I work for the feds, we seem to attract a good amount of strange people in the office.
Our first person works across the hall. He looks a bit like Alfred Hitchcock, walks very stiff and without moving his arms. I’ve never talked to him, but from what I’ve heard he doesn’t do anything while in training.
Next we have the guy who never makes eye contact. That’s not so strange from what I hear of other offices. This guy though goes out of his way not to make eye contact. He will stop when someone is walking down the hall and face the wall. I’ve heard that if he does make eye contact he will say sorry. He also can’t seem to use the urinal so he pees all over the seat.
The last guy is a real piece of work. We were at one point allowed to wear shorts to work. One day he wears a pair of shorts that would have made Magnum PI cringe, there was nothing left to the imagination. He’s gotten a hair transplant, yet he still wears a cowboy hat all the time. Even that’s not the strangest though, every few days he does what we call ‘The Show’. Right around 3:15 he goes into the bathroom and strips down, all in view of everyone. It’s quite a shock when you’ve forgotten about it. No one can understand why he just doesn’t change in the larger stall, that’s what everyone else will do.
Wow. Your guys put my coworkers to shame. We’re a relatively normal bunch, I guess.
My boss walks around without shoes on, which grosses everyone out. People have taken to mocking him openly about it, but that hasn’t deterred him yet. He will also push his chair in the corner some days, so he can kneel in front of his desk and do his work. I’ve walked by and caught site of this – it looks like he’s preparing to fellate his computer.
You know, I had a boss once who preferred to kneel in front of the computer as opposed to sitting in a chair – of course, he was 6’6", so if he sat in a chair, he was all hunched down. Is your boss really tall?
We don’t have a lot of weirdos here, just ignorant, rude and annoying
At my previous job as a printer tester there were some interesting characters. Here are the ones I remember the most clearly:
[ul]
[li]The guy who had a collection of (I kid you not), over 50 empty Dr Pepper cans in his cubicle. Someone must have told him he had to get rid of them since they were all gone one day. Another guy had a similar collection, but with Mountain Dew cans instead.[/li][li]The stuffed animal collector- Her cubicle resembled the stuffed animal display you’d see at a carnival game.[/li][li]The pen collector- She had over 100 pens in all colors (not sure about the ink, I’m talking about the plastic shell itself). She had them neatly displayed on the wall.[/li][li]The ramen noodles junkie- He kept an entire case of Ramen noodles under his desk and never let a day pass without eating them.[/li][li]The guy who never sat down. He stood at his computer terminal all day and did his work that way.[/li][/ul]
Hm. Well, last summer we had this washed-up guy in his late fifties who got hired to work three shifts a week. He had the worst teeth I’ve ever seen, an odd sideways glance, and a scruffy beard. He talked constantly (but only to the young women) about the fabulous life he’d had, working for enormous financial firms in Japan and Europe.
And then he’d complain about how Welfare was taking away some of his normal cheque, because he’d started working. He’d whine for hours about how unfair it was, and how he shouldn’t have to work for a living, and talk about scams to get the extra money back.
He was up to two hours late every shift, whined about the lights, complained about constant migraines, and couldn’t handle our high-tech software (copyright 1995).
After two months of agony, he quit. He wasn’t fired, because my manager is a non-confontational coward. He quit in a rage, claming that he’d been mistreated, given bad shifts, and no consideration.
Now we’ve only got the Incredibly Paranoid budding Cat Lady with extreme intimacy issues. The one who thinks Cuddle Parties are probably a good idea, because not everyone wants friends, but people need to be hugged. And won’t take up sewing or any crafts because they might produce splinters or dropped pins that might Endanger the Cats.
Did she have anything to do with purchasing? It’s a common ploy when entertaining a potential supplier to pull out the pen of a competitor. You see, they then make sure you have one of their own.
I have only one co-worker who deserves a mention: she feels the need to tell me a new story every day about her wild and exciting nightlife. The dates she goes on with guys 15 years younger than her…how late she stayed up the night before…how she ran into her ex’s new girlfriend and told her off…how much money she spent and how drunk she got…it never ends. The woman is in her late 30’s with 2 children. Her latest ‘date’ was lunch with a guy who had been dating a friend of hers, and who told her if she slept with him, he’d open an account here. Only he wasn’t joking!
When I asked her why on earth was she meeting him for lunch after he said that, her reply was, “because he’s fun and cute…it doesn’t mean anything.”
I do what I can not to listen, but since that’s pretty much all she talks about aside from work stuff, I can’t ignore her.
At my last job, I also had an eye-contact avoider. I made it a game to see if I could get him to acknowledge me in any way when I saw him. In five years of passing him several times a day in the hallway, and even attending a few meetings in common, I got only one instance of eye contact.
At my current job, the only person who strikes me as odd is also the nicest guy imaginable. He works in the mailroom, and his oddity is that he says everything twice. “Hi hi. Yes yes. Good good. OK OK. Bye bye. Thanks. Thanks.”
I was once a paralegal in an extremely large law firm (400+ attorneys, offices all over the globe) and attended a meeting with the managing partner. He took not only his shoes, but his socks, off and picked his toenails. Given that the meeting was also about a case, he was getting paid in excess of $400 per hour to do so. He also had an incredibly foul mouth. He seemed to have a retarded adolescence combined with a mind like a steel trap - he was “scary” smart and completely clueless all at the same time.
Weeeellll…seeing as I’m the oddity of the office somewhat (flaming red haired, hobbit-sized, busty, Valkryie/Barking Mad Horselady with a penchant for sparkly, noisy accessories, weaponry, stuffed toys and Def Leppard) I think I shouldn’t say anything.
Nah!
There is a guy who works in Permitting who is OBSESSED with animal sex. Not with people, each other. When he found out that yes I have been one of the people working with a stallion and mare during live cover breedings, he trapped me in the file room at our old office and grilled me about live cover breeding, artificial insemination (as in “Have you ever…SEEN…it done?”) and other grossness. He also has told me about sitting on his back porch, watching every dog in the neighborhood jump his fence to get at his female dauchshound…and the resulting melee.
He talks like a bad Dylan wannabe and always has this look in his eyes that he’s going to start salivating and acting like Egor. Oh yeah—he doesn’t call his wife or kids by their names. It’s “the woman,” and his kids are “the boy” and “the girl.”
There are a couple of people here who don’t wear shoes all the time, I’m one of them. My feet sweat way too much so when I’m at my desk I usually have my shoes off. I’ll do somethings, like pick up stuff from the printer, but other then that I’ll put my shoes on. I do wear socks though.
We have one…woman…in the office who is just odd. Very nice but odd. She’s probably in her early to mid 40’s. She wears her hair in braided pigtails every. day. Which is not so bad in and of itself, but every day she wears a cutesy little babydoll-type dress. She talks with this teensy-weensy little voice (except one time when a coworker backed into in the parking lot–I swear she BARKED curses at him). I dunno, maybe it’s age compensation? For the most part she’s a great person and really sweet, but it’s a little creepy to see.
Oh, and her daughter helps her do her hair. Her daughter’s about 10 or so, and dresses exactly the same–at least, they’re dressed in matching pink gingham babydoll dresses in the picture on her desk. It’s a little eerie.
I have one coworker that’s like a Borg. Hey, you want a root beer float? They’re making some in the break room!
“No, I do not require liquid sustenance at this time.”
OK not really, but basically. It’s all work all the time. Small talk- forget it. Not interested, and in fact pretty much doesn’t even hear it. Luckily my husband is often the same way, so I have no problem giving people their quiet when that’s what they want, but another coworker seems obsessed with getting him to talk. I’m thinking seriously, don’t even bother. Speak to them when you need to, be polite, but leave it at that. Some people just aren’t about the chatter.
