The weird co workers

Everyone has their fair share of weird co-workers, I just happen to get twice as lucky as most people on this planet. The amazing variety of people I have had the chance to work with is astounding. Who else can boast to have worked with just about every clichéd office character under the sun; ranging from narcissistic jerk of a boss to the regular run of the mill slacker, the office stud, the office tart, the gossip, the manipulator, the eater, the people pleaser, ass kisser, whiner, over committed company man to … my personal favourite, the sarcastic under committed slug.

I have had the pleasure of working with this man who had a British public school boy attitude, an illegal amount of (over!) confidence and insane profundity in corporate speak. He would always rant about things like "high accuracy assessment" and I would want to scream, what the hell is that? Does anyone really care if the assessment is highly accurate or just accurate? Terms I loathe most are ‘thinking outside the box’, ‘paradigm shift’, ‘synergy’ and ‘brainstorming’ – especially brainstorming. What do you think people do when they brainstorm? Nothing gets shaken up, no one sees the light. All people do is consume loads of tea and coffee and bitch about people who are not part of that particular brainstorming session.

I once had this co worker who epitomized Protestant work ethics of 19th century Americans (even the Americans have slackened down a bit since then). It was impossible to indulge in a bit of harmless normal workplace slacking such as surfing the net, making a few personal phone calls or reading some newspaper in her presence. She would eye you silently, berating you for doing the sinful act of reading the newspaper at the workplace. If her workload is a low, she would sit in her chair and do nothing - like staring the space or her computer screen. I mean I am all for meaninglessness in life, I think it is very important but staring space when you can actually read about Britney Spears life online and feel good about yourself.

Of course, we all have the ‘70 hour a week guy’. He lives, eats and probably sleeps at work. He'll be in when you arrive and still working when you go home. He's often in on the weekend and before you can say the word ‘Bingo’, the management starts encouraging you to follow his example and sacrifice your personal life, provided you had one to begin with. The management would probably through in the incentive of paying for every third angioplasty, if caused by work place stress.

I am off to have my first angioplasty, paid by yours truly. Let’s hope that I survive to have the third one on company account.