Workplace Griping Spinoff - Shredder Guy and other tales

The BBQ Pit
21

I am in awe. I hope one day I, too, have an opportunity to survive working with someone as over-the-top aggravating as Shredder Guy.*

Well, at least I can provide the theme song for the thread.

*It seems today
Wherever you work
There’s someone who steals lunches
And acts like a jerk

Like lyin’ to bosses
and slurpin’ up coffee
And makin’ his work space a sty

Share your tales of Shredder Guy!
Tell us 'bout the man who**
does everything he can to
make you want to stab him
In the eye

Here’s

The

Shred-

Der

Guy!*

*Unless [horrible thought] what if it’s like in that movie Rounders: If you can’t spot the Shredder Guy in the workplace, you’re probably the Shredder Guy.[/horrible thought]

**Or woman; it could be a woman

22

Wait, I missed something.

SG is MARRIED?

I don’t know if I feel sorry for the woman; puzzled that she hasn’t left him, kicked him out, or killed him; or annoyed that she hasn’t whacked him upside the head with a clue by four. Or eight. Or 64, since he obviously didn’t get the first message.

So, did boss lady fall for any of the scrounging hints, such as her having to contribute spare change or pay for coffee and snacks? And, flatlined, I love your telling him to either bring in his wife to do the washing up or not being able to clock in until he does the washing up.

23

It’s a right-to-marry state. She’s covering her ass for when she has to document this for MR.

24

Thanks, K’sDad. That was great!

OK, I’ve told you before about one co-worker who developed a bad habit of putting a can of Dr. Pepper into the breakroom freezer to get it extra-cold and then forget, leaving it to explode sticky frozen goop everywhere.

Here’s her exploit from yesterday:

She comes into our shared office, yak-yak-yakking about what she wants for lunch. (A few of the others had decided to go out together, so they were on the “where should we go?” portion of the procedure.) As it had been vaguely agreed upon to get sandwiches, she latched onto the idea of having avocado/guac on her sandwish. Much very noisy yak-yak-yak conversation ensues about which places do and don’t offer avocados, which ones used to but don’t anymore, etc. etc. Mind you, this is all right in my ear as I’m trying to, y’know, work.

On top of it all, she was bouncing idly against the desks, making my monitor jiggle.

I would have said something (about her bouncing butt … ummm, there’s probably a better way to phrase that!) but I knew if I so much as opened my mouth I would snap at her all out of proportion, and I do still have to work with these people every damn day!

Yak, yak, yak. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Yak, yak, yakkity-yak.

They finally settle on a sandwich place … that involved going to the nearby shopping mall. “Um, no thank you,” says I. They head out. Drive around the lot for a while because they have to deal with summertime mall parking. (Hello, bored teenagers!) Schlep through the entire mall because they parked on the side opposite Ye Olde Sandwich Place With Avocado. Took so long their 1-hour lunch stretched *past *the 1.5-hour mark.

I found out that after all that, she

got an egg-salad sandwich.

Good thing I hadn’t gone with them. Not only did it mean I “got” to take a 1/2-hour lunch break (we’re all putting in extra hours and this meant I wouldn’t have to stay as late) but if I’d been there, I might have seriously slapped her when she placed her order.

SLAP

25

Until we were reassigned and split up recently, I worked with a deaf and mute Hindu; I’ve long suspected that he’s been using his faith and disability to get away with crap that would get the rest of us in hot water with HR. He disappears at various hours during the day, ostensibly to pray, and leaves early–via the stairwell as opposed to the elevator. I’ve since heard from others that he does not pray but rather walks, often in areas where he isn’t supposed to be. Word is that he was also conning the nearby McDonald’s out of free lunches by claiming hardship, much like SG’s “po” schtick, until a co-worker took the manager aside.

26

How do you know that she isn’t worse?

Maybe she’s the one hounding him to bring home food from work, or she’s 600 pounds and eats every scrap of food brought into the house and spends every dime she gets her hands on for drugs. Maybe they have 107 cats and 2 feet of garbage and cat shit over every foot of their house.

27

From flatlined’s stories it’s clear he eats on site, so no food is going home. Plus, they live in a travel trailer.

Still, it’s possible she’s a perfect match for him. Maybe he could bring her in on a “Bring Your Spouse to Work” day, and then **flatlined **and boss lady could shove them both in the shredder, one feet first and one head first, and see what happens.

28

Anyone who boobytraps food is a callous asshole of the first order. Either talk to him, hide the food, talk to management or get another job, but booby trapping food is just plain wrong, and sets you up as a lower form of life that even “shredderguy”.

And, OP- if flatlined wanted a series of his quotes, why not let him do it himself? This was just plain a waste of hampster power.

29

Dolores Reborn thank you so much for doing this! While I hate to let SG have such fame, he does deserve a thread with all the other dysfunctional coworkers.

K’sDad BAD, BAD, BAD!!! Mind worm has happened and I’ll never be able to look at SG without hearing that. Of course, I’m cracking up so badly that I can’t type now :slight_smile:

I have never seen the wife. I’ve never heard about things happening with the wife (i.e. wife and I went out to dinner, wife and I went to see the grandkids, I need to take my wife to the doctor because there is only one vehicle, etc). I have never taken a call from the wife. I do know that there was a wife at one time because I hear about the grandkids at times. Mostly at Christmas, when SG is moaning about the lack of money to buy them presents. I think that the wife is a lie.

The cat question reminds me of another typical SG thing. I do animal rescue. My boss supports it and allows me to put carriers of cats in the far end of the warehouse while I’m transporting them from vet to foster homes. SG was outraged that I had cats in the warehouse and complained bitterly to me about what might happen if they got out of their carriers. This was after I stopped buying him coffee and food.

The complaining stopped after he realized that the facilities/fleet people loved stopping at the warehouse just to see the cute kittens. Suddenly, SG was part of the rescue effort, he’d take them to see the cute kittens and explain that they were in the far end of the warehouse so the noise wouldn’t bother them.

Idiot SG not only opened the carriers to let people cuddle the kittens, he was so proud of them that he forgot to close the doors while basking in the praise. I know have locks for the carriers.

30

I did talk to him. I complained to my boss. Why should I get a different job because someone steals my food? And why do you think that booby trapping food is wrong. If nobody steals it, nobody will get hurt…or are you one of those people who thinks its OK to take food without permission just because you are po and hungry :dubious: If so, ask first. Its not fun to go to the fridge and find out that you will have to spend a whole working day without lunch.

This isn’t all about SG, its opened in the hopes that other people will share their stories of their dysfunctional coworkers. You don’t have to read or post. Maybe it would be better for you to find a different thread.

PS, I’m female. And if you think I’m such a bitch that I won’t allow SG to eat my food everyday, maybe you could give him your lunches. Better yet, give your food to a homeless guy on your way to work. Then come back after a week of not eating anything for over 8 hours a day and tell me how it worked for you.

31

Lunch thieves can burn in hell. I’ve had my lunch stolen on days where I did not have time to go get another, and IF you HAVE skipped breakfast, you are really hungry when you got home after work. It’s a pain in the ass.

What’s sad is that is that it was a frozen potpie that cost 79 cents. I might have given it to someone had i been asked.

32

Hey, if you have money to give to kitties, SURELY you can buy him coffee and food. Because requiring him to forgo his nightly casino trips would be too much to ask.

33

That trick with the boiled eggs is funny. You run the risk of dealing with someone who either likes the taste of it that way or who just plain can’t taste anything. One might think that an indoor dumpster diver (<–my own term for office lunch thieves) would develop a high tolerance for, shall we say, odd flavors.

The one thing that worked for me was to put kimchi in with my lunch. I like the stuff, but it doesn’t appear that the office dumpster diver did. Stopped him cold.

There’s also the mooch crew. That’s when one of the employees invites their whole horde to any and every office event if there’s a non-zero chance (no matter how slight) that there will be food at the event. The horde will descend on the victuals during the ceremony/birthday singing/whatever office ritual is involved and thus leave not even a crumb for the people the comestibles were actually meant for.

34

I must admit, the slew of posts quoting someone else - approvingly - isn’t something that I’ve seen here before. Why does it need its own thread?

Sure, he sounds really annoying, but grouping all of of Flatliner’s posts about Shredder Guy together makes her seem obsessive rather than her just posting the occasional very understandable annoyance.

Putting salt into boiled eggs seems to me a harmless thing to do, though. He’d spit them out before he got Sudden!Salt!Overload!

35

I think the collection is great, it really highlights Teh Krazee, much more than a random quote or two or a thread link. And it’s a perfect jumping off point for other lunatic coworkers tales.

Wish I had some, but I only work for/with my husband :cool:

36

I think these stories are great. I have a couple from many moons ago.

We had a food stealer at my previous employer. We all knew it was him. He even copped to it most of the time. His excuse was that he had come from a very large and poor family where he used to have to almost fight for his daily meals.

He went too far with me one day though. I had to work through lunch and was eating a burrito in between posting. I had the burrito behind me so that nothing would get on the keyboard and had taken only a couple of bites. When I turned around to take my next bite, my burrito was gone. I looked up in confusion and saw this guy walking down the stairs eating my partially eaten food. I called out to him a couple of times to get his attention. When he turned around there was still a glaze in his eyes. It was sort of comical actually. He did feel bad and we both laughed, but I still went hungry that day. He’d been warned a lot, so they guys in the service department did booby trap him twice. He constantly took their afternoon snacks from their tool boxes.

I also had a female co-worker that was dangerous around chocolate. I had a Hershey bar on my desk that I had broken one square off of. She walked by, picked up my candy and licked the entire surface of the bar. I was astonished. Yes, she got the candy. We were sort of friends, but it still ticked me off. Enough time has passed that I can just chuckle about these now.

37

It’s a bit surprising that Raginghormonal you didn’t yank the candybar from her cow-orkers thieving hand and slam it into a trash can.

38

Holy cow. Raging, I’m now thinking that I’m lucky that SG only steals my food when he cant’ see me.

Licking the candybar, words fail me

39

Wow. My company has a rather simple policy.

You get caught stealing other people’s food, you get fired. Period. First offense.

Even so, I leave my lunch on my desk. My Marie Calendar dinner is still sufficiently frozen by lunch time that I’ve never felt the need to stick it in one of the communal fridges. If someone were to steal it from my desk, I would track them down and ensure that they got fired for it, and if they were not, I would raise a stink with Corporate HR about how our management is tolerating theft in our office.

But damn. Stealing the burrito I’m in the process of eating? I’ve only thrown two punches in my entire adult life, both in self defense. But you do that to me and I’m introducing your head to the nearest concrete pillar, then claiming I saw you trip and fall into it.

40

Well, the glaze in his eyes tempered my anger. I’ve never seen anything like it. He wasn’t a jerk in every way, so it just made me laugh.

The chocolate incident though…yeah, that made me mad. I think my astonishment overwhelmed my anger. She was fired not too long after doing that, though not for that reason. She was an odd duck.