Talking but not blessing

Okay, so I know that most people will mumble to themselves while they're working. I have worked with many people who do or have done this. While it can be a little annoying at times, it's generally not a big deal.

HOWEVER, I've got psycho working about 4 feet away from me who takes it to another level. She has complete one-sided conversations.

I have been taking notes today. This is what I have overheard between 8:33 this morning and 2:13 this afternoon:

"Oh my god."
1 minute later, "Oh my god."
- I think she says these things just so I will say, "WHAT???" Of course I don't play.

“What is a 1099? Oh my god, even I know that.”
- There are several things like this that she says, I think, to show me just how smart she is... A real f'ing genius.

(Referring to her boss) "She's in there typing. I don't care; I just don't care anymore."
- OMG, her boss is typing? Oh the terror...the horror...wtf?

"Oh you're kidding me."
- Um no...No one is kidding you. No one is even talking to you, psycho.

"Oh my god."
- Yes again, but several hours later.

"You can't do that."
- WHO can't do WHAT? Further, who cares, she's a lunatic talking to herself."

"(Insert boss' name here), what do you want from my life?"(Said twice directly to her boss and another time while her boss was about 12 miles away from the office.)
- Oh pick me, pick me (waiving arm in the air emphatically, like a 3rd grader eager to impress the teacher...I know the answer!)

FOR YOU TO DO YOUR JOB, JACKASS! That was an easy one...

And one other thing:

Let's say you're going to sneeze. Many people will grab for a tissue or sneeze into their hands (hopefully to be followed by cleansing with soap and water) to avoid contaminating others.

Let's say her sneeze really is as loud and obnoxious as she makes it (although I'm not buying it. It is too forced and vocalized). Well anyway, I have quit saying "bless you." I know that might sound drastic and even a little mean. I promise that once she starts sneezing like a normal person AND covers her mouth, I will reinstate my bless you's.

I really think I'm losing it. I'm now passive-agressively not saying bless you after she sneezes.

It's time I learn the serenity prayer.

"Do you really have to ask?" Or "Are you really considering it?"

Okay, so let's say it's lunch time and you bring something that requires salad dressing but you didn't bring any. After rummaging through the office mini-fridge, you find some salad dressing. At this point, the story differs on whether it had already been opened or not. But I really don't think it matters either way.

So Velma comes to me and said, "If this salad dressing hasn't been opened yet, but it says best flavor by April 26, 2006, would you still eat it?"

APRIL 24, 2006 Seriously? Seriously?

After secretly conferring with my office mates (none of whom would have considered eating it), there is some debate on whether or not it had already been opened. But does it really matter? I think the answer should be "Of course I would NOT eat it!"

So that was yesterday and she's still alive and kicking and I haven't heard any stories of becoming violently ill last night. But it's just disgusting! Think of the ingrediants in salad dressing...oil, egg, I don't know what else but lots of stuff that can go completely rancid! I really don't care if it's been factory sealed or previously frozen: YOU DON'T EAT ANYTHING THAT EXPIRED OVER 3 YEARS AGO. EVER.

So Velma has eaten some other gross things and sometimes she eats things that aren't gross but become gross because of how she eats it.

For example: She eats most things with her hands. But it's the way she holds it.

Hard-Boiled Egg: She holds like a 3-year-old would hold an ice cream cone.. Is that really necessary?

Oscar Meyer Overly-Processed Sandwich Ham: Again, she holds like a 3-year-old would hold an ice cream cone. So you know that cheap lunch meat, particularly ham, that has all that weird slimy gelatinous stuff on it? Now imagine rolling it up and holding it tightly in your fist. It is the most disgusting thing to witness.

She basically just chows down out of her hand that is tightly gripping any type of food product.

THERAPY...

So something happened this morning that reminded me of an event that happened in our office a few years back. Even though the event is not recent it is still worthy of telling as it will give readers a very clear insight as to the insanity of this office. Oh, yeah, and that THE BOSS never, never learns from their mistakes.

A few years back we had another co-worker here, we will call her Manhater, for lack of a better name. Now this woman is very difficult to describe and I honestly won't waste too much time on her as she is no longer with the company. Suffice it to say she HATED men. Yes, tragically she was abused in many ways throughout many relationships, but she never learned to move on and blamed EVERYONE around her for the problems in her life. EVERYONE. Even people she didn't know. I became a "victim" of this blame.

Not long after we became co-workers she began making little comments about me. Nothing that I gave a CRAP about mind you, but after about 20/day they did begin to get a little annoying. Stupid stuff like I could do nothing wrong because our boss loves me so it didn't matter what I did all day (at this time I actually CARED about my job and did do SOME work), that I was too boisterous to be real, that too many people thought I was cute and that would bite me in the ass. Really just stupid comments that no one who was sane would give a crap about. Then more and more creepy stuff started to happen. She made strange comments about things I would do after work and the such. Things NO ONE in the office would know. This started my weirdness radar going off. By this point she was always yelling at me, telling me I reminded her of a man, telling me I was too loud for my own good, etc. Now for those of you who know me, yes I AM boisterous, and outgoing, and even quite loud sometimes, but I HONESTLY have NEVER been told that I reminded someone of a MAN!!! This (because she hates men so much) along with the creepy feeling I was getting from her prompted me to turn in my notice to quit.

When I gave my boss my notice, he begged of me to stay. I told him I could not take the tension anymore and I really felt it was best to move on. So, he then asked me to give it another try and he would bring in a psychologist to try to work out the group dynamic. Yes, you read that right...A PSYCHOLOGIST!!

In any event, I agree, because honestly WHAT could BE more entertaining?!?!?! So he calls a psychologist and hires her to come into the office. She begins by meeting with the staff one by one. This part was actually a bit fun and got me out of about an hour of work. Then the REAL fun began! She called us all into the conference room as a group! We each had to go around the table and tell her what we liked about our group and disliked. Manhater got to go first. Uh oh....She spoke, yelled and cried for over an hour ALL ABOUT ME!!! It had NOTHING to do with anything I had done to her personally and NOTHING to do with my job performance. She was upset that I was able to live in a nice house, have friends around me all the time, go to school, have a boyfriend (even though I was getting a divorce) and STILL be relatively pretty. She said she felt that God was unfair to her by putting her in close contact with someone like me. She said I was too self confident and outspoken to be a woman and that I was actually more of a MAN in her eyes and she was AFRAID to work with me!! I seriously started busting out laughing by this point. Of course that didn't help. She continued on her tirade, but the entire time I started getting the uneasy feeling that she had been following me after work. She was ranting about the GYM I go to, the RESTAURANT I had eaten at a few nights back, where my KIDS were at the time I was out at the gym and so on. This is when I saw the therapists eyes widen a bit. The therapist then addressed me briefly and asked why I felt it was necessary to inform the office of my private life. I, in complete disbelief, didn't know what to say. If I recall correctly I stuttered "ummmm...I don't". The therapist then confirmed this with the rest of my co-workers who were sitting with dumbstruck looks on their faces.

Finally the therapist turns to Manhater and asks her exactly what she felt needed to happen in order for us to be able to work together. I will never forget her exact words. She said "Nothing. If I can't be like her, then she should not be allowed to be her."

The therapist then made some notes and moved on around our co-workers. All of us had basically nothing to say by this point.

After the meeting, the therapist met with THE BOSS. He then comes out and the therapist says good-bye. THE BOSS then calls me into his office to talk to me. I'm thinking THANK GOD!! He's going to let me quit in PEACE now. Instead he tells me that the therapist has informed him that she truly believes Manhater was a textbook stalker and that she would most likely escalate to violence if we continued working together. He then told me that he was going to fire Manhater and it would be best done if no one was in the office at the time. He then hired a private security guard to accompany him to the office the next morning and no one else was here. He fired her and she took her stuff and went on her merry little way.

This was several years ago and we all still laugh about it and tell others. NO ONE can believe that our office actually needed a THERAPIST to be brought in or that THE BOSS actually did it.

Now, the point of this long background post is this, apparently THE BOSS never learns. We now have a co-worker who is escalating her anger to the point that NONE of us want to be around her. She YELLS at THE BOSS, yells at the worker sitting across from her, yells at clients, yells at the ceiling (seriously) and threatens to quit on an HOURLY basis. It used to be daily, but now it is HOURLY.

We all just wonder how long it will go on before ANOTHER therapist is called in!!

I TOLD YOU SHE WAS A BOX OF ROCKS...

We work in a fairly professional office. We have millionaire clients who pay out the nose for our sound advice and probably expect some sort or professionalism coming out of the office. Today I went over to JELLO's desk and found this letter for THE BOSS to sign:

Dear Client: (She used the actual name)

Congratulations! Your invoice is enclosed. Please remit payment directly to (our firm and address here).

This was all the letter consisted of outside of a place for THE BOSS to sign. Can she be serious?!?!? Could you imagine receiving a water bill that said "Congratulations! You owe us money! Now pay it please!" Good grief! I would throw a letter like that away just to spite the company.

Box of rocks...and I work with her...(hanging head in shame)...

FIRE ALARM SIGN

Ok, so my fellow blogger brought this sign to my attention. This sign was recently put up in our office building. Does anyone find this as funny as we do?

Seriously if you need a DETAILED description of a fire alarm you probably should not be working in any kind of office building.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Ok, so for anyone to follow this blog well I feel I should introduce you to the cast of characters in our office. I will be using pseudonyms to protect the innocent and the completely bitchy. For those of you who have worked IN this office will know immediately who I am talking about.

VELMA: Velma for lack of a better physical description is as wide as she is short, strange haircut, hates men-but I do not believe she is gay (She isn't that cool). She is possibly asexual (this is something I should contemplate further). Velma does not like when anyone around her is happy in their relationships and will not hesitate to let you know. She is emotionally unbalanced. I'm uncertain as to whether she is bipolar or just severely depressed (she has manic states though so I'm leaning towards bipolar). She literally hates everything and everyone. She screams and argues with her boss and no one can understand why or how she gets away with it. And, it's quite possible she has an inappropriate relationship with her dog (this is a long story). Finally, she wears only purple, her entire house is purple (including but not limited to walls, carpet, drapes & furniture) and all of her office supplies are purple (pens, paper, post-its, coffee cup, even background color of her turbo notes). No, I'm NOT exaggerating.

JELLO: No, unfortunately the next character has not earned this name as a term of endearment, but rather because she wiggles around the office all day as if she is the Queen. This woman will be the subject of MANY posts as she is by far one of the most annoying characters in the office. She honestly believes she is everyone's boss, but unfortunately she has neither the brains nor balls to back it up. She is quite honestly one of the dimmest people I have ever met and I do not like to call my fellow women dim, but seriously the woman is a box of rocks. She constantly tries to get others in the office in trouble and whenever she is around I feel like I am in Kindergarten. She is a closet alcoholic and lives with her husband and two cats.

STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE: This is our sweet woman in the office. She is literally one of the nicest people you will ever meet! She refuses to say a bad word about anyone and even when Jello tries to throw us under the bus she tries to make excuses for her. SS is one person in the office that I truly like. She also will catch you offguard because every now and then a burst of personality will come from her...shocking us all.

THE BOSSES: There are three of these. They are all related. We will just call them Boss. They are all basically the same exact person. At least all of our complaints about them tend to be remarkably similar.

FINALLY the Bloggers: We are quite honestly the only completely sane people in the office. We are sane because we can freely admit that we have insane moments and because we are who we are. We tend to be a bit bitchy, but at the end of the day we know our jobs and do them well. This is probably why we complain so much about those that don't.

I sincerely hope this will help you follow our day to day postings about the craziness in the office.

How Expensive can Sponges BE?!?!?!?

Ok, for the first OFFICIAL post I will start with a minor pet peeve of ours. We have ONE co-worker who we dearly like. She is the sweetest woman who REFUSES to talk ill of ANYONE most of the time. That being said she is also VERY frugal! This is all fine and dandy at your own home, but when at work, and the boss is footing the bill, I think it is OKAY to be a bit extravagant. Case in point: SPONGES. We each have one day that we have to take care of the kitchen, cleaning dishes, making coffee and so on. In order to complete this task we have taken to using sponges...at one point we only were allowed to use paper towels, but that's a WHOLE other post entirely. I do the office supply ordering and ordered a few packages of sponges. They cost a whole $1.20/package of 4 (I feel this is a very important point).

This is how many sponges we have:






And this is what our sponges NOW look like:






For a comparison:







This dearly liked co-worker of ours has taken to CUTTING the sponges to save money...not her money...OFFICE money. Now, I would be all good with this if perhaps I had seen an increase in my salary from all of the saved money, but ALAS, I have not.



Now, I must ask...SERIOUSLY, HOW EXPENSIVE ARE SPONGES REALLY?!?!?



I also must add that ONE of us bloggers now refuses to do any dishes until the sponge situation is resolved. I will refrain from saying which one.