Old Man Syndrome

Today has been one of those days. I loathe Mondays. I'm the only female in a group of 12 guys. In my time in this position, I've learned to listen. Guys do gossip and sweet Lord in the morning do they complain. There's one guy in our group who I have diagnosed with the "old man syndrome." He likes to bring up old stuff.

I walk in today. I haven't even sat down at my cubicle before he's asking me about an issue I worked. Was this last week? No. Last month? No. This wasn't even last year. It was September 2013. WTF!! I don't remember what I did last week. I snapped a little, but before I did I asked for a little more information. Come to find out. he was the one who had worked the issue in 2013, and I guess in that same year, he asked me about this same issue. Now even then he had forgotten he had worked the issue. I sent him an email reminding him that he had worked it that same year. The kicker is the current issue he's working is not even related to the 2013 issue. This was the first 30 minutes of my workday. Minutes of my life I will never get back. Meanwhile, the issue had been resolved last week by another coworker. That's old man syndrome (OMS). They don't know when to let shit go.

Another symptom of OMS is when you're talking to a coworker about say last night's episode of  "The Game of Thrones," and you have someone walk up and ask you about a ticket you worked last year. You go and review your emails and notes about the ticket, and again you find out this is completely unrelated or something your group doesn't even handle.

Another OMS symptom is when the day is quiet. You're not being bombarded with tickets or calls. You are relaxing and surfing the net. You see a ticket hit your queue, and you start working it. You resolve it. Here comes the old man asking you about the ticket. You inform them you've already resolved it. The old man is still telling you stuff to check for even after you have confirmed the issue is resolved. Now the stuff he is telling you to check for has nothing to do with resolving the issue because the old man read the ticket and interpreted the issue as something else. WTF!!

Sometimes you just want to avoid people with OMS. Sometimes you can, and sometimes you can't. I've found a great pair of noise cancelling headphones that help me avoid people with OMS. I also watch Netflix and Hulu. I listen to music and read comics. Don't get me wrong. I love my job, but you deal with all kinds of personalities on any job. If you have anyone on your job with OMS, you have all my sympathy and empathy.

Deuces!!