Stories
Co-Workers I’ve Met Along the Way
Every office has its wacky characters, but did you know that every office has the same wacky characters? Rachel Knowles looks back through her labors for an all-star cast of misfits, bullies, and sociopaths.
- How Everything Turned Out (June 27, 2007)
- What's the Frequency, Musad? (June 15, 2004)
- The Education of Elisabeth Eckleman: Back to School (June 6, 2005)
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I grew up earning my keep. From weekly house cleanings to dragging brush on Saturday mornings, Dad found a way to keep my brother Josh and I busy. My father’s greatest passion was maintaining a ‘clean forest’; for the uninitiated, this boundless task requires a chainsaw, pruning shears, stump poison and an accompanying paintbrush, a keen eye for spotting those ugly Sourwood saplings, and a thorough tick-check at the end of the day. Woe to any friend who arrived unexpectedly, looking to play—my Dad had no problem tossing a pair of gloves at little Alex and pointing him towards a pile of fresh-cut firewood that needed stacking.
After years of work that taught me the meaning of oxymoron (in addition to cleaning the forest, my father also liked us to rake our rock driveway) I was ready for a job outside the home. I was already comfortable with blue-collar industry, so I didn’t care what I did to earn money, as long as I earned it. I’ve never been fired from a job, or even the more polite version, ‘asked to leave’; but because, until recently, my jobs have been more cash- than career-oriented, I have, at age 27, an extensive job history.
I have been a nanny, a hostess, a waitress at a diner, a server and tableside cook at a swanky restaurant, a cabin-girl, a maid, the manager of a General Store, and a dishwasher; I had a two-week stint at the Gap before a folding seminar pushed me over the edge; I sold knives door-to-door at a loss because I could never bear for someone living in a trailer to purchase the $684 Homemaker Set, no matter how much they loved our 10-easy-installments payment plan; and I was a Document Control Assistant, an impressive name for a file clerk who must keep thousands of drawings under lock and key until, as occurred at least every three minutes, an engineer asks to see one file. At which point I would stand, retrieve the file, and pass it though the open top half of a locked door. When my lifestyle demanded a more stable income and the possibility of a career, I humbly submitted to a series of assistant-ships that, of course, involved much more than assisting.
I’m happy to say that most of my co-workers have been genial rather than spiteful. And those who don’t seem to fit either category provided me with endless anecdotes for dinner-table conversation. Here, then, are a few of the more unique types I’ve encountered on the job.
The Revealer
I didn’t really know what a kidney stone was until a co-worker described, in excruciating detail, the descent of her kidney stone (‘I could feel it scraping my bladder.’) and reminded me every day that she had to drink a lot of water lest the kidney stones reappear. John liked to talk about his 54-year-old schizophrenic brother who dressed like Santa and who, fearing the end of the world, begged John to buy him the complete Kama Sutra on DVD before it was too late.
Advice: Listen to every story the Revealer has to tell—one day you can write a very funny book.
The Freak-Out
Diabolical bipolar individual, usually your boss or someone in a position to delegate tasks that are neither enjoyable nor your responsibility. One Tuesday, Becky yelled at me because she missed a deadline that I reminded her about on at least four separate occasions. Wednesday she bought me lunch and told me about her recent exploits in the bedroom. When I called her at home on Thursday, where she was ostensibly working for the day, she screamed that I was a ‘terrible person and cold-hearted’ for interrupting Oprah.
Advice: It took me a year to realize that a) it’s silly to have a sleepless, guilt-ridden night over someone else’s mistakes, b) some people are just fucked up, and c) most people who are this fucked up don’t really hate you; they just need more attention than the average human and will do anything to get it.
The Paranoid Hypochondriac
Erma liked to regale me with stories about her husband’s battle to get worker’s compensation for the fifth time. According to her, Max was injured. Max was sewn up. Upon looking at the stitches, the company nurse deliberately inserted her finger into the wound, on orders from the ‘higher-ups,’ and re-injured Max as ‘pay-back.’ He has since been refused worker’s comp. Erma was constantly complaining about her aches and pains, and even tried to convince me that we were developing serious elbow and wrist injuries from daily use of the turn-crank on our moving files.
The strange thing about Paranoid Hypochondriacs is that they never think they’re abusing the system; they believe in their many work-related injuries and further believe they’re being wrongly persecuted.
Advice: When confronted with a Paranoid Hypochondriac, be very nice, slowly distance yourself, and remember that you could easily end up on the suspect list.
The Sleazy Thrill-Seeker
I’ve had men come on to me at the office—it’s such a bland, tired move that I’ve ceased to be offended. But women—well, they usually come up with a more unusual approach.
Jennifer, flush with her recent cash settlement from a car accident, invited me to lunch at the company cafeteria and began the conversation with, ‘(giggle) I told my husband that I wouldn’t mind sleeping with a woman!’ After some probing questions, to which I gave vague, uncomfortable answers, she laid it all out: ‘I told Randy about you and he thought maybe we could all get together sometime. You know. Get. Together.’ And she wasn’t even close to hot.
Advice: Avoid the Sleazy Thrill-Seeker at all costs, especially at company functions involving alcohol and dancing.
Nice with Undefined Social Disorder
Feet-shuffler, close-talker, heavy-sigher—whatever the symptom, you’re sure to encounter a co-worker who, while friendly, is startlingly deficient at social interaction. Bill is a very generous person; he welcomed me on my first day of work, took me to lunch, and suggested we meet every few weeks to make sure I was settling in okay. I hoped against all hope that his unreasonably loud monotone was not an indicator of a more serious problem.
In the span of a day I learned: he still lived with his parents (he was 42); until recently, he weighed close to 465 pounds; he spent his evenings with a religious group that prohibited anyone from cutting their hair; and he was incapable of altering his daily routines even to save himself hours of work.
Advice: Oh, be nice, you snob. Just try not to attract his attention too often.
After years of work that taught me the meaning of oxymoron (in addition to cleaning the forest, my father also liked us to rake our rock driveway) I was ready for a job outside the home. I was already comfortable with blue-collar industry, so I didn’t care what I did to earn money, as long as I earned it. I’ve never been fired from a job, or even the more polite version, ‘asked to leave’; but because, until recently, my jobs have been more cash- than career-oriented, I have, at age 27, an extensive job history.
I have been a nanny, a hostess, a waitress at a diner, a server and tableside cook at a swanky restaurant, a cabin-girl, a maid, the manager of a General Store, and a dishwasher; I had a two-week stint at the Gap before a folding seminar pushed me over the edge; I sold knives door-to-door at a loss because I could never bear for someone living in a trailer to purchase the $684 Homemaker Set, no matter how much they loved our 10-easy-installments payment plan; and I was a Document Control Assistant, an impressive name for a file clerk who must keep thousands of drawings under lock and key until, as occurred at least every three minutes, an engineer asks to see one file. At which point I would stand, retrieve the file, and pass it though the open top half of a locked door. When my lifestyle demanded a more stable income and the possibility of a career, I humbly submitted to a series of assistant-ships that, of course, involved much more than assisting.
I’m happy to say that most of my co-workers have been genial rather than spiteful. And those who don’t seem to fit either category provided me with endless anecdotes for dinner-table conversation. Here, then, are a few of the more unique types I’ve encountered on the job.
The Revealer
I didn’t really know what a kidney stone was until a co-worker described, in excruciating detail, the descent of her kidney stone (‘I could feel it scraping my bladder.’) and reminded me every day that she had to drink a lot of water lest the kidney stones reappear. John liked to talk about his 54-year-old schizophrenic brother who dressed like Santa and who, fearing the end of the world, begged John to buy him the complete Kama Sutra on DVD before it was too late.
Advice: Listen to every story the Revealer has to tell—one day you can write a very funny book.
The Freak-Out
Diabolical bipolar individual, usually your boss or someone in a position to delegate tasks that are neither enjoyable nor your responsibility. One Tuesday, Becky yelled at me because she missed a deadline that I reminded her about on at least four separate occasions. Wednesday she bought me lunch and told me about her recent exploits in the bedroom. When I called her at home on Thursday, where she was ostensibly working for the day, she screamed that I was a ‘terrible person and cold-hearted’ for interrupting Oprah.
Advice: It took me a year to realize that a) it’s silly to have a sleepless, guilt-ridden night over someone else’s mistakes, b) some people are just fucked up, and c) most people who are this fucked up don’t really hate you; they just need more attention than the average human and will do anything to get it.
The Paranoid Hypochondriac
Erma liked to regale me with stories about her husband’s battle to get worker’s compensation for the fifth time. According to her, Max was injured. Max was sewn up. Upon looking at the stitches, the company nurse deliberately inserted her finger into the wound, on orders from the ‘higher-ups,’ and re-injured Max as ‘pay-back.’ He has since been refused worker’s comp. Erma was constantly complaining about her aches and pains, and even tried to convince me that we were developing serious elbow and wrist injuries from daily use of the turn-crank on our moving files.
The strange thing about Paranoid Hypochondriacs is that they never think they’re abusing the system; they believe in their many work-related injuries and further believe they’re being wrongly persecuted.
Advice: When confronted with a Paranoid Hypochondriac, be very nice, slowly distance yourself, and remember that you could easily end up on the suspect list.
The Sleazy Thrill-Seeker
I’ve had men come on to me at the office—it’s such a bland, tired move that I’ve ceased to be offended. But women—well, they usually come up with a more unusual approach.
Jennifer, flush with her recent cash settlement from a car accident, invited me to lunch at the company cafeteria and began the conversation with, ‘(giggle) I told my husband that I wouldn’t mind sleeping with a woman!’ After some probing questions, to which I gave vague, uncomfortable answers, she laid it all out: ‘I told Randy about you and he thought maybe we could all get together sometime. You know. Get. Together.’ And she wasn’t even close to hot.
Advice: Avoid the Sleazy Thrill-Seeker at all costs, especially at company functions involving alcohol and dancing.
Nice with Undefined Social Disorder
Feet-shuffler, close-talker, heavy-sigher—whatever the symptom, you’re sure to encounter a co-worker who, while friendly, is startlingly deficient at social interaction. Bill is a very generous person; he welcomed me on my first day of work, took me to lunch, and suggested we meet every few weeks to make sure I was settling in okay. I hoped against all hope that his unreasonably loud monotone was not an indicator of a more serious problem.
In the span of a day I learned: he still lived with his parents (he was 42); until recently, he weighed close to 465 pounds; he spent his evenings with a religious group that prohibited anyone from cutting their hair; and he was incapable of altering his daily routines even to save himself hours of work.
Advice: Oh, be nice, you snob. Just try not to attract his attention too often.
—Published June 19, 2002
