Nice? NICE?!?!?

I'm going through the latest cycle of  being so aggravated with my pointless job that I want to walk out, never look back, sell all my possessions, load up my car with my animals and a few items, drive back East, and live in someone's basement.

The latest, briefly (omitting for time's sake the complete LUNACY of wasted effort that this entire procedure represents): we have sent to Property Managers, among other things, Excel spreadsheets, each containing a list of the properties they oversee. The information on these sheets needs to be updated, then we transfer the updated info. into the original master sheet. There are approximately 20 columns of data for each property. The master of this was created by our sadistic, incompetent broker who decided that oh, by the way, we need to highlight EVERY CELL that people change. We're talking a LOT of properties. I flatly refuse to sit with my coworker manually comparing the original to updated sheets, and instead downloaded some unknown software that will compare sheets and give us 60 free uses. Because I am the only one who knows how to use the Internet for anything other than sending jokes about cats and testicles.

All of this galls me, all of this sucks, but what is really sending me from 0 to 60 is that in addition to people sending these things in past their deadlines despite numerous reminders, when they finally do send them, we have to keep sending them back because people DON'T READ DIRECTIONS.

Today, I was on the phone with SP and I saw one come into my inbox. This had been sent before, and returned to be completed. I opened it and lost it.

"SHIT. Shit shit SHIT!!!!" I hissed into SP's ear. "These stupid F*CKING PEOPLE! HOW DO THESE PEOPLE HAVE JOBS?!? WHAT IS SO HARD ABOUT "ALL CELLS MUST BE FILLED IN -- NONE MAY BE LEFT BLANK!"

"I can tell you're angry because you're whispering," said SP. "It used to scare me, but I'm used to it now."

"OK, I have to go," I said. "I need to get real with this guy." I hung up.

"Now, now, be nice," said my spineless co-worker.

And here, Lades and Gentlemen, is where I lost all interest in worrying about how she will cope when I do finally leave.

"I don't have to be nice. He does, however, need to learn how to do his damn job," I snapped.

 WTF?!?!?  NICE? Really? Is there any lingering mystery as to why this woman gets walked all over? "Oh, I should really take charge of these procedures, but I'll worry about being nice instead when these dickheads ignore my instructions and blow past deadlines EVERY TIME, making life three times as hard for me and my co-worker, who is already seething with visions of homicide."

I sent him a very direct email. Short sentences. Periods.

He replied, "What do I do if I don't have the information?"

Let me interject here that in every column, there is an elaborate header that describes the information they're looking for. Under this explanation is a list of possible numbers, with what each stands for. At the top is 0. "0=Unknown," to be exact.

"As the instructions clearly state," I typed, gritting my teeth,"you put '0' when you don't know. The broker won't accept an empty cell; they need an indication that you have answered every question."

I have had to ask for information to be corrected over and over, simply because people will not read directions. Apparently people no longer respond to anything that is more than 42 characters long on a smartphone text screen.

Spineless Coworker isn't in tomorrow, so I stayed until 6:30 to get things under control before tomorrow. If I'm not in the headlines, I've smuggled rum into the office.