Your annoying co-worker

[VectorWega]

We have a guy that talks and talks and talks. He is extremely smart and knows his work and can talk about it forever. Just when you think he is done talking about work, he changes the topic to something completely irrelevant (like his son). He can then talk about that for hours and hours.

If you try to walk away, he will follow you down the hall! It's quite amazing really. If someone is cornered at their desk, we will "save them" by calling their phone and disrupting the conversation so that the guy leaves.

He is a nice guy though and gets his work done (hard to get your own work done though when he's talking your head off )

[Google]

 

[veejer]

Originally Posted by applesauce

The worst was when he would yell (scream) my name from his office to mine so that I would come over there. Whenever he would "yell" my name, I would just ignore it. He would get louder and louder and louder, then finally curse and come storming to my office. He would ask, "didn't you here me calling you?!!" I would tell him the whole building heard him and I don't respond to tone of voice or behavior.

applesauce, this reminded me of the problem hepcat is having with her 4 1/2 year old daughter, discussed in the Oasis thread.

[Stargazer]

I had a annoying Supervisor once. She was the front desk manager at the hotel where I worked and she was intimidated because I had been a front desk manager at my previous job. She came into work drunk a few times, took credit for work that I had done, and scheduled me to work when I specifically asked to have off (among a million other things). She was always trying to make me look bad because she was SO horrible at her job, she was afraid I would steal it out from under her. She was nuts because I hated that job when *I* had done it and had no desire to do it again. Anyway, everyone knew that she wanted to be promoted up to the sales office. She talked about it all the time. Well, I never "stole" her job, but I did get promoted above her into the job that she had wanted. She used to tell people that she didn't care how long it took, she was going to get me fired. That she had been there long before I got there and she would be there long after I left.

After I was working as the event planner in the sales office, she insisted that we needed to have weekly meetings. They were a ridiculous waste of time and should have been something we could accomplish in a five minute chat. Instead, she would use it as an excuse to sit in my board room smoking and goofing off. It would take me hours to get rid of her. Then one day, I had a vase of stargazer lillies on my desk when she came into my office. She immediately started sneezing and coughing and said that the smell of them made her sick. So, after that, I kept stargazers on my desk and in my board room for the rest of the time she worked there. She cancelled the weekly meetings after a month of the stargazer treatment and just started sending me memos with the information I needed. The $15 a week was WELL worth it.

I was there a year and a half after SHE was fired, btw. So sometimes they do get what they deserve.

[charlottej]

Stargazer, you have given me fresh hope, and a renewed reason for living. For this, I am grateful.

[famita]

Nancy, I know about those nuns. Let's share some wonderful stories! I'll start:
I had worked parttime for a convent and had been telling them that I had to quit. I was going full time on another job. Well, they kept telling me to wait another couple of weeks. One of them had found a mistake from 7 months prior one day and tearfully told me she was going to have to let me go.(They had found a replacement). I thanked her, got up to leave, and danced the jig out to my car. I have since learned how to say no!

[Paulie]

Originally Posted by hepcat

She replied that she was in a bad mood because her boyfriend made her wear a red wig the night before and beat her but she didn't want to break up with him because he paid her rent. The conversational equivalent of zero to sixty in nothing flat.

Holy cow, hep! That's hilarious. Sounds like a sixty to ZERO conversation-killer, though. I mean, most folks can't respond with the trusty, "Boy, I know how THAT is!" in that situation.

I gave the code name "Bob" to my annoying co-worker so I could discuss her whenever I chose. She was mean, spiteful, lazy, and conniving. She always tried to bring me down because everyone liked me and hated her. That just made her look worse. Which was a real task, BTW. She was what you'd call physically unattractive, if you wanted to be diplomatic about it.

[roseskid]

Originally Posted by Paulie

Holy cow, hep! That's hilarious. Sounds like a sixty to ZERO conversation-killer, though. I mean, most folks can't respond with the trusty, "Boy, I know how THAT is!" in that situation.

Paulie, you always make me laugh.

I worked for a man (Pat) years ago who I think currently would be diagnosed as bi-polar. He had a PhD in computer science, and owned the company. He was brilliant, but he was so unstable emotionally. He could be playing Queen in his office, playing drums (full set in his office) along with the music one minute, then suddenly stop, and start running down the hall screaming angrily that he didn't have sharp points on his pencils, and whose fault was it. A gal tried to help him get organized, and when he realized she had used those green hanging folders, he began yanking them out of the drawers, flinging them around the office, screaming, "I HATE HANGING FOLDERS!" We had a standing blanket order for chairs and doors, since he would throw the chairs at the doors in anger, of course, breaking both. I am not joking, this is real stuff. Most of the people who worked there were paid extremely well, and the company cars were Jaguars, so most people put up with his antics. I was the accountant, and saw the outrageous salaries and bonuses that we all got, and I think most of us felt it was worth it. He NEVER messed with me, possibly because I had all the 'inside info' , so it was never more than some form of entertainment for me. We were all out to lunch one day (there were about 20 of us), and he was trying to tell a story. His female 'assistant' kept interrupting him, and he was actually being uncharacteristically patient with her. She did it one more time, and he calmly picked up the drink in his hand (at a restaurant, mind you), and slowly poured the entire contents over her head. We sat there stunned. It became even odder when she very matter-of-factly starting blotting it up with her napkin. She was crazy, too, though. She actually came to work one day wearing two completely different shoes.....I kid you not. One lower-heeled white one, and one higher-heeled tan one. How do you do that? I always felt as a child Pat probably threw some pretty good temper tantrums that must have worked very well. BTW, he had been married about 30 years at the time, and the year I worked there, he bought her an official doctor-office-type scale for Christmas. Man, what I would have given to be a fly on the wall to have seen her face when she opened that present. There are many more stories about him, but I'll spare you. Fortunately for me, I only lasted about a year, then moved on.

[charlottej]

Originally Posted by roseskid

Paulie, you always make me laugh.

I worked for a man (Pat) years ago who I think currently would be diagnosed as bi-polar. He had a PhD in computer science, and owned the company. He was brilliant, but he was so unstable emotionally. He could be playing Queen in his office, playing drums (full set in his office) along with the music one minute, then suddenly stop, and start running down the hall screaming angrily that he didn't have sharp points on his pencils, and whose fault was it. A gal tried to help him get organized, and when he realized she had used those green hanging folders, he began yanking them out of the drawers, flinging them around the office, screaming, "I HATE HANGING FOLDERS!" We had a standing blanket order for chairs and doors, since he would throw the chairs at the doors in anger, of course, breaking both. I am not joking, this is real stuff. Most of the people who worked there were paid extremely well, and the company cars were Jaguars, so most people put up with his antics. I was the accountant, and saw the outrageous salaries and bonuses that we all got, and I think most of us felt it was worth it. He NEVER messed with me, possibly because I had all the 'inside info' , so it was never more than some form of entertainment for me. We were all out to lunch one day (there were about 20 of us), and he was trying to tell a story. His female 'assistant' kept interrupting him, and he was actually being uncharacteristically patient with her. She did it one more time, and he calmly picked up the drink in his hand (at a restaurant, mind you), and slowly poured the entire contents over her head. We sat there stunned. It became even odder when she very matter-of-factly starting blotting it up with her napkin. She was crazy, too, though. She actually came to work one day wearing two completely different shoes.....I kid you not. One lower-heeled white one, and one higher-heeled tan one. How do you do that? I always felt as a child Pat probably threw some pretty good temper tantrums that must have worked very well. BTW, he had been married about 30 years at the time, and the year I worked there, he bought her an official doctor-office-type scale for Christmas. Man, what I would have given to be a fly on the wall to have seen her face when she opened that present. There are many more stories about him, but I'll spare you. Fortunately for me, I only lasted about a year, then moved on.

Holy Toledo, Roseskid!! That is hilarious. We must be kindred spirits, working in accounting. (Although I am not an accountant, I am in the accounting department....big $$$ difference.)

[roseskid]

Originally Posted by charlottej

Holy Toledo, Roseskid!! That is hilarious. We must be kindred spirits, working in accounting. (Although I am not an accountant, I am in the accounting department....big $$$ difference.)

I recall you saying something about accountants a while ago, right? ITA with you. I always wondered how in the world I ended up in this career. Most accountants I know are a big . So, it's nice to know there are a few of us who have some life in us.

Yes, Pat was the himself.

[speedbump]

This thread is freakin hilarious. I've had some annoying co-workers, but I couldn't do the justice in describing them as all of you had done.