I work in a public school district and i visit about a dozen different schools. Bosses are making us share our calendars, thinking they’ll be able to track us and catch us doing something wrong. I’m planning to add “started my period” every couple of weeks. Are there other good outlook tricks to fuck with them?
ETA- This is my work calendar, not my personal calendar. I know that seems reasonable but it’s being done as a petty micromanagement tactic. There are about 20 of us in my department who drive from school to school every day working with kids with physical disabilities. They don’t just want to know when we’re in meetings - they want every minute of our day to be accounted for - 8 to 830 school A, 840 to 11 school B, etc. I go to 14 schools. If my kid at school A is absent or if i get a call from school J that i need to stop by to fix a wheelchair, am I supposed to pull over and update my calendar so they can find me? I could spend an hour a day in parking lots editing my calendar. Most days i eat lunch in my car between schools. Last year they made a rule that we can’t carry to-go cups because it looks like we have enough free time to drive thru Starbucks. It’s just to be controlling.
- Spam personal fake notes everywhere. “Joey’s little league game”, “Call dentist” and make completely useless ones like “remember the thing” for maximum annoyance.
- Add obscure religious holidays and random countries’ national festivities. “Bhutan Losar day. Get decorations.”
- Put in washed up celebrities’ birthdays “David Hasselhoff’s b-day”.
- Include random bad album release anniversaries. “18 year release anniversary of Kid Rock - Live Trucker”.
- Register inaccurate astrological milestones with random advice. “Leo ascending in Pluto. Good day for new beginnings”.
- Every once in a while add events that are just random characters such as “HERDBhbcdbcnn nnnnnnnn” which you can later claim were added accidentally from your pocket.
- Make sure some of the events are written IN ALL CAPS
- Be lavish with your use of exclamation marks!!!1!!111
- Occasionally add reviews of your day scheduled for a few hours later as if using the calendar as a diary, including details about health conditions and sex life. “Rough day today… had a lot of work and <partner> didn’t want to get frisky because of the hemmorhoids”
- Write down random math calculations here and there that suggest you are confusing the calendar with an excel spreadsheet “=27.5/3”
- Include the most bland and sad motivational quotes every couple of days with several typos as if written ina rush: “YO cndo it!!!” “YOU WILL ALEAYS BE BEeeTIFUL, gril. Ownit!!!”
- Add fake Google search queries as if confusing the calendar with your search bar “cheap viernamese restaurant charlottesville” “how dolphins swim so fast ND jump”
Extra bonus points if you can invite him to the “events” and get the calendar to send him push notifications for occasional 5:30 am “wake up early for the thing”. If he accuses you of bad faith for inviting him, tell him it’s the default and you keep forgetting to remove him.
Not only will this annoy him, it will render the system impossible to supervise and you can always claim you ALWAYS organize your personals through your calendar and this “is just how i organize”.
Good luck and give em hell.
Edit: Elaborated and more ideas
Edit 2: Few more ideas.
You are petty and disagreeable to overreaching management, I love you.
Best part is, public school teachers are basically unfireable in most parts of the developed western world for anything short of Child endangerment, so they probably can get away with all of this and more. :D
Ily2
Yeah. Worst I’ll get is probably an email.
I love these! Thank you! When we take a personal day we now have to invite her to it in our calendar. I think I’ll be taking some extremely personal days.
Beautiful! Godspeed, brave soul.
That’s fuckin insane. Who is this turd
I assume this is a byproduct of politicizing school leadership positions?
Misunderstood your comment. My apologies!! <3
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This was a fantastic read. OP I hope you do this (and then tell us about it or post screenshots)
Thank you. I consider myself a decent managerial saboteur / supervisional terrorist
Some people might take this further like spamming tech support/ IT with nonsensical tickets that somehow end up being something brought up to management which would force them to determine some policy (which they hate doing)
Others might find it amusing to open debates about how certain harmless terminology used in calendar events may cause offense to “people we should be looking after” due to “ideological considerations” “possibly triggering” even if no relevant members of any group are in the team. Some people may bring this up in HR.
The key concepts to destroy any organizational effort are “techincally allowed”, “plausible deniability” and “could get someone in a lot of trouble”.
IT here, please don’t drag us into this… unless you’re looking for help. We enjoy malicious compliance just as much as anyone else.
- Put in washed up celebrities’ birthdays “David Hasselhoff’s b-day”.
- Include random bad album release anniversaries. “18 year release anniversary of Kid Rock - Live Trucker”.
Make sure they’re correct though, shitty boss is bound to share your love for kid rock and the hoff.
David Hasselhoff’s b-day
July 17, for your convenience
Don’t forget to use tasks too. Spams your bosses task list with random stuff and reminders all the time.
Nice! I didn’t know that!
Remember the thing! 🤣🤣
Add your driving to/from schools to the calendar, turn by turn
- 9:21 - Leave parking lot, turn to Capital Blvd and drive 420 ft
- 9:22 - Turn right towards Trawick Rd and drive 2.5 miles
- 9:27 - Turn left, enter parking lot
Make sure to turn on “at time of event” reminders for every single one, then turn your own phone/pc to DND mode so bitch boss’s only way to make them shut up is unshare the calendar
I didn’t know your could do that! Perfect!
Pretty sure thats not a normal outlook setting. If boss added the calander to his phone maybe. But doubt it.
It might not be default, but I know it works for shared calendars because someone started adding things to my department calendar with the reminder turned on, and I suddenly started getting EVERY SINGLE ONE on my computer.
“pulled over to put following comments in calendar”
Right? I got a call on a new first grader who showed up at school in a baby stroller. I thought, “huh, should i look for a wheelchair and class chair for him and rush over to get him set up for his first day of school? or sit here and update my calendar for each stop in that process? Visit school A to meet kid. Visit school b to look for wheelchair. Visit school c to find wheelchair. Visit my garage to clean wheelchair. Visit tire shop to air up tires on wheelchair. Visit school A to deliver and fit wheelchair.”
Well I have a pretty good idea where you live :) (I used to live in Brentwood)
Had to do similar for a micromanager that thought I was lying about my start times. He started calling asking where I was seemingly randomly. Then I saw him driving around one day in the lot swiveling his head around and realized he thought I was clocking in from home. (At the time I’d been occasionally parking about a mile away and hoofing it so my fat ass could get steps in before work. I explained this but he didn’t believe it).
So from then on if I didn’t feel like exercising I’d mark my arrival and hide my car somewhere in the lot behind trailers, a big dumpster, etc. and watch him drive around searching trying to catch me out. Then I’d see him find my car and shake his head. He knew what was up then. He stopped stalking my calendar and me after a couple days of that.
Does your boss fish? If not, this might look disturbing to him.
Five Guys Hooker tournament 2-4. Entry: $75. Min length: 8". Biting = Big OFishing tournament sponsored by Five Guys from 2-4pm. Entry fee is $75. Any fish under 8" don’t count towards total weight. “Big O” lure is expected to perform well.
The only one here so far not likely to immediately get you in trouble is the one about setting calendar reminders. By default, everyone with access to the event gets the alert with the event reminder.
Also, just being stupidly stringent with your time logging. 10:03-10:17 Gas, 8.9gal, $XX.XX to start pushing for (increased) mileage compensation.
Log every minute you go over time. It’s a wonderful way to make managers twitchy.
Also, there are certain things you could reasonably expect them to want logged with this that legally they are not allowed to ask for. Not “Took a big fat steamer”, what are you, 12? But “Bathroom” 1:10-1:15, and dare them to challenge it on the record. If they do, take it up the chain “I felt pressured to include this information in my time logs and now I’m being judged for it”. That should raise alarm bells with anyone up above them.
Most of all, chill out. Just keep your shit in order and keep moving on. No reason to jeapordize your employment for pettiness.
Yeah. I really need to learn how to let things go and stop being petty, but I just can’t stand her stupid lying face! “Share your calendar so we can find you if there’s an emergency.” Well, you could call me or you could use the multi million dollar emergency alert system that i sign into at every building.
I really need to learn how to let things go and stop being petty
I mean… no, you don’t. As long as you can manage possible repercussions… I say be petty. As petty as you can be while consequence free. Go nuts with it and enjoy it. Share key events with trusted loved ones and they may offer useful strategic suggestions.
Also, managers’ entire jobs consist in lying, manipulating, coercing, dehumanizing, snitching, and gathering info/planning around the former. A good manager is a usually a bad human being (either happily or though fear/incentives), and a good human being is usually a bad manager.
Source: I’m a manager and I deliberately try to be as bad as possible at my job due to ethical convictions. :)
If you’re not in the clock, then there is no emergency you could respond to.
I don’t understand this “work ethics” of US americans to be available 24/7. Just don’t and you don’t habe to complain vor be petty.
Resign, it will be better for both
Exploring options. Love my job and my team, but everyone above my immediate supervisor sucks! They take these director and Asst. Superintendent jobs to bump up their ‘five high pay years’ before retirement, even though they’re not qualified.
Not unless another job is secured.
Otherwise, never resign. Do bare minimum, make them do their job.
Fuck 'em
Yeah. I’m shifting from “I’m outta here!” to “Fuck it. They can try to fire me.”
Exactly… Make these clowns earn their fucking wages.
Make them uncomfortable withim the bounds the employment policy.
While you do this, obvi plan that exit.
In Asymmetric engagement with a bad faith actor that is still bound by some rules, flip the rules on them;)
I’d advise saturating him with an excessive amount of information. If he wants details, give him 10 times to many. Pollute every day with 50 status reports. Just keep on piling it on. If your boss decides to drive you crazy, then drive him even crazier.
Add a bunch of just normal things and then right in the middle:
10:45 - Rectal exam
1300 rectal exam
1700 rectal exam
2245 rectal exam
self- rectal exam
Just like checking your breasts for lumps, the fight against colon cancer begins at home.
No I prefer to start at work
My recent benefits enrollment meeting talked about being able to do an annual physical through a virtual visit. Being a man of a certain age, “self rectal exam” was the first thing I thought about.
Rectum? Damn near killed 'em!
If it ain’t on the calendar it ain’t happening
They keep telling us that. Leaves me wondering if i should just pick one kid that i really like, never put their visits in my calendar, and then just spend all of my time there trying to make up all the times i didn’t see them.
Just have a work calendar for your working hours, don’t put anything personal on it.
Most calendar systems let you maintain multiple calendars, and share them independently, but you still get to see them all at once on your interface.
I only use outlook for meeting invites. For now I’m just making up a fake weekly schedule and copying it to each week.
Sooo many awesome suggestions here for you, OP!
One thing I don’t think I’ve seen yet, is that you should create your calendar events as barebones as possible and then edit them to add each additional detail. This will notify everyone else attached of the updates to your event, every time you update any of them.
Your school district has crappy leadership. Look for a better district. Put those job interviews on your calendar.
We hired a new superintendent a few years ago. Since then they’ve been chasing away the old people and hiring their friends, who suck. They’re all just trying to get higher paying jobs to bump up their ‘five high years’ before retiring.
I don’t really follow your reasoning unless your bosses have already shown they’re malicious people. At work, my work calendar is shared with the entire company to see. I like it as it lets people easily schedule meetings with me, know at which of the two locations (or at home) I am. I have a personal calendar which I don’t link to my work calendar at all. I do think that accountability is an important part of healthy work relationships with managers because (with good managers) it comes with autonomy. Why do you think your bosses will use it maliciously?
They’re lying, shitty people who do petty things so they can pretend to be busy while ignoring any real issues. This isn’t sharing so they can see our meetings. They want us to write 8-930 school A. 945-11 school b, … to fill our whole day. That’s not how it works. I make a list of schools i need to get to and i fit those in between calls for random things that come up.
Thanks for explaining! That sounds very different than what I had in mind (just sharing an outlook calendar of meetings) and I understand your frustration as I’d hate that too. That must really suck. Wish I could help.
Actually I do have a suggestion. When I’m asked to do something that I think is pointless I go full nice, but rational mode. Keep asking questions as if you’re trying to understand their request. And as you keep asking why this way and not that way they may end up realising how ridiculous they sound and drop it or accept an easier alternative. It may be important to avoid gloating and to propose your preferred solution (available by phone) as a suggestion to help them save face. The way to work with crappy managers is to keep them feeling good about themselves. You can use that to your advantage. It sucks and it may not work but there’s only so much you can do.
At work, my work calendar is shared with the entire company to see. I like it as it lets people easily schedule meetings with me, know at which of the two locations (or at home) I am.
“Fun” fact: Outlook and Teams have a Scheduling assistant feature that makes that unnecessary. If a person wants to schedule a meeting with you, they don’t need access to your calendar to check availability. They just add you, pick a day, and it will suggest to them time slots you have open in your calendar for that day. There’s no longer a need to share an Outlook calendar with anyone just so they can know when you’re free to meet.
you sweet summer child. (or management plant)
Could you please explain what is naive in my reasoning?
You must work in a role where your input is valued and you have a degree of autonomy, your calendar is a collaboration tool to work with other people.
Most jobs aren’t like that, and bosses will use your calendar to micromanage you instead of supporting you
And not using the calendar means giving the boss carte blanche access to bother you any time.
After all, if you don’t have anything scheduled, you aren’t really busy, are you?
let me put it on my calendar.
Found american gen z
Or just a generic bootlicker…
I dont think genz appreciates clown corpo culture
We certainly don’t.
Period every couple of weeks… lmao.
For every hour put “8am block” “9am block” etc and it will completely fill their calendar.
You could use a paper planner and refuse to use the calendar too.
I like this. Just one little further tweak: every hour block should be a time zone conversion to a completely useless time.
For example the hour long block at 8:00am would be:
0:00-0:59 Ugandan timeFor even more bonus points, account for Uganda not observing DST.
I love this!! Everything in my calendar is now going to occur in a different time zone !
This is great. And, i don’t know if you can color code events in Outlook, but if you can… color code anarchy.
I use a separate calendar for real stuff. Just making up stuff to put in this one and copying it each week.
Excellent!
Have you ever thought of tracking your bowel movements?
Don’t forget to note consistency and whether or not there’s corn.
Be professional, use the Bristol Stool Chart.
I actually have that on the wall in a couple of my schools. I could take a pic and note my ‘score’.
A picture is good but a video really captures the consistency.
Don’t add anything new to your calendar, just add them and they can see it’s useless for the purpose they want. When they complain, mention the checkin system and that you need to be called. Or just a generic “School Visits” event that isn’t specific to each location.
Make sure you have other evidence you’re actually working. Make sure people see you at each location so you have witnesses if your boss complains.
