# Tell Us About Your Odd Co-Workers **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 11, 2011, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340 "2011-08-11T15:10:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![LVBoPeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/858c86/32.png) [@LVBoPeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LVBoPeep)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/21 "2011-08-12T02:22:32Z")
At a veterinary hospital I used to work with, there was a lady in her mid-fifties with an English-y accent. I think she was from New Zealand but she was real vague about where she was from. Sometimes she’d just nod if you asked her if she was from England, New Zealand, Australia, etc. but never give you a truly straight answer. That was just a mild tic compared to the rest of it… If one of our patients had an poop accident, she’d pick it up with her bare hands. I am no baby about cleaning up stuff but I’ll use a plastic bag at least. She’d also keep dog kibble in her pocket and snack on it during the day. She’d get the most horrendous dog food breath too. I’d offer to buy her a candy bar from the snack machine but she’d refuse. All of this with her chirpy, wherever it was from, accent just still gives me the shivers ten years later. She’d also refuse to tell the doctor that she was overwhelmed on the days she worked alone, even though clients would ask me what was wrong with her because she’d spend those days in tears. My coworkers now are pretty normal - but she may have set the bar too high in that regard. ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/22 "2011-08-12T02:55:27Z")
I work with a couple of people that I wish to gods were plants. I mean, there is just no way they could be this…stereotypically ditzy/predictable/whatever. One lady has incredible stories of her younger years, when she was a criminal kingpin’s wife \ and is apparantly dealing with a bit of early-onset Alzheimer’s or something, as she’s so…I don’t know, annoying sometimes, but seems to have NO clue. I am getting GREAT hints as how to act like a ditzy old broad from her, should the time come I just want people to shake their heads and dismiss me without a third thought. And one guy…holy crap, cannot believe he’s not barely 14. That’s how he acts, in just about every way. And he’s SERIOUS about it. Yet he’s twice that age; it’s kind of literally just jaw-dropping. Unfortunately this is a very small area, everyone knows everyone else, and unless the entire 200 square miles around me is some kind of camp set up just to trip my mind out, these folk are verifiably just…wow. I need to write stories down that people tell me 'cause some of it is just incredibly out there yet unfortunately quite believable. ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/23 "2011-08-12T03:01:26Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > 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… Great, now I’m hearing that in JD’s voice from Scrubs. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/24 "2011-08-12T03:03:25Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Her name? Modesty. It’s probably just as well that her parents didn’t name her Chastity. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![GameHat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ed655f/32.png) [@GameHat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GameHat)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/25 "2011-08-12T04:03:02Z")
Oh, dopers. Dopers, dopers, dopers. It’s cute, you know? Throwing your “weird” co-worker stories onto the boards? It’s cute. All the stories so far seem “quirky”, not genuinely weird or odd. But I’ve not seen any genuinely disturbing persons described so far. Let me add two. Beforehand, you should know - I work with chemists. I’m an engineer. These are both first-hand stories. Chemist “Chad”: Chad: “That waitress was pretty.” GameHat: “Yep, she is definitely an attractive older woman.” Chad: “She has small hands.” GameHat: :eek: Chad: “It gives me _ideas_.” … Chad, again. Chad has come into work early and showered in the employee men’s room. GameHat: “sup, Chad” Female receptionist: “Hi, Chad!” Chad: “It feels good.” Female receptionist: “Uh, what now? What feels good?” Chad: _grins_ Female receptionist: :eek: Chad: “It just feels good to be _clean_” Female receptionist: _pales, quickly exits the room_ …and Chad is married and isn’t a bad guy. Very, very smart (in narrow areas.) It’s just that his social skills fall somewhere between Sling Blade and Rainman. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/26 "2011-08-12T08:18:04Z")
> [@GameHat](#): > > Chad: “That waitress was pretty.” > GameHat: “Yep, she is definitely an attractive older woman.” > Chad: “She has small hands.” > GameHat: :eek: > Chad: “It gives me _ideas_.” > > … > > Chad, again. Chad has come into work early and showered in the employee men’s room. > > GameHat: “sup, Chad” > Female receptionist: “Hi, Chad!” > Chad: “It feels good.” > Female receptionist: “Uh, what now? What feels good?” > Chad: _grins_ > Female receptionist: :eek: > Chad: “It just feels good to be _clean_” > Female receptionist: _pales, quickly exits the room_ These sound like things I might do, but I would do them _ironically_ weird. Now I just wonder if people think I’m weird. :smack: And yes, I’m an engineer. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/27 "2011-08-12T09:35:49Z")
A supervisor I had at a previous job was _different_, he had been [or claimed he was] an elephant wrangler for a big national circus, had been the rare hells angels biker that never did drugs or anything illegal, and physically had a dotted line tattooed on his neck with the words cut here under it. He believed that to navigate through the Bering Strait to the North Pole you needed to keep the constellation The Southern Cross over your left shoulder, that it was called ‘down south’ because sea level was lower at the poles, and that unless it was turned off at the breaker box or something was plugged in, electricity leaked out of the wall sockets/power points. Granted at the quantum level the last is true … ---
**Author:** ![diggerwam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/919ad9/32.png) [@diggerwam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggerwam)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/28 "2011-08-12T11:33:56Z")
What I don’t understand, and maybe it’s my lack of social skills talking, these annoying co-workers, couldn’t you just talk to them and tell them to stop? Best result is that they stop, worst result is that they are sooo oblivious that they keep going. Unless this is a direct wo-worker, somebody who you depend on in order to do your work, what is the harm in speaking up for yourself? I had to do that at a former employer, she was quite cold with me after, but she never harassed me like she did the other employees. She was inappropriate with everybody else, with me she was coldly professional. Mission accomplished. It may be mean, but you deserve to work in a comfortable environment. If HR can’t help, then do it yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Uber\_the\_Goober](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/58956e/32.png) [@Uber\_the\_Goober](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uber_the_Goober)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/29 "2011-08-12T12:40:15Z")
> [@echo6160](#): > > 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! Oh I forgot to add - this guy, when talking to his family on the phone (wife, kids, anyone), will put on a “talking to a cute puppydog or baby voice”. No shit, he really does this. The whole time he’s talking to them. No matter the subject, no matter the time of day. Same voice to the wife as to either kid. And it’s not a joke voice either. He’s sincere. So try to put that into your head…Butthead talking to a cute puppydog. I think he’s probably the most socially maladjusted individual I’ve ever met. How on Earth he got married I will never understand. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/30 "2011-08-12T12:42:38Z")
I have a coworker whose life is so unspeakably tragic that I’ve actually stopped believing it. It’s like once every three months or so she has what I think of as a major life tragedy: immediate family member diagnosed with a terrible disease (strange kidney disease, heart tumor, diabetes, stroke, MS . . those are just the ones I remember), a couple deaths, or a lost job, or endless problems with her special-needs son. Her own medical issues have been epic: weekly migraines and anxiety attacks, two sexual assaults, more weeks out with the flu or strep than I can count (a couple a year, on average), a still birth, fertility treatments, and there’s been a painful marriage collapsing for years and years. This is just the stuff I can remember off the top of my head. This is over a decade, of course, but even over that time span it has come fast and furious. Some of it I know happened because there has been outside evidence, but I can’t bring myself to believe all of it. It’s just too much, and it’s steadily escalated, as if she has to raise the stakes. But then I feel like I am a total bitch because here is possibly this woman whose had more tragedy than any ten people should have to face, and I am dismissing her pain. I dunno. ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/31 "2011-08-12T12:46:17Z")
I work with a woman who goes to the parking lot at lunch time and exercises with a hula hoop. She turns on music in her car and stands next to it and starts hula hooping like nobody’s watching. But people are watching. When I see small groups of people at the windows that face the parking lot, it’s a safe bet that hula hoop girl is at it again. ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/32 "2011-08-12T13:00:41Z")
> [@Lukeinva](#): > > My colleague Steve [last name deleted by moderator] (he’s Chinese) eats _eight_ oranges a day. Eight, as in 2x4. I’m not actually seeing anything overly strange about that. It seems to be a reasonable snack and better than a lot of the crap people usually eat at their desks. The only odd part is the amount of space it would take up. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/33 "2011-08-12T14:09:37Z")
> [@moejoe](#): > > 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. This is something that particularly irritates me. I am reminded of a scene in _The Office_ where Michael is calling a client and looks in his Rolodex and sees that the client’s daughter is interested in horses, or some such, and so he asks the client about it, and the client is flattered that Michael remembers, and this is supposed to demonstrate why Michael is such a good salesman. I call bullshit. This is such obvious pandering. And it’s annoying, and yet people fall for it. One day one of my co-workers was eating lunch at his desk doing some paperwork. A woman came in from another department – I think she was picking up some mail – and saw that he had gotten a little bag of Doritos from the vending machine. She said, “Oh, I’ll bet you like those Doritos!” He just nodded, and she continued, “MMM! Yes, Brian sure likes Doritos!” And this seemed to flip some kind of switch, because from then on, she could not come into our office without the Doritos harangue. “Where are your Do_ri_tos? Did you eat them already? Are you buying them by the case now? Did you leave any for the rest of us?” I don’t think I ever saw him eating them again, and he probably never did lest she catch him in the act. :rolleyes: **moejoe** , I know what you’re talking about, because I wear purple a lot. It flatters my complexion, but I’m not a freak or anything. If I see a shirt I like and it comes in five colors, I’ll probably buy either the pink or purple, because those are the colors I look good in. But I buy blue and black and brown, too. If I wear purple, I get “Oh, there’s Sigmagirl, in her purrrrple.” If I don’t, it’s “Oh, Sigmagirl, why aren’t you wearing your purrrrple today.” ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Girlfriend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.girlfriend/32/193_2.png) [@Dr.Girlfriend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Girlfriend)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/34 "2011-08-12T14:54:23Z")
I hesitate to post this, because it’s pretty nasty. You’ve been warned… This one’s for the ladies. How many of the ladies here have heard of the old wives’ tale where you shouldn’t bathe while you’re on your period or you’ll get sick or something? I had a co-worker who apparently still believed this. (Emphasis on had, thank God) You could always tell when it was her time, and she would get progressively nastier looking and smelling as the days went on. She wasn’t the freshest smelling person to begin with, and by day 4 you couldn’t hardly be in the same room with her. I could tell a story about how she managed to make the whole office sick one time, but I’m at work… and I don’t know if y’all really want to read that… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tamarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@Tamarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamarin)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/35 "2011-08-12T15:55:10Z")
When I was in the Navy, we had a fundraiser where you could purchase a “civilian clothes voucher” for like 3 bucks and wear regular clothes instead of your uniform on Fridays. We had one guy in our dept. that would wear a straight jacket for his civvies. That went on for about a month, before the powers that be told him he couldn’t do that anymore…so he started wearing a full body leotard, a tuxedo jacket with tails, and ninja boots [(like these)](http://www.amazon.com/Ninja-Short-Tabi-Boots-Authentic/dp/B001OJDKI0) every Friday. Maybe he was trying to do the Klinger from M.A.S.H. thing and get kicked out or something, but he was truly an odd duck. He wore the straight jacket on his off time too, and once followed one of the girls on base back to her barracks room to ask her if she would please buckle it up in the back for him. ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/36 "2011-08-12T16:02:50Z")
> [@Lukeinva](#): > > My colleague Steve [last name deleted by moderator] (he’s Chinese) eats _eight_ oranges a day. Eight, as in 2x4. > > He goes to the grocery store and comes back with two bags stuffed full of oranges, and then dumps them his big file drawer. One weeks supply. Okay, the giant stockpile is a little weird, but I probably consume that much fruit in a day. Not all the _same_ fruit, I like diversity, but it probably works out to about the equivalent of 6 oranges or so. I don’t think one orange an hour is any weirder than my former officemate who went to the coffee station 6-8 times a day. And in my office place, we have [Stompy](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=592787), the guy who can’t do anything, no matter how mundane, gently. If he was a card dealer it would sound like he was playing patty-cake because he’d slap each card hard onto the table. ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/37 "2011-08-12T16:09:48Z")
> [@Crotalus](#): > > I work with a woman who goes to the parking lot at lunch time and exercises with a hula hoop. She turns on music in her car and stands next to it and starts hula hooping like nobody’s watching. Sounds fun! Wish I could be so free-spirited. Instead, I’m too embarrassed to air-guitar in my own kitchen if the windows are open. ---
**Author:** ![SmellMyWort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SmellMyWort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmellMyWort)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/38 "2011-08-12T16:14:59Z")
> [@GameHat](#): > > Oh, dopers. Dopers, dopers, dopers. It’s cute, you know? Throwing your “weird” co-worker stories onto the boards? It’s cute. All the stories so far seem “quirky”, not genuinely weird or odd. But I’ve not seen any genuinely disturbing persons described so far. Let me add two. > > Beforehand, you should know - I work with chemists. I’m an engineer. These are both first-hand stories. > > Chemist “Chad”: > > Chad: “That waitress was pretty.” > GameHat: “Yep, she is definitely an attractive older woman.” > Chad: “She has small hands.” > GameHat: :eek: > Chad: “It gives me _ideas_.” > > … > > Chad, again. Chad has come into work early and showered in the employee men’s room. > > GameHat: “sup, Chad” > Female receptionist: “Hi, Chad!” > Chad: “It feels good.” > Female receptionist: “Uh, what now? What feels good?” > Chad: _grins_ > Female receptionist: :eek: > Chad: “It just feels good to be _clean_” > Female receptionist: _pales, quickly exits the room_ > > …and Chad is married and isn’t a bad guy. Very, very smart (in narrow areas.) It’s just that his social skills fall somewhere between Sling Blade and Rainman. Am I missing something here? How is this guy’s behavior disturbing? It sounds like of weird, but I know a lot of people who say off the wall stuff just to get a reaction. So he likes small hands; maybe he has a small dick. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/39 "2011-08-12T16:18:48Z")
> [@Apollyon](#): > > It’s probably just as well that her parents didn’t name her Chastity. 🙂 I think that might be her middle name. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2011, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340/40 "2011-08-12T16:21:06Z")
> [@Dr.Girlfriend](#): > > I could tell a story about how she managed to make the whole office sick one time, but I’m at work… and I don’t know if y’all really want to read that… 😃 Are you nuts?!?! This is the SDMB - of COURSE we want to read it! 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-your-odd-co-workers/592340.md?page=3)