country looks like it's going to crap." Luckily, this woman wasn't bothered, and told me she didn't think so. I figured I should back out of this situation before I caused an argument, so I explained that I'm just a pessimist. The woman understood, and the family moved on, and I forgot about that conversation almost immediately (the joys of ADHD).

About 20 minutes later, this family walked up to me, looking for lift out of the Old Library. I directed them where to go, and most of them walked towards it. However, this boomer man didn't go anywhere. Instead, he put his hand on my shoulder without asking first (I hate being touched so this was very uncomfortable), and said to me, "You should do more reading up on my country before you insult it, because America is actually the single greatest Republic in human history."

Now, as someone with a love of history, I so wanted to correct him on that. But as someone who was working at the time, I had to bite back my response and placate him. So, I responded with, "I have, but I still don't think it's a country I'd want to visit." The boomer responded with, "Well, do a bit more reading, because it's the greatest Republic in human history, and everyone wants to go there." To get him to go away, I commented that Twitter just sheds a sorry light on it, and walked off. He said something else about Europe, but I didn't hear it properly, and I was done with this conversation, so I didn't go back to find out.

So yeah, that's the second boomer story from my job. It's not as good of a story as the first one, and I did kind of bring it upon myself this time, but it was certainly memorable.