Inspired by Thorns colleagues not knowing that black people come from Endor, we shall host out 'worst colleague comp' or more realistically, start a thread about the most painfully dull/deviant co-workers ever. Sadly, in the spirit of people who want to start a thread but no apsirations to finish them, I can only start off with an anecdote about my co-worker, Kate who had a pen fetish. Well she had a stationary fetish but pens were the thing that really got her hot. She would wriggle in her seat and smarm if she had manage to acquire a particularly good pen from the stationary cupboard. One afternoon, she sat staring into space and sniffing a range of pens that smelled of fruits and stared out the window in glee. Maybe she was actually high. She once said 'when I can afford my own house, I am going to build an office and fill it full of stationary' so when I asked her what sort of things she would need an office for she replied with the same scrunched up cabbage face 'just to keep the stationary in'
Posted by dang65 (Member # 102) on :
quote:Originally posted by New Way Of Decay: stationary fetish
I think stationery fetishism is quite common actually, so don't be too hard on the lady. I have a mild form of it myself and I think it's been discussed on here before by other perverts. Plenty of Google hits anyway, though surprisingly no images.
I could imagine a variation on yer yoghurt-and-melted-chocolate style kinky fun theme, but with fruit-smelling gel pens, glitter glue, day-glo markers, a bit of paper clip bondage... but, no, stationery fetishism seems to be a very solitary pleasure. But there are others out there.
Posted by dang65 (Member # 102) on :
My nightmare colleague types are those ultra sincere, completely humourless ones. It doesn't take a minute to realise a new colleague is going to be like that, and the heart sinks and the depression sets in. Especially when you've spent years working with some of the most heartless and cruel-humoured swine on the planet, and been permanently entertained by them.
Fortunately we now have the internet and TMO to save us, but by God it was grim in days gone by when you got stuck in office with people that actually got concerned when there was a gigantic security van robbery or something hilarious like that.
Posted by Vogon Poetess (Member # 164) on :
Haha, stationery lovers. Guess who has the 2006 Office Depot catalogue at arms length on their desk? Guess who holds the key to the stationery cupboard? Guess who can order themselves whatever they like, whenever they like and charge it to the US Air Force account?
I've only briefly worked in an open plan office, so haven't had to deal with so many colleagues.
My colleagues in Warsaw included a woman who only came to Poland to "teach" in order to get cheap plastic surgery, a man who gave up teaching and fled to the airport literally halfway through a class, a man who used a Sooty hand puppet when teaching adults, a man called Weird Beard (sadly don't recall his real name) who had a breakdown and whose Dad had to come and take him home and a man who had been sacked from two other schools in the city for fiddling his timesheets and "reasons we don't want to go into". But at least they provided entertainment.
[ 08.05.2006, 09:50: Message edited by: Vogon Poetess ]
Posted by Louche (Member # 450) on :
Everyone I work with in an idiot or an imbecile or earnest or boring or irritating or just basically a **** . There's even a speciality grating voices department and a small cabal of girly women - you know, the sort that wave their elbows and grope pregnant woman bumps without asking and have terribly intense conversations about menstruation. I hate my job.
Also, everyone has some degree of stationary fetish. It isn't a sexual thing, though. It's a sensual one.
Posted by ralph (Member # 773) on :
quote:Originally posted by Louche: Everyone I work with in an idiot or an imbecile or earnest or boring or irritating or just basically a **** .
Posted by Louche (Member # 450) on :
ralph. Please stop. You shouldn't need to be told, either.
Posted by New Way Of Decay (Member # 106) on :
lol! Louche 'earnest' isn't a bad trait. You're thinking of disearnest.
Posted by ralph (Member # 773) on :
Sorry, Louche. I just wanted to post quickly before you edited. I didn't mean anything by it. Honest mistake.
[ 08.05.2006, 09:44: Message edited by: ralph ]
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
I've never worked with anybody who's been that strange. Various degrees of depression, alcoholism and boredom maybe, but nothing notable. I've had a few disputes with people, but that usually comes as a result of stress and the job rather than real personality clashes. The work I do tends to mean that I can just work quietly in the corner, so I don't have to deal with people much.
Posted by New Way Of Decay (Member # 106) on :
Nobody tard up my thread.
I actually just remembered. Kate wasn't so bad but she was annoyingly smug about everything. She use to talk about her boyfriend non-stop and say how cool he was. He was a decent guy to talk to but we'd hear about MMORPGs he would play. This was around the time of See-Thru so they were mostly text based. Imagine if you will having to sit with a girl who would drone on incomprehensibly about something I already knew about. No matter how many times I would tell her I understood, she would painstakingly explain to me (and often incorrectly) about what these games were. An added comedy element though was that she once said 'I got engaged to Dukey!' (Duke being his surname and school nickname) which my colleague and I, Amanda, partners in cynicism were saying 'you got engaged to dookie?congratulations!' We had already joked in secret about the royalty/shit wordplay a long time ago so we took great pleasure announcing that she had 'got engaged to dookie' to anyone and everyone who would come into our department that day.
Posted by Waynster (Member # 56) on :
I have worked with some prize tards in the past, but no one will ever beat Derek. I worked with him when I worked for the European Space Agency in Darmstadt back in the early 90's - I knew he was odd, but when a new colleague nearly ran a mile at the christmas party on spying him quoting "oh no not that fucking imbecile!" you knew he was not the full ticket.
Derek had three very apparent disabilities:
- A stunted leg/hip problem which made him walk with a very pronounced limp - a terrible stutter - A complete lack of any personality or social skills and under any sort of stress would panic like a headless chicken, hobbling around wimpering like a dog that had been run over.
To explain the story, I have to explain a little about the equipment we had for one system - basically if you can remember the old 8 track cassettes from the 70's - well we had a backup system which used tapes about the same size - some had barcoded numbers, others didn't. They were all housed in a giant fish bowl in which there was one giant robot arm which would swing around picking tapes of a bank of rotating towers, and then would swing back to insert them into one of 8 tape drives.
Anyway one particular day I was asked to enter the silo system to locate a tape cartridge that had become lost from the system - basically someone in their wisdom had labelled up one set of tapes with the prefix A0 and another lot with the prefix AO so obviously some cock up had occured when manually entering these cartridges to the system as these of course had no bar code on them.
There was a PC next to the robot silo from which you could shut the system down but as I was leaving Derek pipes up he can shutdown the silo from the mainframe - something which involved a long and complex command which could not be easily recalled, so I simply stated that it was far easier to do it from the controlling PC as I would then be sure the system was dormant - much safer. Derek, being Derek, started flapping about "C-c-c-command from the mainf-f-f-frame" but I then sternly told him to piss off, and that I would do it from the PC as it was completely safe.
So off I trot, shutdown the silo, and spend the best part of an hour checking every tape in the silo but to no avail to find the missing one.
Fast forward to next morning, and I enter the tea room to find Lynton and Bobby in tears. In between the laughter all I can get is something about Azimov. Finally they calmed enough to ask me if I knew of Azimov's rules of robotics - for the unaware they are as follows:
1. A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Well it appeared Derek the night before was not convinced I had checked the racks thouroughly, so upon my leaving for the day decides to shutdown the robot using hi long winded and complex command from the mainframe console, a fair distance from the robot. He then starts lunging for the robot in his mechanical manner, overrides the door, enters the pen and the robot mistaking him for a threat to rule three, promptly belts him (in reality it was simply responding to a mount request as he had input the command incorrectly).
Lynton had joked to Bob about the Robot attacking Derek, when sure enough in walks Derek, and if you can imagine a Scottish Frank Spencer saying with a stutter "I-I-I think I hav-hav-have had a little acc-acc-accident" and cue two gron men in fits of apoplectic glee.
The guy was a complete imbecile of the highest order, and of course like all true imbeciles he got he just reward - they promoted him. This of course by the same company responsible for the GATSO and losing its largest contract to the MOD for three of the four engines on the queens flight failing on a test flight, so serves them right.
Posted by sabian (Member # 6) on :
nerd
As to the topic, I worked in America. Nuff said.
Posted by ralph (Member # 773) on :
quote:Originally posted by sabian: As to the topic, I worked in America. Nuff said.
See if I ever help you with mySQL again. Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
I had to revive this thread to tell you about the **** I came across in the lift at work yesterday. In the lobby by the lifts they have a big telly that shows BBC News 24 all day. Well, in front of me was this big ugly **** and his tiny teenaged lackey, on the tell was Blair. The big ugly **** mimed shooting Blair with a rifle, a real Coogan mime. Then he looked around to lackey for approval, "Fuckin' Blair! What this country needs is a military dictatorship. Everyone would be a lot happier." "Yeah?" says the lackey. "Yeah. That's a real organisation." he goes quite for a bit, then as we step into the lift he starts up again. "I wish I could get out to Iraq. 'Ave a crack at that lot. I missed out last time round. The Gulf." "You missed out on the Gulf?" asked the lackey. "Well, I 'ad my little baby at 'ome. I wanted to see my little baby before I went off to war, didn't I? I wish I could get out there now..." He went all misty eyed at this point his lackey gazed at him with utter devotion. I failed to keep my amusement to myself, they both seemed completely unaware of my vibrating chortling presence. Then I got off at my floor.
Posted by Vogon Poetess (Member # 164) on :
The person I've found most difficult to work with is now back in the goddamn building.
He's this fat, rich, impossibly smug Egyptian bloke who did his PhD under my boss's supervision, and took an incredible 11 years to submit his thesis. Since he got his PhD about 18 months ago, he no longer has any official status within the university; he is not a student and he is not employed on any kind of contract. However, he has been absolutely desperate to hang on to his connection with this establishment's name- badgering me to maintain his email address, library access and desk space (all smoothly denied by me). He thinks that because he lives just down the road he can still hang out in this department and invite himself along to staff events and ingratiate himself with my bigwig boss (who can't stand him either). And he calls me "my dear". Aarrgh.
Anyway, he proudly announced to me that he's wangled himself some kind of industrial secondment placement here (he has his own company maintained by his wealthy father) under another prof in a different research group. Last Friday he came into my office, grinning by the door going "k-nock, k-nock" and then pointing to my trolley and saying "nicky, nicky?" (apparently a comical way of asking if he could borrow my trolley to move his stuff into the building). This infuriated me massively.
Do you think it's really petty to contact my line manager and get her to confirm with the other prof who is supposed to be providing him with admin support? I really begrudge his use of any of my group's resources, including my time, when he's not officially one of mine. I already look after two large research groups, and an extra bunch of other academics (unpaid) as maternity leave cover. Would it be a bad idea to categorically refuse to work with this man, on the basis that he's a fucking annoying, self-satisfied wanker?
[ 02.04.2007, 04:20: Message edited by: Vogon Poetess ]
Posted by New Way Of Decay (Member # 106) on :
It's not petty if he's annoying. My girlfriend hates one of the other students because he's called 'Henry' and drives a 4x4.
And he wears jeans. With suit jackets. And winkle pickers.
That's too many stereotypes for one vessel to incorporate. He studies at Bath Spa too, so he should essentially implode on the notion that such a cliché could not exist at any point in the world, ever.
Posted by Nathan Bleak (Member # 1040) on :
I think you should sleep with him. I've seen films and read books. If there's a co-worker you really can't stand, you're bound to end up in bed with them sooner or later.
Posted by Nathan Bleak (Member # 1040) on :
VP, I mean. I don't think NWoD should sleep with this Bristol dude because homosexuality is a crime against nature.
Posted by Louche (Member # 450) on :
It's not petty, it is perfectly sensible and above all it's the professional thing to do. Could I sound any more wanky? There's nothing more frustrating than not knowing who you're working for/ to and any reasonable manager will appreciate that.
My bosses PA leaves us messages on yellow sticky notes in French. What the fuck is wrong with email and English? I'm going to start leaving her messages in cyrillic. Pretentious knobber.
Posted by MiscellaneousFiles (Member # 60) on :
quote:Originally posted by Nathan Bleak: homosexuality is a crime against nature.
You saw last night's *episode of Louis Theroux's new series then?
[ 02.04.2007, 06:35: Message edited by: MiscellaneousFiles ]
Posted by Lickapaw#2 (Member # 1049) on :
He wasn't a colleague, but back at the home I went to work in around the time I was last here we had schizophrenics and learning difficulties to care for and work with.
You haven't known annoying until you've worked with a man with learning difficulties, with an IQ of less than 90, trying to teach him how to make beans on toast, and him failing to get it completely.
He was also almost beaten by the concept of grating cheese, although he did manage it. By holding the cheese and the grater as high above the bowl as possible and doing the obligatory essentially at arms' length.
One of my colleagues finally gave up on teaching him how to cut an apple, which he barely dared to do because he was so convinced he'd cut his fingers. An apple has never been dropped so many times in history.
He once had the task of cracking an egg into a bowl, but cracked it onto the work surface instead. To make amends and get it into the bowl, he held the bowl under the work surface and scraped the egg with his hand off the edge... and it fell on the floor. It wasn't even close to landing in the bowl.
Even the big guy who's name I can't remember, who was the absolute picture of Zen-like positivity and peace lost patience with him.
You had to admire our persistence, really.
It was easy to make him laugh, though. I played Ludo with him one Christmas and, although he didn't get the rules and just went around and around the board endlessly, I pretended my pieces were going around other pieces' homes for a pint of milk etc. He was helpless with laughter.
So I s'pose the kid had his redeeming qualities.
Posted by MiscellaneousFiles (Member # 60) on :
Do you think that perhaps you weren't really cut out for working with the mentally ill?
Posted by Lickapaw#2 (Member # 1049) on :
Why do you think I left after 10 months?
Posted by Sidney (Member # 399) on :
Liver-faced Wanker has reared his ugly head once more. Having been utterly defeated in the recent past, he has now moved on to questioning my latest expense claim. He says "I find it odd that an employee who is due to be signed off for a year requires a £4.99 diary from Beatties".
J has advised that I should reply with "Mark has raised an important point here - I am more than happy to return the diary to the office so that someone else can make use of the unused months. It may be worth creating a diary share scheme so that a colleague can use the diary of another worker who is on annual leave. FWIW, it's standard practice to allow company car drivers to keep their cars whilst on maternity leave. I'm not sure if the same is true of diaries however."
Lolololol. Good old J.
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sidney: Liver-faced Wanker has reared his ugly head once more. Having been utterly defeated in the recent past, he has now moved on to questioning my latest expense claim. He says "I find it odd that an employee who is due to be signed off for a year requires a £4.99 diary from Beatties".
J has advised that I should reply with "Mark has raised an important point here - I am more than happy to return the diary to the office so that someone else can make use of the unused months. It may be worth creating a diary share scheme so that a colleague can use the diary of another worker who is on annual leave. FWIW, it's standard practice to allow company car drivers to keep their cars whilst on maternity leave. I'm not sure if the same is true of diaries however."
Lolololol. Good old J.
It's obviously still smarting that he got his arse kicked.
Posted by H1ppychick (Member # 529) on :
Go on, do it. I'll give you the fiver myself if you take a picture of Mark's face when he gets the reply, and post it here.
Posted by Nathan Bleak (Member # 1040) on :
That's a great reply, actually, because it's incredibly polite and no-one could fail to find it funny, with the sole exception of guy who's going to look like an idiot. There's nothing actually wrong with what's written there. Of course, the bloke will hate you and hound you for the rest of his career.
Posted by Sidney (Member # 399) on :
I won't send it, obviously. Even though it would amuse me greatly. I'm also not really bothered about the guy hating me (he already does) and hounding me for eternity. He'll just be making himself look even more foolish and petty. I shall just be all 'zen' about it and rise above it instead.
Posted by Zygote (Member # 883) on :
My brother is experiencing a pretty unfortunate situation at work. Sitting to his right is a very, very smelly woman - he claims that she smells like a combination of gone-off milk and meat pies. The smell has been getting worse with the advent of the warmer temperatures and he's finding it impossible to eat his lunch without feeling extremely nauseous. The team have to eat their lunches at their desks as there is currently a huge backlog of contracts to work on, so going out for lunch is a big no no.
On Monday, a colleague of his came over to his desk and had to dash to the toilets to vomit, following his inhalation of the pungent stench. This colleague - obviously feeling sorry for my brother - later came back over to his desk and verbalised his outrage at the odour, in the vain hope that the woman will 'take the hint' and start wearing deodorant and, hopefully, start washing her greasy, mangled nest of head hair. This has not happened.
What would you do in this situation? I've told him to consult his Manager and drop some subtle hints, but he doesn't think that they will take any notice, bearing in mind the external pressures the company is experiencing currently. He won't mention it to her because he doesn't want to hurt her feelings and he cannot relocate to another desk.
Has anybody else been in a similar scenario? If so, what did you do?
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
He should buy half a dozen air-fresheners and line them up in her direction on his desk. If she still doesn't take the hint he could always pass her a little note saying "Hey! You! You fucking stink, you shitbag, you."
Posted by Sidney (Member # 399) on :
I once shared office space with a guy who had the most appalling body odour. The woman who had to sit next to him had a row of those stick on air fresheners stuck along the circumference of her desk. We all dreaded summer. Eventually, when it became completely unbearable, we spoke to our manager about it. He was quite a straight forward type of man and had no problem with buying various deodourants, soaps and shower gels etc, taking the stinky offender into a private room and having a little word with him before handing over the bag of toiletries. It seemed to do the trick. However, shortly afterwards, the stinky offender arrived at work one morning and announced that he would have to do his work standing up that day because he had a huge boil on his arse that made it too painful for him to sit down. Our manager persuaded him to go A&E to get it lanced, which he did but strangely, he never came back and we never saw him again.....
I guess I would advise your brother to ask his manager to tackle it diplomatically. Whether he/she agrees to will probably depend on whether they feel comfortable with doing so. They might not. In that case, maybe someone could anonymously put some 'grooming products' in her deak drawer before she gets in to work or something.....
Posted by Sidney (Member # 399) on :
'deak drawer' isn't a euphamism for anything. Like an orifice or such like. I meant to type 'desk drawer'.
[ 05.04.2007, 09:56: Message edited by: Sidney ]
Posted by MiscellaneousFiles (Member # 60) on :
Posted by ralph (Member # 773) on :
quote:Originally posted by Zygote: Has anybody else been in a similar scenario? If so, what did you do?
I was in a similar situation once. I shared an office with a guy named Harold who flat out stank. So much so that even when he was on vacation, people would come into our office and ask where he was, assuming he was in because they could still smell him.
I talked to my manager, who agreed that he stank. Harold was eventually moved to a desk in the outlying regions of the office. An area that, to this day, even though he is no longer employed there, is still referred to as Haroldland.
eta: I still to this day feel sorry for the guy. It turns out his odor wasn't caused by poor hygene. He had some bizarre medical condition. I don't remember what it was called, but he was trying to get treatment for it. Poor Harold.
[ 05.04.2007, 10:00: Message edited by: ralph ]
Posted by Zygote (Member # 883) on :
Some good ideas there, thanks. I'll let him read the suggestions and make a decision. Posted by Vogon Poetess (Member # 164) on :
*weary Friday sigh*
Corporate whores vs working class Thicky McThick
I'm missing an order from a large electronic components company. According to their records, the 6 items were delivered in 3 separate packages, two arriving on Monday and one on Wednesday. The guy who's covering for the usual bloke in Stores swears he has no record of any of it ever arriving. They've faxed me the DHL proof of delivery note, with this guy's signature against a bunch of parcels on the Monday.
The thing is, this guy is really simple. He just looked at me in slack-jawed, wet-mouthed confusion when I showed him the bit of paper with his signature on.
What the fuck are you supposed to do in situations like this?
Posted by Benny the Ball (Member # 694) on :
punch the **** ?
I'm sat opposite a woman at the moment, who, when isn't interupting you to ask inane questions or to talk about Harry Enfield, is shrill-banshee complaining about the sheer mass confusion of having to do her job and stuff. Fuck. Off. Now.
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