Office Weirdos

Most of the weird happenings of an office setting have been exaggerated and made fun of on “The Office” or in “Office Space”, but the incredibly scary part of it all is how close to true most of those characters are.  The other day I was at work wondering if all offices were as weird as mine, or if I was just deemed “special” at some point and granted the privilege of working with such remarkable people.  I came to the conclusion that the workplace is truly a cross section of society – but you just notice stupidity and incompetence in more detail because, face it, you would never associate with these people in real life long enough to get to know them.  You’re just forced into a 6x10 cube and asked to somehow mesh with these people. 

It’s the ultimate twisted anthropology experiment, and most of us spend over 50% of our waking hours with these crazy SOBs – more than our own families!  So if you’re going to spend so much time with them, you might as well get to know them.  But seeing how we’ve already established that the office is just a cross section of society, these can apply to anyone you encounter in your everyday life.  You’re just lucky enough to have the privilege of actually getting to know them more:

The “Way Too Happy to Be at Work” Person – this person is usually the first in the office and already two cups of coffee deep by the time you get to your desk.  Similar to Medusa, eye contact with this person may reduce you to a puddle of goo.  This is why on your way to the coffee pot for that all important cup number one, you look straight to the ground and count the carpet fibers as you pass his/her desk.  Of course it usually doesn’t help.  Not only will that son (or daughter) of a bitch still give you a hearty “HAPPY MONDAY!” but they’ll decide it would be a good idea to accompany you to the kitchen for that first cup.  The conversation will usually go something like this:

Crazy Coworker: “So, what did you do this weekend?”

You:  “Nothing.”

Crazy Coworker:  “Awesome!  Well on Friday I went home and made my wife a beautiful dinner and then we played Yahtzee with Hank Mardukis and his wife Yolanda for hours on end…We got a LITTLE CRAZY and finished a bottle of wine between the four of us so around 9:00 it was time to pack it in and call it a night…On Saturday we took the kids over to the pumpkin patch and little Joey got his picture taken with a pumpkin that was the runner up for biggest pumpkin at the county fair two years ago – real big moment for us…I spent the afternoon working on the new caboose for my model train set…On Saturdays we like to treat ourselves to a nice night out, so we splurged a bit and went to Swiss Chalet for dinner, and followed it up by checking out the new Billy Crystal movie…Sunday was a lazy day for us – we spent the day watching a marathon of Antiques Road Show and baked all different types of cookies.”

If you made it all the way through that story without zoning out, this lunatic will probably ask you again what you did this weekend, forgetting that you started off the conversation by keeping this information to yourself.  Imagine the look of terror on their face if you told them what you really did this weekend – got blind drunk, stayed out until 4am, and went home with a fat girl, only to wake up the next day at 2pm, watch porn, and eat Cheez Doodles all god damn day while watching a Rocky movie marathon.  Who knows, maybe a story like that would keep that nosy bastard at bay.

The “Dieter” – always the fattest person in the office, but sure to let you know they are on a diet at all times.  When the birthday cake comes out they exclaim “OMG Calories!  I can’t eat that I’ll blow up like a balloon!”  Well guess what waste-of-life, you’re already as big as the damn Hindenberg, so I don’t think another thousand calories will hurt.  After the other fat bitches in the office urge her on, she decides, “Okay, okay, just ONE little piece…ooo I’m being BAD today!!!” and walks back to her desk with a slice of cake resembling a giant wedge of cheese from a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

Apparently The Dieter didn’t realize that there is only one meal during the workday either.  Their meal schedule usually consists of some monstrous sausage sandwich for breakfast, and as an afternoon snack, a bucket full of chocolate covered pretzels.  It’s all okay though, since they go with a “light” lunch in the middle – a nice salad!  Well, guess what, fattie?  It’s cheating if you throw six cut up BBQ chicken fingers and a gallon of blue cheese on that salad.  If this pig is eating like this in public, imagine how much time elapses between the time they get home and before they’re on the couch, two knuckles deep in a jar of Nutella.

The Proud Mother – ah yes…pretend to be interested in pictures of her ugly alien baby lying in a crib.  Even if you manage to avoid the constant picture exhibition and cell phone videos, you’ll still be forced to overhear the same story of the baby waking up and crying in the middle of the night because there’s an ear infection going around while it’s told to six different people by lunchtime.  The amount of child pictures in Proud Mother’s cube borders on pedophilia.  She also seems to be constantly breeding in order to use the maternity leave to its full benefit. 

Proud Mother has also mastered the art of using the child as a crutch for time off.  At least one Monday a month you get, “Thurman is sick with the chicken pox!  I need to stay home!”  Meanwhile that dirty liar is probably running around the mall going shopping while the kid is as healthy as can be drooling all over some crayons at day care.  There also always seems to be an emergency at 2:00 on a Friday afternoon – “I need to leave early!  The day care center is on fire!”  No one ever second guesses Proud Mother’s time away from the office either.  She’s like Gandhi – completely immune from criticism.

The Creepster – Usually a guy in his late 30s-early 40s, single, and incredibly smelly.  I always picture Creepster’s apartment looking like Ray Finkel’s attic from Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.   Blood on the walls, an old tv just playing static, and garbage everywhere.  His desk at work isn’t much different.  There may be a dozen coffee mugs growing mold because he’s too lazy to bring a few home and clean them, and maybe some dirty socks hanging out under his desk from that time he showered in the bathroom sink.  Speaking of the bathroom, he also likes to spend 20-30 minutes on the bowl, two to three separate times a day, while the other males in the office are left in horror as they walk into the bathroom to witness sounds and smells similar to the scene in Jurassic Park when they’re helping that injured, moaning Triceratops lying next to that 6 foot high pile of dinosaur shit.

Even though The Creepster is left out of invites to office happy hours, he still manages to sniff them out and hide in the corner staring at people.  The women in the office are terrified of him.  One of the only times of the year he will engage in conversation is the day before Valentine’s Day, when he will ask the women of the office if they have any plans.  This effort to catch some desperate, pathetic tail usually doesn’t work, so the women are left in fear staring into their rear view mirrors on the drive home hoping The Creepster isn’t following them.

Of course there are many more office characters, but I’ll stop here.  Do you have any you’d like to add?  Feel free to post them below.

The Supermarket

Nothing ruins your weekend more than a trip to the supermarket.  I don't know about you, but I don't wake up thinking, "I can't wait to go to a place with loud noises, smelly human beings, and lobsters swimming in a tank awaiting death!  Oh, and I forgot the best part!  I get to hand them $150 at the end of it all for the pleasure of doing so!"  Sure, you get food in exchange for that money, but most of it will just sit in your pantry for about three years anyway.  I've had a can of Bush's Baked Beans in my cupboard since I've moved in.  It's not that I don't like baked beans...I actually enjoy them very much.  The problem is, I don't even have a damn can opener.  In my retarded logic it is much easier to simply buy cans with the pop top than actually spring for a can opener.  Yes, I am this lazy.

The Supermarket War starts as soon as you enter the parking lot.  Just as countries try to establish rally points during a war, people parking their car at the supermarket need to find a spot as close as possible.  God forbid the morbidly obese people of America get an extra 20 feet worth of exercise.  There are idiots in this world who will pass up a parking spot for one that is literally four spots closer, even if it means waiting for someone to unload their entire cart of groceries, and a baby, into the car.  Forget the fact that this ceases all activity around them.  These assholes will hold up all traffic in and out of this specific aisle just for the satisfaction of getting the better spot.  I won't even get into the asinine battles that take place for a specific parking spot; the Mexican Standoffs between two morons for the feeling of supremacy that only a true douchebag would savor.  I usually park further away to avoid all of this bullshit.  I enjoy that extra 20 feet of exercise.  In my warped universe of zero care towards physical fitness, this is the equivalent of a half hour on the treadmill. 

The best way to describe food shopping is like an adult version of bumper cars, except that all of the adults are zombies or assholes. I've noticed that there are a few different categories of grocery shoppers:

The Old People:  These geriatrics insist on slowing everyone else in the place down to a halt.  Whether it's knocking on a cantaloupe, meticulously checking every egg in a carton, or touching every banana immediately after blowing their nose into their disgusting handkerchief, old people are in the supermarket simply to make your life miserable.  I haven't even mentioned those in the scooter-cart things that like to park perpendicular across the aisle, stopping all thru traffic, while they weigh the differences between brand name prune juice and generic prune juice.  And don't count the fatasses that use these carts simply because their fat.  Old people need these because they are old.  Fat people need these because they are fucking lazy and have no self esteem or desire to better their lives.  Being fat is fine...I actually dig the people that are fat and just don't give a damn because they just love food, but at least have the decency to walk upright like the rest of us human beings.

The Young Couple:  This usually is a pair of twenty-somethings that are still in the early stages of puppy love and just going through the trials and tribulations of living together.  Sometimes they even hold hands while perusing the deli counter.  "Look at us!  We're so cute shopping together!"  This makes me sick.  What pisses me off even more is when there is some incredibly hot chick shopping while her boyfriend follows behind with this look on his face like he is in the 7th stage of hell.  Dude, at least you're going home with that hot chick.  I'm a single guy pushing a cart around filled with Hot Pockets, Hamburger Helper, and beer.  Suck it up, douchebag...life isn't so bad.

The 40-Something Mom:  Truly the champion of grocery shopping.  While dad is home watching the kids and trying to watch football at the same time, this warrior is methodically working her way through the aisles cutting down any and all in her way.  Taking your time to decide whether to buy Heinz or Hunt's ketchup?  Mom doesn't give a shit.  She'll hip check you out of the way, grab the family size Heinz with one hand and a bottle of mustard with the other.  By the time you've even realized what's happened, she's already grabbed 17 cans of tomato puree and a few cans of tomato paste for good measure.  If this woman happens to be a MILF, this is strangely sort of a turn on.  If the apocalypse ever hits, I am paying a 41 year old mom to be Sacajawea to my Lewis and Clark as we traverse the dangerous rapids of the supermarket.

The Stoner:  This guy just enjoyed a wake and bake, and before he sinks into the sofa to watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force DVDs all day, he decided he better stock up on some munchies.  No cart needed, a basket will be sufficient to load up on as much beef jerky, candy bars, and mozzarella sticks as possible.  This guy usually wears a hat to try to hide his bloodshot eyes, but everyone except the old people know exactly what's going on.  Sometimes you will find The Stoner lost in the bulk foods section, trying to decide between pistachios and whoppers.

The Single Guy/Single Girl:  I lump these together, only because they are exact opposites.  Single Girl will spend most of her time in the produce section, or the organic food aisles.  She is focused on eating healthy and having snacks to eat before she goes to the gym, as she concentrates on keeping her looks up to attract a wealthy man that will support her for the rest of her life.  Single Guy, however, can be found in the meat section, or frozen foods.  His cart is an embarrassing display of total disregard for personal health.  Single Guy can sometimes be found in the produce section, but only to peruse the Single Girls that are there.  He may buy some romaine lettuce or fresh green beans, which will sit in his fridge until they go bad.  Single Guy usually fantasizes about randomly going up to Single Girl and chatting about produce or favorite recipes, before Single Girl finds his charm irresistible.  Shortly after, Single Guy wakes up, grabs another box of Easy Mac, and goes on his way.

There are plenty of other species of shoppers, but I won't take the time to mention them all.  If you have one, feel free to mention them in the comments below.

The last obstacle before you're home free is the most difficult one - the checkout.  If you've managed to make your way through your shopping experience without any human contact, first of all congratulations.  However, the bad news is, you will now be forced to exchange pleasantries with some pimply faced teen, or a 78 year old woman as your cashier.  If you've managed to strategically pick the correct lane, you now have to get all your shit on the conveyor belt.  You know, the shit you've taken an hour to load into your cart.  It all comes out, just so the cashier can put it back in again, so then you can take it out and put it into your car, which you then take out of your car and bring into your house, which you then take out of the bags and load into your kitchen.  First though, you have another run in with the 40 year old mom, who is in front of you and keeping a watch on you from the corner of her eye.  If you don't throw down that plastic divider before putting your shit on the belt, you better believe she'll slap it down as fast as possible.  No way she is letting you steal her Honey Nut Cheerios...that shit is little Lucy's favorite cereal and she'd rather smash your skull against the candy shelf than show up at home to discover Lucy crying because she forgot the Cheerios.

If you're smart enough to use a credit card and avoid coupons, you may be able to make it past the cashier without even having to say a word.  The only thing standing in your way are the people at the instant lottery machine, blocking the exit.  These are the semi-homeless people who have just cashed their welfare check at the customer service desk and will now proceed to pump all of it into $60 worth of scratch offs, of which five of them will be dollar winners.  If you manage to dodge them and ignore the stench of the can/bottle return machines on your way out, you now only need to navigate some asshole camped out for a parking spot before you victoriously reach your car.

Once you manage to get your $150 worth of crap into your trunk and get on the open road, take a deep breath.  You have survived one of the most brutal tests we have as humans.  Savor those groceries as long as you can, because in a couple more weeks, you're headed back to the battlefield.

Shit, I love grocery shopping.

I'll be back with a new post as soon as I think of something new to bitch about.  For now, gotta run...I need to make some Hamburger Helper.

The Dentist

Nothing is more random and inconvenient than your bi-yearly trips to the dentist.  Since we are too primitive to figure out how to correctly brush or floss ourselves, each of us (unless you're incredibly poor and don't have dental coverage) subject ourselves to a stranger shoving foreign objects and minty (aka disgusting) paste into our mouths twice a year.  Since a trip to the dentist usually takes away valuable time I use to sit on my ass and watch tv, I have become somewhat of a pro over the years when it comes to prepping myself for the visit, in an attempt to make it as fast as possible.

First of course, you have to brush your teeth BEFORE your visit.  I know, this makes absolutely NO sense at all since you're headed in to get a mega cleaning anyway, but you know you do it.  I remember one time I forgot to do the pre-brush, and that was the day I was told my oral hygiene was declining.  What an embarrassing moment.  Getting scolded for being some dirty loser who doesn't know how to correctly brush is a pretty low moment.  Of course, after my pre-brush, I pull out the floss and go to town.  This is usually hard, since I search for the floss for about 15-20 minutes, after all, THIS IS ONE OF ONLY TWO TIMES I FLOSS ALL YEAR.  Eventually, in the back of the drawer, I find the dusty floss sample I was given on my last visit, and awkwardly attempt to get the job done.  I have always sucked at flossing...never truly figured it out.  I just can't seem to master wrapping the shit around my finger and simultaneously sliding it between my teeth, trying to avoid cutting the shit out of my gums.  Sometimes I'll brush a second time after the floss, especially if I anticipate getting the hot, thirty-something mom assistant as my cleaner for the day.  God forbid I let that hot little siren down...

So you finally get to the dentist.  First, you check in with the receptionist.  This woman always seems to remember your name, even though she only sees you twice a year and sees countless people walk in and out of that house of pain every day.  After some awkward small talk, you eventually retire to the waiting room to pick out the issue of TIME that seems to be the most current (within the last year) and simultaneously looks like it has the least traces of human germs all over it.  Did you ever think about how unsanitary those magazines are, for such a sanitary place?  The doctor's office is even worse.  Don't touch a damn thing in that place.  I swear, there is feces, blood, and mucous all over everything.

There's always that creepy old lady that stares at you in the waiting room too.  God knows how long she has been sitting there waiting for her husband while they replace every damn tooth in his skull.  The amazing part, she is doing absolutely nothing to occupy herself.  No magazine, no knitting, no snack...NOTHING.  Her hobby is to just stare at you, since after all, you obviously remind her of her grandson, who is now in prison serving 5-10 for breaking and entering...but he is such a good boy!!

Mercifully, your dental hygienist comes to call your name, right before the old bag's evil eyes melt you to death.  And wouldn't you know it, you get the hot one!  Jackpot!!  Okay...she's not actually hot at all, and a little bit old, but considering what you have to work with in the dentist's office, she'll have to do.  I might be the only person that feels this special connection with my dental hygienist...maybe I am a sick person, but truthfully I think I'm just an average guy with a man's brain.  After all, how many people in your life have you let shove their hands in your mouth at will?  That is a truly special bond.  Maybe it's the way she asks me to turn my head "a bit to the left" or to "open wide"...but wait, no, "close halfway".  There must be some type of code in there she is trying to communicate to me with, letting me know how she wants to run away to Rio de Janeiro with me.  After all, I am obviously the most obedient and attractive patient she has ever had...

Now you make it into the room.  On my trip, I manage to avoid the x-ray, which can be best described as trying to fit a baseball card in your mouth while trying to avoid gashing up your gums.  On this trip, it's straight to step two, which I call Captain Hook.  Yes...this is the magic metal tool that is no more than a small, sharp hook.  When used correctly, it can chip away plaque you've been building up for the past six months, with ease.  If you get the old hygienist with the thick glasses and shaky hands, it can turn into a deadly weapon leaving your mouth looking like an Andrew WK album cover (look it up).  My question is, if this hook works so well, why don't we have one in our own bathroom?  It's like dentists have a corner on the market.  All that your health insurance is paying for is the right to get the Captain Hook treatment twice a year.  After all, the polisher is basically a glorified electric toothbrush, and floss is just some fucking string.

So after your cleaning, you are then asked to wait a few minutes, or a few hours, for the dentist to come in and evaluate the job, since obviously the hygienist is not intelligent enough to notice if one of your teeth is rotting out of your mouth.  Recently, my primary dentist has changed.  The dentist I've had since I was five (we'll call him Dr. Awesome) is getting old and cutting back his hours.  Dr. Awesome always found a way to be the coolest guy on Earth.  When I was little, he'd give me all sorts of sweet ass stickers that I would promptly slap on EVERYTHING once I got home, never to be removed.  As I got older, we would talk about the Bills, and other random guy stuff.

So my new dentist is this little pudgy guy we'll call Dr. Sausage Fingers.  This guy has no personality at all.  His small talk on this visit involved some bullshit about how holiday stress makes people grind their teeth.  Well guess what douche, I really don't care.  Let's have some damn man-to-man time here.  Ask me about beer, or ultimate fighting or some shit.  On top of this, easily assumed by the name I assigned him, his short, pudgy fingers should have led him into any profession OTHER than being a freakin dentist.  When these things are shoved in your mouth you feel like you're Joey Chestnut scarfing down the last few hot dogs on the 4th of July.  Mercifully this only lasts a few seconds, and eventually I'm clutching my free tooth brush on my way out.

But first, time to make your next appointment.  "Okay...Mr. Williams...how does 5pm, Wednesday, August 20th, 2074 sound?"  Oh yeah...no problem...let me hop in my time machine and let you know, since I really have an idea of what I'll be doing that far into the freakin future.  I never save the damn card they give you anyway...I just wait for the courtesy call the day before.

Next thing I know, it's six months later.  I'm doin the pre-brush and spraying on some cologne for my baby girl hygienist, ready to do it all over again.  I love the dentist.

Christmas Shopping

Nothing is more demoralizing than Christmas shopping.  Every year, society asks us to leave our inhibitions at the door and head to the mall, with no idea of the shitstorm we are about to run into.  Every year I pray to God (ok, no I don't, since I don't believe in that, but let's pretend I do), that my dear family and friends will say to me, "Oh, BB, why don't you just buy something for yourself in my honor, and I will do the same?"  WOW!  What a genius idea that would be!  But instead, we're forced to buy gifts for our family and friends and fucking hope they'll like it enough.  If not, that's what they made gift receipts for I guess.

Speaking of which, the concept of a gift receipt is terrible to begin with.  You give someone a gift, and provide the receipt in case your taste sucks so bad that your gift is completely unacceptable.  But, the "gift receipt" doesn't show the price you paid.  Fantastic, so when Grandma decides the lingerie you got her just doesn't bring out her figure as well as she wanted, she can return it.  But guess what happens when Grams presents the gift receipt to the pimply-faced customer service rep at Target?  The asshole tells her EXACTLY how much it costs!!!  So now Grandma is taking your $26.00 and buying Depends and candles.  Christmas is so awesome.

I was at the mall this weekend, finishing (read: starting) my Christmas shopping.   Going to the mall on the weekend before Christmas is basically a death wish.  I would totally put on chain mail and carry one of those spiky-ball-on-a-chain things like Gimli in Lord of the Rings if it was acceptable by society.  Unfortunately, it's not, so I listened to "You're the Best", got pumped up, and headed to the mall.

I don't even try to fight for a parking spot at this time of year.  I'm a single asshole and I don't need to worry about dropping off my wife and kids at the door so they don't freeze to death.  My move is to head immediately for the parking garage and drive to the top level.  I'm out of shape anyway - that walk down the two flights of cement stairs is the best cardio I'll get until around April or so.

Once you walk into the doors of the mall, it is worse than any Halloween haunted house you will ever visit.  If you make your way through the disgusting Goth kids smoking cigarettes outside the door, you are immediately subjected to the "I-used-to-be-a-high-school-jock-but-now-I'm-a-Best-Buy-security-guard" dude.  This prick looks you in the eye and asks how you're doing...and you're forced to acknowledge him.  If you don't, you fear you'll be stripped down like some TSA screening.  Does this guy really think anyone is going to walk out of here with something like "Eat, Pray, Love" on blu ray?  Shit, the damn security alarm goes off pretty much every damn time someone walks through it and they just wave your ass on - "Go ahead!" - I could walk through with the codes for North Korea's nuclear weapons, and I don't think Mr. I-impregnated-my-prom-date-and-now-I'm-attempting-to-duck-child-support is going to stop me.

So I make it into the mall.  Now I'm dodging rednecks rubbing cologne samples on their body, and grandmas consulting stoned-out high school age employees on what the most popular sweatpants with "juicy" written on the ass would be the best for their granddaughters. Finding your way through the department store entrance is like some fucked up version of Pan's Labyrinth.  Next thing you know, you're stuck in the women's hosiery section trying not to get caught staring at the mannequins.   At this point, I'm already sweating between the balls (did I mention I'm overweight and lazy?) and wishing I left my jacket in the car.  However, just like the troops storming Normandy Beach, it's too late to turn back.  After dodging some screaming kids waiting for their mom to pick out a cheap sweater, and a dude in a Dale Earnhardt jacket helping his son pick out a John Deere t-shirt, I'm finally out into the actual "mall".

Now it's every man for himself.  My move is to tuck and run, speed walking against the grain and dodging middle aged moms sipping the Orange Julius they bought in the food court.  This is the hard part.  I have no fucking clue where I'm going.  At this point I'm just a zombie wandering through the mall.  I have showed up with no game plan, no list, and no real idea what I should be buying.  I spend the next hour aimlessly wandering in and out of stores and generally pontificating about how happy I am that I don't have to push some demon spawn child around in a stroller.  By the time I leave, I have bought a shitty sweater my mom will probably hate, a random video game for my brother, and a hat for myself (to hide my receding hairline).  My only thought is the cold beer awaiting my homecoming in my fridge.

On the drive home, I think about how little I have accomplished.  These feelings of despair are instantly washed away once that first sip of beer hits my lips.  I try to salvage some of the Christmas spirit as I sip my PBR and sloppily wrap my presents.  Who gives a shit...I am a lonely asshole who shops for three people.  I have somehow purchased everything they want, and the things I missed are later purchased as I drunkenly input my credit card number on amazon.com.  Another year down...

To wrap this story up - I truly love my family, and I know they feel the same.  As generic the gifts are they asked for, I know they'll appreciate them.  The feeling I enjoy the most is enjoying a spiked Egg Nog on Christmas morning with my parents and brother as we trade stories of how crazy the holiday shopping season truly is.  Don't let anyone tell you different...the true meaning of Christmas is getting sauced with your family.  Merry Christmas, assholes.