Pet Peeves: Non-Blame Blame

I really dislike when people say, "I am not blaming you, but you didn't ...." If I am not to blame, why does it sound that way?

There were two instances of non-blaming this week at work:

1)We are rolling out a project and I finished my portion 2 days earlier than the deadline. I alerted the other department to perform their testing and I thought everything is fine. Almost a week later I get notified that they wanted to begin testing the following day. I had no problem and it scheduled this task. The day of testing I was at my desk working and I the lead of the other team begins lecturing about deadlines. I let the person know that the deadlines were being met, but they continued the diatribe about if something causes a missed deadline that I should communicate this. At this point I had to point out that I was two days early and it was their department that caused the delay. This person finally left and I let my supervisor know what just transpired and they was PISSED. It all got handled and we met our deadline.

2)A system failed that I am the lead of due to an oversight, and I took responsibility for the failure and alerted the proper people. The next day, files were deleted from a server because after someone in upper management starting playing around with programs. I did my job to started the process to recover the files. The following day it turns out that highly critical files were deleted and the need to recover them was urgent. We started the process in about an hour we recover the files. Later that day a meeting was scheduled to discuss this matter. It started off with the person in upper management who deleted the files accepting responsibility, and stated that the meeting wasn't about blame. Which would have been great if it wasn't followed by this person saying things like "we aren't here to throw [me] under the bus", "we aren't blaming you, but ..." (while referencing me), etc... I took responsibility for the issue, and accepted blame because it was warranted. After that, I was being "non-blamed" for things I had no part in.

Ugh.

Anyway ... so how was your week at work?

Pet Peeves: People With No Patience

I had someone send me an email to ask a question. I responded to the person within five minutes and I thought I gave them the answer that they need. Well during the five minutes this person, who I don't know well, contacted a mutual friend for my phone number and sent me a text message with the same question. I could understand if the matter was urgent, but it was just a inquiry which I could have responded to a day later with no harm done.

"Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius."
- Benjamin Disraeli

Mean What You Say

Yesterday when I was out and about when this guy came up to me and we started chatting. I was it started off as small talk and I let it be known that I wasn't interested in hooking up in anyway. He said he wasn't either, be just wanted to talk. After about a 10 minute conversation he started to asking really personal questions that typically leads to hooking up. I told the guy I wasn't interested and ended the conversation by saying it was nice to talk before I walked away. They guy was very handsome, but I don't hook up with people because it's not for me. It's a personal thing, and not a judgement call. It bothers me that the guy's intention was to try to hook up with me, but he said he wasn't. Why? It could have saved us both time if he was upfront about what his intentions were from the jump.

[addendum: this applies to online profiles/chats. If you state or your profiles says you are looking for friend/chat only, then don't ask sexual questions. It's a very "stranger with candy" scenario. Hypocrisy is not a good look on anyone. Case in point: Jeese Jackson.]

Ugh.

This weekend has gone by way too quick. I guess that happens when you are busy out and about doing things. Next weekend will be even more busy because I got a birthday party to attend and a tennis tournament.

I guess it is better to have too much to do, than too little.

Pet Peeve: Walking on the Wrong Side

You know what I hate? People who do not know how to walk down a hallway. I was taught as a child that you should always stay to the right to allow other people in the opposite direct to walk freely. So, in essence, you walk the way you drive (in the US).

I was on my way to get my lunch, on the right side of the hall, when this women I know comes from around a corner headed toward me. I didn't move out of the way because there was about 4 feet of free space on my left side she could go to.

the woman (in red), and me (in blue).
She didn't move. We were playing a game of hallway chicken that neither of use were willing to lose. We were about 6 inches from crashing into one another before I side-stepped to my left to avoid a collision. I would have said something to her, but the CEO of the company I work for was sitting less than 3 feet away having lunch. So I vented to myself before getting lunch.

I am being too ridged with the hallway walking rule? Or should have knocked over this woman who refused to move?

What would you have done?