There is a reclusive, somewhat odd man in my office who is, let's face it, a little creepy. I've never heard him talk to anyone, and he has weird stringy grey hair that he wears about 6" long, but only in a ring around his head, since he's bald on top. He has a unibrow and is never cleanshaven, and dresses kinda like the red stapler guy in Office Space. In short, he's the kind of guy most people here avoid, and he also avoids most people here.
This week, he got moved into a cubicle in my section, and the following Great Drama unfolded yesterday. (Note: I was completely unaware that any of this was going on, and didn't get told about it until the end of the day.)
julie [email] said at 12:37 PM 07-15-2004: My co-worker T, a rather air-headed, loud-mouthed ditz, always writes Daily Motivations on her white wipe-off board, which she gets from her desk calender. Things like If You Believe, You Will Achieve! etc. Yesterday, she thougt at first her habit had been taken up by a co-worker when she saw words on HIS white wipe-off board, too. Then she read this:
I shot her five times! How was she still standing?
(sound of machine gun fire)
Bitch isn't standin' now.
T was shocked and immediately assumed that it was about HER. (!!!) She scurried away to tell The Boys, a group of bland midwestern transplants who hang around her and chat about sports and appreciate T's cheesy Daily Motivations. T somehow convinced The Boys that Creepy Guy is a violent aggressor who may or may not be a criminal, and we ought to call the cops or at least the boss, and report this immediately. The Boys were enraged and went into total protective-male mode. Doors were slammed, conference calls with our boss (home sick recovering from surgery) were placed, demands were issued, and T even contrived to eke out a few tears while relating the horrible offensive words to the boss via speakerphone.
Meanwhile, no one has thought to approach Creepy Dude and ask him to what, perchance, were his words referring? Boy #1 claimed in loud tones to the boss that they are wary of approaching him because they don't want him to "go postal." Uh, what?!?! I mean sure, he looks like a 45 year old version of the Trenchcoat Mafia, but he also looks like a big nerd who attends Star trek conventions. Also, it is highly amusing to note that neither T, nor The Boys, nor any of my other co-workers who are at this point embroiled in the unfolding scandal, suspect that the words might actually be some kind of QUOTE and not creepy Dude's own PERSONAL STATEMENT about T.
The whole thing culminates in The Boys tricking Creepy Dude into going in an office where the boss is on the speakerphone, and closing the door, and leaving him in there for 20 minutes to get chewed out by the boss, who is under the influence of prescription painkillers and T's recent weeping and wailing. Boss tells Creepy Dude that he has mortally offended our entire division, and he needs to immediately remove the offensive words, AND gather us all in a meeting and apologize to us.
Poor Creepy Dude exits the office very red-faced, erases his wipe-off board, endures the evil eye from The Boys and is given the cold shoulder by everyone for the remainder of the day. There are rumors of his shady past and questionable home situation, and lots of whispering about "appropriateness" and "unprofessionalism" and "healthy work environment."
The boss then calls The Boys and T on the phone to explain to them that Creepy Dude claimed it was just a quote from one of his favorite movies, ("President Evil or Devil or something"). Boss says Creepy Dude said he never imagined it would cause this kind of uproar, and he's deeply embarrassed and also hurt that no one tried to talk to him about it before going to the boss. Boss also asks T and The Boys, "So, has he apologized to you yet?" The answer is a resounding, defensive NO.
Today, they are still simmering in their own self-righteousness, scandalized by the fact that Creepy Dude has not yet gathered them in some kind of group hug confessional to beg forgiveness for the fact that they are too stupid to know a movie quote when they see one. Creepy Guy tried to join in on a conversation they were having earlier, and they all just turned to him, stony-faced, and froze him right out.
I'm so pissed that this happened yesterday without my knowledge!!!! I could've disarmed this whole huge stinkbomb with one clip of my movie-knowledge wire cutters.
I feel really really really bad for Creepy Guy today. Poor sci-fi geek, he had no idea who he was messing with when he put marker to white board.
I also really miss my last office, where we had, among other things, a signed picture of Ron Jeremy with his arms around all of us, a mullets of the year calendar, a poster from the French Film Baise Moi (Fuck Me) on the wall AND a bunch of merch bearing the words EAT FUCK KILL from an old movie promotion.
julie [email] said at 1:22 PM 07-15-2004: That quote was meant to show you what the Boss said to everyone after he talked to Creepy Guy. I thought it was funny that he heard 'president' so I included it in the story.
jeremy [email] said at 12:51 PM 07-15-2004: look at the subject of the post, weiner.
the situation seems completely ridiculous but it really is unprofessional to put a quote about shooting someone in a place where everyone in the office is going to read it. Especially if it has that kind of language.
julie [email] said at 1:01 PM 07-15-2004: Eh, it's a two-way street. I personally find Bible quotes and religious paraphernalia more offensive than the word Bitch. (Which was T's biggest complaint, weirdly enough.)
My office is a lot of ex-military dudes who cuss all the time AND we work on contracts for the DoD, so you'd think the office sensitivity to guns and cussing would be kind of numbed by now.
(Most people on my floor have pics of guns in their cubicles. Women too! Big guns on ships and tanks and stuff, and them holding guns, etc.)
julie [email] said at 1:02 PM 07-15-2004: but you're right, Jeremy. He could have at least written "--Resident Evil" at the bottom, to allay T's murder victim fears.
shelly [email] said at 12:50 PM 07-15-2004: i once got called into a conference kind of like that at work. i had a screensaver which was a picture of a hotdog covered in barbie doll heads and chocolate syrup. apparently it was upsetting and confusing one of the partners, cause he thought it was some sort of feminist political statement, which obviously needed to be removed immediately. i never apologized though.
craig [email] said at 1:06 PM 07-15-2004: I just have drawings of brightly colored women all over my cube. I make my anarchists statements by taking two hour lunches and spending way too much time chatting with cute girls who work here.
cecil [email] said at 1:13 PM 07-15-2004: That was a gut-wrenching story, I feel so sad for creepy dude and angry at his oppressors. I think you should invite creepy dude to post on Killoggs where we will make fun of him for his mind and not his appearance.
julie [email] said at 2:07 PM 07-15-2004: Woody, I appreciate the sentiment, but... What about 45-year old with gray stringy hair who looks and acts like the stapler guy from Office Space do you not understand!?!?
Pity-poon! Jesus Christ. That's for, like, comforting the second-place winner in a male model walk-off.
Woody said at 3:12 PM 07-15-2004: Yeah, everybody's all about the charity work until it comes time to get your hands dirty. And then they're all like "I'm not gonna do some weird old dude just so he can look cool."
scott [email] said at 3:38 PM 07-15-2004: I was walking to work today and passed the newspaper stand. The USA Today had a huge front page article about 'the average workplace murderer' From the headline:
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20040715/6366998s.htm
The average workplace murderer is likely to be unmarried, male and on the job at least 4 years. He has a grudge and knows exactly whom he wants to kill. He is sometimes known to write horror movie quotes on his whiteboard as a warning the day preceding the bloodbath.
Just thought I'd give you a heads up so I don't feel guilty for not sharing later.
amanda [email] said at 9:23 PM 07-15-2004: Poor Creepy Guy. I can completely empathize with his situation. I was fired from my first job ever when a fake (but completely obviously fake) stalkeresque death threat to my friend and co-worker Emily was found (we think it may have slipped through a crack in the side of the locker it was in) by a smarmy lady from the children's department who was obsessed with soap operas and had a killer batch of brassy Green Bay hair brewing atop her lard-bloated head. Said lady turned the note in to store security without ever confronting Emily first, and security people freaked out and called the police.
Emily came to work the next morning and was immediately greeted and questioned by the cops, who didn't seem to want to believe that there wasn't a real stalker involved because that would make them appear moronic. I mean, the note involved a drawing of a fanged chicken with an axe and was signed "*heart*, The Stalker." I felt that the content of the note was more than obviously comical, especially the part where I stated that I was going to "hide [Emily's] body in a women's full figure-sized clothing garment bag." The whole note was ridiculous.
I went into work the day after the police had been there, and they initially said nothing to me. They waited until 5 minutes before I was supposed to go take my lunch to haul me back to the LP department and confront me. I had to sign a form admitting that I had broken company policy and talk to some horrible female Prozac-casualty out of Indianapolis at corporate headquarters who then cheerfully told me that I was officially "terminated." They didn't even say, "your employment has been terminated," just, "you are terminated," in the most pleasantly disaffected way possible. I felt like I was going to be taken back to the warehouse and tossed in the furnace with the all the other store refuse.
THEN, the worst part was that they sent me to talk to the head of the LP department, who was a tremendously scary ex-Navy SEAL with red eyes. I'm serious; the man had some sort of perennial eye infection or something that made the whites of his eyes reddish ALL OF THE TIME. Not more than one minute into his thunderous lecture to me about how I should be sent to prison for life for this, I burst out laughing and couldn't stop. This, of course, made him yell more, which made me laugh even harder.
LP Guy w/ red eyes: "YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY?!!!??"
Me, laughing so hysterically I'm crying: "Totally!"
LP Guy finally gave up on trying to make me cry (perhaps the laugh-crying quenched his thirst for teenaged girl tears), and I was removed from the store. They had FOUR PEOPLE escort me out (including the LP Guy, who should really have count as three people). I guess 5'6" 130 lbs. 17 yr. old girls must give them lots of trouble...
Bob [ url ] said at 4:51 AM 07-17-2004: At the last office job I had we all got an email something about "completely inappropriate use of office equipment." Gradually it came out that something unsavory had been left in the bin of a networked printer.
About a week after that, one of the netadmin guys came into my office, closed the door, and pulled out a sheet of paper. "This look familiar to either of you guys?" he asked me and my officemate. It was a screenshot from an all-anal pornsite. We both made tasteless jokes by way of denial. "You can tell me now and it'll be cool, but I'll find out who did it eventually. So I'm giving everybody the chance to come clean."
In the office next door to ours there was a creature the more indie-rock of us called Wowee Zowee (a parody of his unpronounceable last name) who talked too much and too loud through his adenoid-saturated sinuses, wore big glasses, had long stringy greasy hair... quite literally a mouthbreather. He had the office to himself, and not due to rank or seniority or anything else but rather because nobody was willing to work with him. Anyway, shortly after these events he left the company. Nobody ever said why. It was all very hush-hush, not even properly announced: no officewide Email or going away party or anything. His creepiness combined with the timing caused pretty much everyone to reach pretty much the same conclusion...
