Ted E. has been in a bad mood all morning, trying to pass work and phone calls off on to everyone else and getting rebuffed pretty much every time (generally in the form of "Fine, if you claim you don't know anything about it, this is how you do it - go through it with the client and remember it for next time").
Then he decided to pick through what he decided must have been an error by a departed team-member, only to be told by me it was a typo and had been corrected. Then he decides that the answer is still wrong, ignores the subsequent explanation as to why the answer is still right but the issue will be obsolete in two weeks anyway and there's no need to waste more of his time (or my life) trying to score points.
"I explained all this when I replied to your email," I tell him after he comes over to my desk to harangue me about it.
"I haven't read it yet. But I think I'm right" he claims, and rushes back to his desk to begin burrowing into the database he can't use to look up information he doesn't understand in order to argue against someone else's decision that he won't accept.
I tell him again (across the room this time) that he's wasting time on something that isn't an issue now and won't even exist in a fortnight. Thankfully, the Stress Fiend and The Invertebrate actually chime in to support that.
Ted E. sulks. Very conspicuously.
So The Invertebrate then has to begin the slow and painful task of smoothing Ted E.'s ruffled, mangy, lice-riddled feathers. I can't decide whether that makes him a better team leader than I would have been, or if he just hasn't had enough Ted E. exposure to have lost all patience with the wretch.
(Hah! Now he's complaining about not feeling well - he already leaves early on Fridays, so maybe this means he's planning on having Monday off. Again. I can only hope).
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