Strange People I've Worked With

Over the last 22 years I’ve worked in a number of offices and in direct contact with literally hundreds of people. The law of averages states that a number of those people will be, well, for charities sake let’s call them eccentric. Here is a sampling of the strange people I’ve worked with; names have been changed though, just in case.

David was about my age, we were both only a couple years out of college when we first worked together. He was an employee of the company, I was a consultant. David was, to put it politely, an apple polisher (we used to say he bought chap-stick by the case). David knew the birthday of every manager above him, from his immediate supervisor to the CEO of the company. You’re thinking he sent them a card, aren’t you? You’re thinking too small. He baked them a cake or cookies, with his own two little hands.

Emma was a truly unique person; I will probably never meet another person who reminds me of her. She’d arrive at work with her black wool winter coat covered (and I do mean covered) with cat fur because her cats liked sleeping on it. My cat would like to sleep on my coat too, but I don’t let her. One day she had a bowl of cereal for breakfast and didn’t finish it, the remaining cereal sat, in the bowl, for weeks and weeks, she called it her science project. Her most noticeable quality though was an apparent lack of control over her bodily functions combined with a diet heavy in peppers and onions (she once told me that she’d eat an onion like other people eat an apple, just bite into it). This combination made her both flatulent and fragrant, and she made no attempt to hold them in. On more than one occasion I or a co-worker were driven from our office by her emanations, and she’d frequently be seen, heard and smelled walking down the hall emitting a noxious cloud as she went.

One instance where you learn a person’s eccentricities is when you share a bathroom with them, so there are a couple of men on my list here. Alan had an odd habit in the men’s room. On this particular floor we had a man in a wheelchair, so the men’s room was handicapped accessible There was a plate next to the door you could push and the door would open automatically. Alan would go into the bathroom and, before doing anything else, would wash his hands thoroughly with soap and water. He would then go about the business he came into the bathroom for, after which he would splash a little more water onto his hands, without soap, dry them on a paper towel, use the towel to push the plate to open the door, run back to the trash can to discard the towel, then run back out thru the door before it closed.

Frank was probably the least mechanically-inclined person I’ve ever known. He set up his inflatable pool on a part of his yard that wasn’t level and couldn’t understand why the water was lower at one end than the other. His high-water (pardon the pun) mark was met when he bought a snow-blower. He first wanted to know why a snow-blower with an electric starter needed a pull-cord, which I explained by saying that if it stalled at the end of your property it was probably easier to re-start a hot engine by pulling the cord than by walking all the way back to the electrical outlet. The best one was when he asked me which way he should point the discharge chute from the snow-blower, I told him you should point it left or right, depending on where you want the snow to go. He asked “Can’t I point it straight back?” to which I replied “Frank, you’ll be standing there”.

Marv liked to argue. He considered himself a provocateur (which is apparently French for chop-buster). Given that he was a self-described bleeding heart Liberal I was a frequent target of his discussions, since I was just about guaranteed to be on the opposite side of any topic he could pick. I also don’t like to argue, so I never understood where Marv was coming from until he told me one day that, when among friends of similar political leanings, he’d say things he didn't agree with just to start a “discussion”. There’s a word for people like that, but I’ll keep this blog PG-rated.

Jack was another guy with odd bathroom habits. He must’ve been a high-order germophobe. If he needed to, shall we say, sit down he’d clean the seat. Now most guys will wipe the seat just to avoid anything really nasty, but he would wash the seat with soap, rinse it with water, then dry it, then put TP on it. He’d let you know if you walked in while he was performing this process and you went into “his” stall while he was getting more paper towels or whatever.

Inez was, briefly, my immediate manager. She was, shall we say, hygienically challenged. We suspected she showered once a month or so, whether she needed it or not. During long meetings she’d slip her shoes off under the conference room table, and you could ALWAYS tell when she’d done so.

Claude was also on of my managers. He was actually a really nice guy, but he was a micro-manager. Co-workers told me about an occasion before I went to work for him where there was some emergency that everyone was involved in correcting. Claude insisted upon a thirty-second status meeting every five minutes until the problem was resolved. I was glad I wasn’t working for him at the time, I’d have kicked him out and told him I’d update him when I had enough time to accomplish something.

Martha was another of my immediate supervisors. She was dopey in a harmless sort of way. Her major idiosyncrasy was a nearly pathological fear of squirrels. This wasn’t mere phobia though, she was actually convinced they could hurt you or, if they were near your car, could damage your tires. I know, you’re thinking that she was concerned about their admittedly sharp teeth or claws, but her concern was for their tails. Yes, she believed that a squirrel’s tail was covered, not in soft fur, but in little spikes that would cut into you if they touched you.

There have been other odd people in my career, and if I think of any I’ll be sure to write a part 2 of this entry.