A few weeks ago some friends and I were at happy hour and the subject of bad office behavior came up, so we began swapping stories. Working in cubicle "farms" is, sadly, sometimes rather accurate. I don't know whether it's a lack of respect for oneself or others, mental illness, or just not giving a good hot damn, but you can bet that in every office/work environment there's that (at least) one person who acts like an animal, and just does shit that makes you go "Ok, really?!"....
Justin brought up his retirement-aged female cube mate who had no qualms taking off her shoes and socks and giving herself a pedicure right at her desk. Yep, she'd bust out the toenail clippers and go to town, pinging those hoof clippings all over, without a care in the world. I'm surprised Justin never lost an eye.
Which brought me to a guy who sits 3 cubes down in my row who twice weekly trims all ten of his huge, thick fingernails, and leaves the trimmings on his desk for an undetermined amount of time. This guy's also a talker and will tell you all of his family's personal business. Over and over and over. You don't even have to ask, just make eye contact. Which I don't.
Tom reminded us all of the elderly gentleman on his team who within his first week of working, tried to pinch Tom's belly as if Tom were his 3 yr old grandson. The old fart almost got his eye blackened. Much to his displeasure, we still tease Tom about nearly being molested at work. But ya know, that's how we roll - one mans traumatic incident is another mans punch line.
I was reminded of a guy my friend Brian used to work with. This guy was so dirty and smelled so bad, Brian would email us daily about Pig Pen's current stench level. His lack of hygiene, combined with his extraordinary incompetence, infuriated Brain almost to the point of murder, which is probably why we all got daily emails - Brian had to diffuse his anger somehow. Mr. Stinky has no idea how close he came to death.
As we were all swapping our stories, howling and commiserating, my friend Jeff chimed in and said he had a story to beat us all. Now, Jeff doesn't work in an office environment, but more of an industrial environment - the company he works for makes display cabinetry for what I call my "shiny stores" like Victoria's Secret, Este Lauder, Ulta, etc.. - so we were curious what tales he had to share. Surely nothing could be worse than what we've experienced, right?
Wrong. Oh so very, very wrong.
Jeff explained that he has a guy at his work who chews tobacco. And? Spits the "juice" on the floor. Spits. It. On. The. Floor!
Oh but wait, there's more! The spitter's work station is carpeted. So it's absorbing all of his tobacco spit!!!
I think we had a moment of stunned silence.
Never again will I complain about hearing the sickening snap of nail clippers at work, or the smell of ass caused by some one heating up sauerkraut in the office microwave. You win, Jeff. You. Win.
