The Background…
Recently a very large project was shutdown here and a bunch of people were laid off. As part of that, one whole floor has been closed and is in the process of being occupied by another business. Not all the people on that floor have finished up yet though and some are now on my floor temporarily. It’s not “cramped” but it is a case of a few different groups are here from normal. We have IT Infrastructure, IT helpdesk, some subject matter experts, commercial managers, project managers, and other project staff (like me), as well as the people finishing up over the next couple of months. All part of the same company (or contractors, like me). All loosely related (i.e. in the IT space) but with very, very different roles.
IT Infrastructure here has a long, long history of being… Problematic. IT infrastructure in general tends to attract a certain personality type, and the culture within the team here over the last 10 years (I’ve been on and off involved here for over that now) has only grown worse. They think they are the most important people in the company, despite never delivering to the businesses priorities - they do what they want to do first, not what is needed first. i.e. whatever is most fun or best for their CV… They are also unaffected by the recent layoffs.
The Incident
Infrastructure guy decides it’s time to start taping up some boxes. At his desk. They have a room for this, which is less than 10m away from his desk, but he decides to do it there. I’m about 30m away and it’s annoying the **** out of me but I can live with it.
One of the commercial managers though is on the phone to a client and right next to this. She suspends the call then says very politely “Excuse me, I’m on a call and I can’t hear it, do you mind doing that in the room over there?”
Infrastructure guy responds:“No”. Nothing else. And continues taping.
Commercial manager watches dumbfounded for about 30 seconds. She then asks “I’m asking politely. Do you mind just moving into that room? It looks like you’ll be a while and I can’t do my job while you’re making that noise”
Infrastructure guy doens’t look up: “No”. And continues taping.
“I’m asking nicely and I don’t know why you can’t?”
Silence. Well, from his mouth. The taping continues.
She get’s up and walks into the room to see what is in there. She walks out and again says: “The room has clear workbenches that are more appropriate for that work. Can you please go in there and stop disrupting everyone else”
Silence. Again, just from his mouth. The taping continues.
The infrastructure team lead is right there also. Silence from him. Silence from everyone. She walks away. He keeps taping, and continues for 5 minutes before stopping and also walking away.
None of the people near her helped. The team lead who was responsible should have stepped in but didn’t look up from his monitor. ■■■■■■■ disgraceful.