Oooh, coworker stories.
I was working in a cube once. The woman behind me would regularly discuss the shape, color, texture, and size of various moles on her body with someone, I assume a dermatologist, in this LOUD VOICE over the phone.
I worked in a computer lab with a guy who stunk. Like, you could smell him coming from down the hall. Christ, did that guy smell bad.
Metro bikes. Oh yeah, I was in a world of pain the next week, but I could have had 2 broken legs and I would have won, because I vowed to commit suicide if I had lost to him.
I work in a couple of different places, having part-time jobs throughout the week. In one office at, I work with a variety of disgusting/offensive people, about 15 of them, and they all assault my senses in some manner and to some degree on a daily basis. I have to put up with a myriad of quirky habits, assorted bodily smells (farting contests in the back office), overloads of perfume/cologne, obnoxious foods being prepped in the kitchen and permeating the entire building, and just general bad hygiene (how can someone smell like a big pile of dirty underwear, day in and day out??? I want to tell her to please cross her legs and scoot under her desk more.). And they have this propensity to greet/depart the entire staff with hugs on a daily basis. (It promotes a family/love/peace atmosphere.)
I can relate to the OP, I have to share a small space with transient workers who come and go, and I once had to share it with a manic/depressive, and that was a experience in weirdness. I have gotten used to the fact that the more people you work with, the greater the likelihood of human nauseation. I can understand and try to deal with the personality quirks, I know I have a few myself, but it’s the poor hygiene I can’t take! I just want to shout GODDAMN IT, YOU STINK, GET AWAY FROM ME!! and forget about being polite. But that would probably put a dent in the family/love/peace atmosphere of the place. So I refrain.
I think I know the guy in the OP. His name is Steve, right? No?
Well, at one job I had the rather strange person on the other side of the cube wall used to talk to himself, exclaim utterances of victory when something he was coding went well, and just to pass the time, “sang” bits & pieces of various ditties. Off key. Or no key, just kind of monotone. The day he started up with the Rice-A-Roni song, I almost lost it. Sometimes he made mooing sounds. Funny thing was, he didn’t even know he was doing it. One day a guy in a nearby cube shouted over the top, “Steve, if you don’t stop mooing I’m gonna come over there and milk you!”
He also used to do the “elevator eyes” thing – when standing talking to someone he would look them up and down, up and down, head to toes and back again. I finally told him that I just knew he wasn’t doing it to be lascivious or anything, but that if he did that with the wrong person he could get in trouble for sexual harassment. Again, he had no idea he was doing it.
Same office, different person. He didn’t deserve it by rank or accomplishment, but he got a solo office because nobody would tolerate an adjacent cubicle. Talk about rank sweat stink! And not the “clean” kind of sweat when somebody’s been working outdoors for a while. The stink of somebody who hasn’t bathed in forever and ever. Why nobody in management ever spoke to him I have no idea.
About 4 years ago our company was extremely busy and I was having a really hard time keeping up with my work, so they hired an assistant. He understood the job but was a little slow. He had previously worked for the Chicago Police Department and was retired so this was basically a part time job for some extra cash.
Unfortunately he had picked up some bad habits, whether at his previous job, or just in his life I don’t know, but he was slow.
Briefly: he was duplicating film for chemical etching of metal. We’d get film or prints from our customers and either shoot the art or dup the film so we’d have a working film. Now, I’ve been doing this for 15 years at this company and 6 months before that at a newspaper, so I’ve got a system worked out and am pretty quick. I understand that somebody new to the system would take some time to get used to it.
The problem is, no matter what I, or the boss said to him, he was never wrong and he just wouldn’t pick up the pace. Often it’s possible to dup several pieces of film at once, or shoot several prints in one go, but he would insist on doing everything one…piece…at…a…time. I don’t know if he was in the “pad the clock” frame of mind or just the “methodical, exacting, infuriating” frame of mind, but we finally had to let him go. I was doing most of the work anyway, or re-doing things he’d done wrong for the fifth time, and we weren’t as busy so it made sense.
Cut to a couple of years later. I was working in the darkroom after hours, toning some prints. The fumes were getting pretty noxious so I grabbed a mask, which he had worn occasionally. I figured it would be good enough.
I put it on, took one breath and nearly gagged. It stank of cigars and cheap liquor. I knew he smoked although we were clear that he wasn’t to smoke in the darkroom, and I assume the stench was just on his breath from the drive in, or breaks outside, but the liquor? Plus, it had been at least two years. I can only imagine how it would have smelled if I’d used it right after he left.
I have two major problems in dealing with people like the examples above;
1> I have an extremely sensitive nose. I’m often accused of making it up until I can pinpoint the source of the smell and what it is. “Ah, it’s you Abbas, you’re wearing Old Spice”. “How did you know?” “We can’t smell it!”
2> I’m allergic to perfumes and colognes. Even scented detergent and deodorant.
So there’s no chance that I can even be around people who bathe in perfume. It makes me seriously ill.
The one thing they all say that downright pisses me off is;
But I’m not wearing that muuuuuch!"
To which I answer; “You are aware that one bottle contains more than one application, aren’t you?”
BO? Another story. I once told a co-worker to go home, shower and launder his clothes. And I wasn’t his boss. Of course, I did so quietly and calmly, to his face where no one would overhear. After long attempts to clue him in otherwise.
Ah, and another one. I had a coworker–an old man who smoked like a chimmney–and if you made the mistake of picking up the phone after he’d used it, this…wave of stench had infested the mouthpiece. You know how hard it is to sound happy and cheerful to a customer on the phone when you’re inhaling the stench of Warmed Over Ass? Pretty damn hard.
I’ve been pretty lucky in the co-worker lottery–some weird habits, but only one singer, and I didn’t have to work with her for very long. I don’t know what’s wrong with those people–why do they think everyone else wants to listen to their off-key singing and tuneless humming?
My one stand-out weird co-worker was at my first summer job, fresh out of high school, new to the working world. My desk was across from a woman who would jam her finger in her ear and furiously wiggle it back and forth while she made this weird clucking noise. I can’t describe it very well, but I have learned to do it myself, so if I ever meet you, I’ll do my best imitation of “Chicken Woman.”
ME
My coworker, while clean and non-stinky, has some annoying habits I’d love to share.
There are only two of us that work at this store.
She talks on the phone, in French, for hours at a time. This is the business phone. We only have one line. When she’s done, I get to check the messages and get back to all the customers who have called with questions. Rude, and unfair to me and our customers. She doesn’t have a home phone because it costs too much. She claims the phone company charges her $50 for basic residential service. Funny, they only charge me $26.
She hates her husband and tells me about it all the time. She’s cheating on him and she leaves work sometimes to meet her boyfriend.
We get 1/2 hour lunches. She takes an hour and a half. I get a half hour.
She’s got a few days off over the next two weeks. Last time she took off she failed to tell our boss (we’re a satellite store) and I had to tell him that she wasn’t in.
I know most of this is petty, but I feel better having said it.
Here, here!
I’ve never understood the amount some people put on. You don’t even have to be near them to smell them. More of a pleasant smell is NOT a good thing.
Sigh…
I’m afraid I AM the smelly, wierd guy in the office…when I was employed anyway.
Oh…glad to see I’m not the only one out there.
Well then clean up your act bdgr. If not for your own benefit, but for everyone else around you.
Cant help myself really.
lol, besides the bad hygiene i’m sure you have other positive qualities. 
I’m sure people will respect an effort, any effort.
I don’t know how to solve the stinky problems, but regrding the irritating officemates, if you can’t lick em join em is my motto. If they are singing a song, you need to sing an irritating song. Make it into a game–if you hear them singing the same song within a day, you win and can laugh at them.
Also you need to have clear cut rules. No farting or sneezing in the office is allowed–since both of them are smelly, but burping is allowed. But then again my office mate and I are both considered a little weird, but we live in harmony.
Nope…Not a one.
If he pulls a knife, you pull a gun. If he sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue!
[sub]I’ll stop now[/sub]
I could write a book about weird office-mates I have had. Actually I am thinking about writing a book about my work experiences, but we’ll save that conversation for the appropriate thread.
Hmm … let me think of a couple doozies …
The first guy that comes to mind is the guy that used to sleep nearly all day, he was very clever about it though. He would have his back towards the cubicle door and have a manual open in front of him like he was reading. He was a true master of sleeping like a sitting statue, not a sound, not a twitch.
Then there was the “cover-for-me” guy. He would frequently take off during the day, and leave me to “cover” for him. I was supposed to lie to the boss about his whereabouts if the boss should ask.
How about the “phone” guy? He would be on the phone most of the day, and mostly with personal calls. When he took a break from the phone to do his other duties (like go around bothering everyone else at work with his stories / gossip), I was left to answer his phone. I got tired of being his personal secretary, so I would just turn the ringer down on his phone when he wasn’t there. He got very angry with me for doing that, he threatened to turn me into the boss for not “doing my job”. I told him relaying personal messages from every Tom, Dick and Harry that called him was NOT my job.
OK, that’s enough for now …