This is a topic to which I'm pretty sure about 90% of us can relate. There have been movies, books, and sitcoms based upon it. It is the butt of many jokes. I am referring to the oh, so different personalities of those intermingled in our everyday places of employment. In layman's terms, I am talking about the dumbasses we work with.
I am so lucky that my co-workers are hilarious and, just like me, do not take things personally. Otherwise, I would never have been able to write this rant. It is because of your awesomeness that our shit gets done (although not always in a timely or correct manner).
I came from a high stress position as a chemist in a pharmaceutical laboratory, where every move I made was scrutinized, analyzed, triple checked, run through the computer 46 times, shaken, stirred, and spit back out, only to re-process five more samples. That, combined with the fact that I liked seeing the outdoors every now and again, made me decide to return to where my passion was. Seriously, the only time we saw daylight was when a fellow chemist dropped and shattered a bottle of Hydrochlric Acid, causing us to evacuate while the fire department decontaminated the area. Naturally, I was in the crapper when this went down, and was the last to know the lab had been evacuated. Don't worry, though. I finished.
Anywho, life at the uh, agency for which I work, is the exact opposite of my "smart occupation", as I like to call it. I will say, it is a government agency. Actually, that should say it all. Perhaps I shall end my rant here. Na, I won't do that...
I joined this government agency in 2005. I held a similar position in a previous state in which I resided briefly. The line of work is very fulfilling, and I sometimes even-maybe just a bit-feel like I may make a difference. I love my job, and I absolutely love what I do. Unfortunately, there are about twenty two too many people working there.
It is amazing to me how someone in upper management can resemble a sloth dead-on. We all know this guy. He's the old guy who should have retired fifteen years ago, but hangs on just to drag everyone else's work day to a grinding halt. He wears gigantic expensive watches and brags about his 3D television, and his cruises, and his faggy black New Balance tennis shoes (even though we all know damned well his fat ass has never seen a tennis court-unless they were serving a buffet on it). This is the old fuck who makes eight times what anyone else in the office makes, yet whines about having to contribute to his own retirement fund. Nobody knows what the hell he does, because all he does is shuffle around (at an astonishingly slow pace), from office to office, like an orangutan swinging from the canopy of trees. If a pressing issue arises, he swiftly steps back, and is gone. This is the fastest you will ever see this creature move, so look closely, as it is rare.
As a direct report to aforementioned individual, the supervisor takes similar strides to be like her mentor. You know this type; this was her first job out of college. She's the newlywed, and a new mother. She finds it necessary to stop you in the middle of a critical mission (like having to poop), to show you the 956 page album of her baby's first bowel movement. You instantaneously become jealous of the baby, as it feels as though you're about to give birth yourself. Don't worry, though, because when you finish staring blankly at those pictures, she has a twenty minute video on her phone for you to watch of her baby eating strained peas. At this point, I usually just say, "gotta poop", and run away. Actually,that's my excuse for a lot of things.
Every office has at least one gossip monger. My office has approximately 42. I learned the hard way that, even if you keep your mouth shut, you will end up somehow falling victim to these clucking chickens. They are always women, usually completely unhappy with their own lives. They pretend to be nice and leech on to you until you give them even a shred of something they can completely distort into lies. According to them, I have been pregnant, banged my co-workers, banged the boss, sold children on the black market, beat a homeless man with a flute, stole candy from a baby, pushed an elderly woman out of her hoveround, and destroyed a marriage.
There is the lingerer. There are variations of lingerers. There's the, "How was your weekend?" lingerer. He's the one who really doesn't give a shit how your weekend was, he's just looking for a lead-in to tell you all about his weekend. His weekend-which consisted of moving a second-hand dryer into his rental property, then having to go to the hardware store four times because it didn't come with a power cord- is much more important and exciting than anything you could possibly contribute to this conversation. Don't try to compete. Just shut the fuck up and pretend to work until he staggers away. This starvation for attention and need to just hang out stems from neglect on behalf of their wives. Nobody's sure if their wives were crazy before they married these idiots, or if these idiots drove their wives insane. Either way, the lingerer demands the attention of all that surround them.
The other lingerer is the one who just talks about pointless shit, like how his dog scratches twice to go out, and how she can only be bathed on Tuesdays. This is the jerk-off whose wife dresses him, as evidenced by his pink pants and rhinestone bedazzled belt clip cell phone holster. He wears WAY too much cologne, and insists on everyone addressing him as Mr. (insert name here). Everyday at 9:30, he tucks the newspaper soduku page on a clipboard under his arm, and heads off to take his morning dump. He will not silence his phone, which rings off the hook the entire 47 minutes he's on the shitter. By the time he comes back, it's time for his second cup of coffee, which he savors by slurping like a tongueless ape.
Last, but certainly not least, is the office cat lady. She has 18 cats, and her desk is covered in cat decorations. On casual Fridays, she wears cat t-shirts and usually reeks of cat piss. She's really nice, though.
So there you have it. I'm tired. I'm going to bed.
