There is a guy here who works in the production room, making copies, binding reports, etc. My first week on the job, a colleague introduced me to him, I said hello and then we walked off, talking about something else.
To this day, this guy is convinced that I said “what an asshole,” after being introduced to him and reported me to HR. So my first week of work, I had to meet with the VP of HR and explain that I don’t make it a habit of calling people assholes loudly in the hallway when I first meet a person. The VP did indicate that the person filing the complaint is a bit ‘odd.’
Years ago, I worked with an electrical engineer who was truly odd. Near as I can figure, he must have thought we were all privy to the voices in his head, because he’d sometimes come up to a group of us while we were talking and say something you’d expect from someone in the middle of a conversation. For example, we might be deciding where to go for lunch, and he’d walk up and say “But the circuit won’t work if they insist on using fuses instead of a circuit breaker.” Then he’d stand there expecting us to continue the conversation that he’d been having with himself.
He was a nice guy and not a bad engineer, but socially, he was one for the books…
Until recently (this morning) I worked with a guy who I could have sworn was the inspiration for Butthead - from Beavis and Butthead. He had the same damn tone to his voice and everything!
I work with a woman who obviously puts a lot of thought into how she looks. I think she had electrolosis done one her eyebrows, and then had them tattooed back on. Her makeup often contains glitter. She’s had her hair straightened. She often wears low-cut blouses, and has a giant tattoo on her chest. She definitely dresses to draw attention. And she wears a big gold ring with her name on it.
I worked with a guy years ago who had been sleepwalking down to a hardwood floor and crapping on it. He went to a counselor who put him under hypnosis, and somehow figured out that it was an act of aggression against wood, because he had been assigned to build a birdhouse in wood shop class as a kid and had failed to complete the project. The counselor advised him to build a birdhouse in order to neutralize his anger towards wood, which he did, and the sleepcrapping stopped. As God is my witness this is exactly how it was related to me. I guess he could have been making it up, but why?
In my previous office a couple of years ago, we had an older lady who carried around a huge backpack, literally stuffed with “things”. She took it everywhere with her, to the bathroom, to the breakroom. The backpack was filthy, and from what I heard from co-workers, she had been carrying around the same backpack since the early 80’s. No one every knew what she was carrying around. She was a bit odd in other ways too.
in a nutshell, i have a coworker that will not shut the fuck up.
i’m a distant relative of the duggar family, you know, the ones with the show 19 kids and counting on tlc? my coworker rhonda figured this out by my last name (which is not duggar) and asked me on my first day on the job if i was a relative. ever since, she gives me a summary every time a new show airs and updates me on what the family is up to and how the mom might be pregnant again and blah. did i mention i despise cutesy family shows like 19 kids and kate plus 8 and could really care less (i wish them no specific harm, but it’s a very distant relation. like cousins thrice removed or something.)
when rhonda comes in for the day, she makes a beeline for whoever has come in before her and immediately starts gabbing about the most inane thing that happened to her, like how she almost got a parking ticket or something went on sale at the grocery or whatever. she will then repeat the same story everytime someone else comes in for the day, so you’ll hear it like 5 times.
if you get off the same time as rhonda, you have to run to leave before her because she will leave with you and trap you in the parking lot talking. if you hang back to chat with a manager or something, she will wait for you. if you are sitting in your car on your cell phone, she will come to your window and start chatting.
we have a break computer. if she is on break the same time as you, she will come to the computer and stand and chat with you while you are using it, or simply stand behind you while you use it, presumably waiting to use it herself. and lord help you if you’re in the breakroom at the same time.
she seems intelligent enough but just has zero social skills and sense of boundaries. she drives everyone here crazy.
About 20 years ago I used to volunteer at an old, historic theatre here in town. We showed second-run movies and hosted the local orchestra and dance recitals and touring companies, that kind of thing.
This woman who works in my department (though not in my office, thank God) would bring this up to me every time she laid eyes on me, even years after I had stopped volunteering there. She’d ask me what movies were going to be shown. I had told her many times I wasn’t working there any more and had no idea what movies or events were going on there. It was the one and only thing she knew about me. I know she did this with other people, too.
I have a coworker who insists on defining people in really basic terms, and once she decides something about you she never lets it go.
For example I wear navy as a neutral, because it looks better on me than black. But whenever I wear anything other than navy she’s all up in arms-what are you wearing? You ONLY wear blue! What’s the occasion? Every single time.
Or someone mentioned that they didn’t really like a particular artist because the work was kind of mainstream, and she announced to the whole room - yeah, he only likes really ugly art. Even though he’d never discussed his taste in art with her before.
Today we were chatting about how it’s probably best to stay away from Target since it’s so close to payday that we’re all broke, and she shook her finger at one coworker and said -we’re going to have to ground you from Target for sure, you just can’t help yourself!
I could go on and on and on.
And no matter what else happens for the rest of eternity I will always wear blue and he will always only like ugly art and she will always be a shopaholic.
