The People Where I Work

[Mesha]

The people where I work are generally very odd. So much so, that I would like to share them with you all. Sometimes when I get stuck for a character, I'll draw things from the crazies that I work with. It would be bad news to talk about the people at work to other people at work, so I'll make fun of them here. Each day I'll tell you all about a new one, probably whoever is getting on my nerves that day. Today I'll start with Teresa #2.

This woman owns every piece of jewelry that QVC has ever made.
She wears it all at once. You can hear her coming because of all the bangles and such. I swear.

She has the contents of a small kitchen in her desk drawers including, but not limited to:
a loaf of bread
a jar of pickles
a jar of mayonaise (shouldn't this be in the fridge?????)
a jar of mustard
several bags of candy
one of those 24-pack things of Pepsi
I know I have seen at least 4 different kinds of chips
String cheese (again, I ask, the fridge????)
a box of fruit roll ups
moon pies

This woman's mouth is constantly running. She's always into everything. She lives to get others into trouble. If someone drops a piece of paper on the other side of the building, this woman will get up, go over there, lecture the person about not dropping paper, talk about how she NEVER drops paper, inform the person's supervisor that said person is slipping in the quality of their performance, and then go back to her desk and tell the people in her department the story of the "great-paper-catastrophe" and how she saved the day at least seven times...before lunch.

When she calls outside of the office to one of our treatment centers, she gets LIVID when the person she's talking to doesn't immediately know who she is. She starts yelling "... this is TERESA! From the administrative office!!! How long have you worked here??!"


Once, a guy who you will learn more about later, ran over her toes with a cart that he was taking to the warehouse. The cart had one box on it. She screamed bloody murder and showed up three days later back at work with a bandage and crutches.

I am sure you will get more stories about this woman in the days to come, she's always doing something stupid or annoying...

 

[Mesha]

Teresa #1

I think it's only fair to introduce you to Teresa #1 today since you got Teresa #2 yesterday.

Don't ever tell a story around this woman unless you want to hear one about "a guy she dated". Examples:

When I got my car, she came to my desk to tell me "...a guy I dated drove a Mustang. It was a convertable...."

A co-worker was talking about getting a new puppy, Teresa #1 had to add that "... a guy I dated had six dogs... it seemed like he was always getting a new one."

Anything you can come up with, she has dated someone who has done it twice. Now, I don't know if she has dated this couple of guys who have done a whole ton of stuff, or if she has dated a whole ton of guys, but currently, when Teresa #2 talks about her husband who is about half her age, Teresa #1 talks about Todd, the man that she is currently dating, who just happens to be 11 years her junior. (whenever she talks about this guy, I can't help but think of the Simpsons...)

She also doesn't listen to "pop music", she always says the whole thing... "I like to listen to popular music. I love the popular music radio station." I don't know why, but the first time I heard her say it, it struck me as weird.

She also has THE most annoying laugh. Ever.

 

[Mesha]

Paul

Paul :love:
The heart-throb. Every office has one...

He's married and has kids, but nobody cares. We still stare at him out the window at lunchtime, and find any excuse we can to make a stop at his office, or find some reason to get him to come to our desks. He's the nicest guy in the place. He dressed up like some weird kind of clown for the Halloween party this year. He's so adorable and he doesn't even know it. That makes him more attractive, I think. The fact that he doesn't even know he's making us drool. His brother works here too and he's the complete opposite of Paul--personality wise. More about him later.

Once, he had this plant in his office and it got taken over by ants. Poor Paul. We watched him from the break room when he took the plant outside and tried to de-infest it.

Paul is such a nice guy. He's friends with everyone, he's always smiling, he's funny, and he's just.... Paul.

Damn that wife of his.

 

[Mesha]

Melissa

This girl is always getting something done to her hair. She shows up late to work at least once a month because she was getting *something* done to her hair... cut, highlights, whatever... But the thing is, it always looks the same. I have asked a few of my friends at work if they ever see a difference in her hair on the days that she goes to get it done, and not one of them has ever seen even the slightest difference.

She'll come in on Monday, her hair being it's usual- brown, long, and curly-and tell everyone she's going to be late tomorrow, she's going to get her hair cut... She then shows up on Tuesday afternoon with her hair looking rather brown, long, and curly. Always the same. Always.

Another funny thing about this is that the people in her department swoon and rave about how great her hair looks on these "new hair days", when you know that they don't see a difference. What I really want to know is, what's she REALLY doing whe she says she's getting her hair done....????

Melissa is also very interesting on the phone. She says "umm..." A LOT when she's on the phone. Never in regular conversation, only on the phone. God help the poor soul who gets a message from her on their voice mail.... they go a little like this:

"Hi, umm, this is Melissa and umm, I just wanted to umm, get back with you about those umm, forms I umm asked about on umm, Tuesday. If you could umm, let me know how those are um, coming along, that'd be great and you can um, leave a message with, umm someone in my area if I'm not here, um, thanks a lot."

You may think I am exaggerating, but I swear to you I am not.

 

[Mesha]

Elwood

Elwood works in our warehouse. He's a pretty cool guy.

Since Elwood works in the warehouse, he doesn't have to follow the dress code that the rest of us do. I have worked here for over a year now, and I have seen the man wear pants three times. He is constantly in shorts and tank tops. Sometimes he will trade in the tank for a t-shirt or a polo shirt, but it's always shorts. Shorts, shorts, shorts! He wore them all through winter. The three times he wore pants were I guess the coldest days we had this year. He didn't wear pants three days in a row, mind you. The first time I saw him in pants, it was snowing. The other two days were probably within a month after the first appearance of the pants.

Once, I was going to the warehouse and he was outside standing next to his truck. When I got close enough he said "Hey. Wanna see what I got in my truck here?" I said sure and he pulled out a cooler full of beer.

He comes and hangs out in the office a lot. He's loud and funny and he'll say anything to anybody. I love having a personality like that in this office.

 

[Mesha]

Connie

Today is Connie's last day (hooray!) so I thought I'd pick her today, even though I don't really have that much to say about her.

I don't have much to say about her because I avoid her because I *really* don't like her.

She wears too much perfume. Waaaay too much.

Connie is also VERY condescending. She's rude to clients on the phone and she's twice as rude to her coworkers. The day I decided to write her off was when this other girl and I were talking about our tattoos. Connie thought it'd be cool if she came up and talked about how tattos are so nasty and gross and that the only girls who get them are crack whores. Yeah. Ok.

She also sings hymns all the time. Hymns. At the printer, copier, fax, whatever...

That's pretty much all there is to say about her.... except I have to say one more time that today is her last day!!!!!

 

[Mesha]

Sissy

Sissy is about 600 years old.

She smells quite strongly of peppermint and cigarettes. She stands about half an inch away from you when she talks to you. She talks very loud, so she has a tendency to scare the hell out of people. It will be totally quiet and then all of a sudden, no matter where you are in the office you can hear Sissy yell "HEY *insert name here*!!!!! WHAT'S GOING ON, EH??" She also never just calls someone by their name. It's their name and a rhyme. I become Mesha-Lesha. A guy named Robert would become Robert-Yobert. She drives the biggest car I have ever seen.

Her biggest joy right now is that her daughter just had triplets. She's always got a picture of them ready to show anyone who will look.

Sissy is usually a very nice lady and she has her moments where she's quite funny because she's so brutally honest. When she has those moments, sometimes people can get mad at her, but then you gotta think.... What are ya gonna do? She's 600 years old. Let her say what she wants.

Well, I'm off to get some lunch-dunch.

 

[Mesha]

Clarina

Clarina is way cool... I'd LOVE to one day do even half as much cool shit as Clarina has.

She used to live in New York and did a lot of awesome stuff while she was there. She was a little involved in theatre, but her best stories don't concern that so much. Most of them are just silly/stupid/goofy things that she and her buddies did back in her younger days. She recently told me about how one day they stood outside of the Empire State Building all day asking people how to get to the Empire State Building. She said that more often than not, people would start rattling off directions but that she and her friends could never keep a straight face long enough to let anyone finish...

Clarina used to go as often as she could to see tapings of Saturday Night Live back when it was brand new. Back when someone named Gilda Radner was in the cast. Gilda. Clarina saw her live. More than once.

Lastly (I don't think this happened in NY...), Clarina has met Madonna. She brought in a picture of the two of them and Madonna's all like "yeah... hey... cool...." and Clarina looks like she's gonna pee her pants.

 

[Mesha]

Crystal

A little while ago I noticed that Crystal was a huge Nsync fan. Now I know that she is a huge boy band fan in general. A while back, when I would pass by her desk I would hear the voices of Justin Timberlake and his buddies going on about "ooooh girl, baby I love you... ooooh girl something something something...". Eventually it got to where I could hear it at her desk and then for a few feet past it.

Recently it has reached new heights. Crystal sings. Crystal sings LOUD.

Just this morning as I passed by, I was treated to a serenade by Crystal telling everyone that she "wants it all or nooooooothing at all....".

I don't know if she thinks that we can't hear her, or if she's just so taken over by the emotion in songs like "Up Against The Wall" and "Just Got Paid" that she can't think about anything else and therefore doesn't care that we can hear her...

I'm hoping that one day soon she'll outgrow those boys, but she's 25 years old and it hasn't happened yet, so my hope for her is fading.

 

[Mesha]

Shirley

The first thing to say about Shirley is that her pants make me laugh. She wears them pulled way up, damn near the middle of her ribacge.

But for the real story on her...

I have nver seen a person (or animal, really...) eat so much. She goes to the break room at least five or six times a day to use the vending machines, and she doesn't just get one thing each time. I swear she must put at least ten dollars a day into those things.

She orders lunch every day. Most places have a minimum dollar amount that you can have on the order and still get delivery, so we order in groups to make sure there's enough food to equal that amount. Shirley can always order alone. She's got it covered.

Whenever she's talking, it's usually about food.

She gets to work early on Fridays because there are free doughnuts.

Once she went to a buffet to get lunch and bring it back to work. She came back with three take out boxes.

Whenever there's a catered meeting or if someone just can't finish their lunch, there's never a question of what to do with the leftovers. "I'll take it to Shirley" "Just give it to Shirley" "Shirley ate it already..."

Now you may be thinking... "Wow, if a person eats that much they must weigh a ton!"

Duh. She's huge.

I wonder if she's ever been full... Maybe, just maybe, if there are enough catered meetings and leftover lunches, then one day Shirley will get her fill.

 

[Mesha]

Patricia

Try to make out what she's saying!! Just try!!

When I talk to Patricia I always think about the episode of Seinfeld with the woman who was a "low talker". Patricia's not a low talker, in fact she's quite loud, but you still can't make out what she's saying.

She's like Ozzy Osbourne times three. At least you can understand Ozzy sometimes.

She seems to be quite nice and she's always laughing... I just wish I knew what was so funny. I get worried when she comes to talk to me. All I can do is just smile and say the typical "Oh, Yeah!!" or "Oh really? Wow...". I have no idea what I'm wowing or saying yes to. For all I know she could be asking me if I want to go out after work and kill some puppies just for shits and giggles. "Oh yeah!"

I'm not the only one that has trouble... nobody really has a firm grasp on "Patricia-ese".

She eats lunch around the same time I do, so she'll come into the break room and bust out with "Hey!!! I sdjhfdj cojdkjemn fjalkj mcbdvdva!!!"

Oh really? Wow...

Then she'll respond with something like "Shigdabar" and we all just look at each other, hoping someone understood.

Like I said, she seems really nice, I just wish I was sure that the local puppies are safe...

 

[Mesha]

Ed

We call Ed "Smackdown" because he looks like a pro wrestler.

Part of my job is to process the return checks that our bank sends to us. Ed gives them to me when they arrive here at the office. I NEVER see him when he drops them off. I'll get up to make a copy, get something I printed, or roam around to waste time, and when I come back, he has left them in my chair. He's quick... Once, I was in the cube right next to mine, handing the chick there a paper. I was over there for two seconds and when I got back there were checks in my chair. I never even heard him.

At first I thought that maybe he didn't like me for some reason, but I don't think that's it. You see... Ed's wife works here too. I rarely see him around the office without her. When they are walking through the halls, if he stops for any reason she's right there going "come on honey... let's go!!". She keeps such a short leash on him they may as well be joined at the hip. He's not "allowed" to talk to anyone really... He was in the mailroom checking his box-which he only does about once a week by the way... Me and another coworker were in the mailroom and the three of us started talking about something stupid...cars or something... and then Ed's wife came in. He immediately stopped talking to us and left with her. What the hell??!!

One day I think he's gonna live up to his nickname and bodyslam her.

 

[Mesha]

Sydney

*First an update*

Not long after finishing my entry on Friday I found out that it was Ed's wife's last day. Erin got a job with Virginia Power. Well, Ed's last day here is Thursday. I have a really good guess about his new employer...

Also, Elwood is wearing pants today.


And now, Sydney.
Sydney is A LOT of fun. She's our front desk receptionist, about 60-something, and funny as hell. She always speaks her mind and does whatever she feels like.

We were having a meeting at the office that all of the medical directors had to come to. This meant that there were a lot of *really* nice cars in the parking lot that day. One guy who drove a '66 Corvette told Sydney to keep an eye on it and if anyone got too close, to call him immediately(what a loser...). Sydney went outside and sat in the car for a little while.

She's always good for a laugh. She makes fun of the CEO's son all the time. One of my favorite things she has said about him was that "if that boy ever got some ass, I think he'd go crazy... he wouldn't know what to do with himself".

She knows everything about everybody here... which is why you wanna stay on her good side.

During lunch one day she got to talking about which brands of whipped cream are best to use during sex. "Some melt too damn fast" she said. Good to know.

When Connie was still here, she mentioned that she thought Sydney got up from her desk too much during the day. Sydney just looked at her and said "don't fuck with me...".

That was a *wonderful* moment.

 

[Mesha]

Scott

You know that Shirley's pants make me laugh, Scott's pants are a little different...


Scott wears girl pants. He's a guy, so they don't fit right, so he's always showing some really unpretty ass cleaveage...


He's married, but sometimes he'll randomly come up to me and and tell me why he thinks that he and other guys around the office would make a good couple... Why he picked me to share this information with, I'll never know, but hey, whatever.


He's good to have around because if anything ever gets stuck in one of the vending machines, he can always get it out. I have never seen him fail... It's just not a nice thing to watch-too much stooping and shaking in the girl pants.

 

[Mesha]

Richard

The thing that comes to mind about this guy is the conversations I have had with him. Totally random and pointless. Here are a few selections from The Richard Archives:

The other day I was covering the desk while Sydney was getting coffee, and he came up there...
Him- "Hey Mesha, what's up?"
Me- "Hey there... not too much, what are you up to?"
Him- "Hey what would you do if you were sitting there and a terrorist with a big gun walked through the door?"
Me- "Uh..."
Him- "Ok, well, see ya."

Another time while I was at the front desk:
Him- "I hate my life, I hate my life... oh my god, I hate my life..."
Me- "Jesus, what's the matter with you?"
Him-"I got a parking ticket this morning."

Once at the copier:
Him-"Do you think I could be an actor? I don't think I could do comedy or horror... but maybe drama."
Me-"I don't know... take some classes, see how you do. See how you like it..."
Him-"I have a face for drama.... I could totally do drama."

Once while talking about why I don't ever want kids:
Him-"But what do you do if you don't have kids?"
Me-"Everything else..."
Him-"Yeah but... man, I want to have like six kids... six little Richards. *pause* HA!! Little Richards... like the singer."
Me-"Yeah."
Him-"You don't get it do you?"

One day he came up to the front desk with a piece of paper, he was laughing so hard his face was red. The paper had a patient's name on it, and the guy's last name was spelled 'Dix'.
Him-"Read this guy's name.... say it out loud!!!!"
Me-

 

[Mesha]

Dr. Sowers

Dr. Sowers is the CEO of the company... He's also Richard's dad, so I thought I'd talk about him next.

It's going to be a short entry because I don't know too much about him.

He's very, very short. Whenever he's on the phone for someone, Sydney will let that person know by calling them and saying "the little man's on the phone for you...".

He carries around a wine glass that he fills up at the water fountain about 20 times a day. He walks around the office drinking water from a wine glass. Yeah...

The only times I ever talk to him are when I am covering the front desk and he calls up there to see if we have the previous day's Wall Street Journal. Of course it's still up there... nobody reads it but him...

The only other thing I have noticed about him is his hair. He combs it all down so that it looks just like The Beatles haircut from when they first got popular... I can't decide if that's cool or not.

 

[Mesha]

Antoinette

Also known as The Temp.

The woman in the cubicle next to mine got stuck with training Antoinette, so Antoinette is at this poor woman's desk every five minutes with STUPID questions. If they were questions about actual work, I'd be like "whatever, she's just slow to catch on..." but they aren't. She'll come and ask if she can go to lunch now, or get a soda, or go on a break... She's been told over and over again that you don't have to ask to do that stuff... just go ahead and do it. "Ok..." she'll say, and then return in a few minutes to ask if she can go to her car to get her jacket.

She wears those head wraps like that Erykah Badu chick, only not as big. She must have a ton of them, she's been here for a few weeks and I haven't seen a repeat yet.

The Temp talks to herself a lot. When you walk by her desk you can hear the play-by-play of whatever she's doing... "staple, highlight... throw that away...". None of it is ever under her breath or anything, it's always pretty loud. Once, I caught her plans for the weekend. "... and then I'm going to the club where I'm gonna cut loose!! Gonna be so fun!!" When she saw me coming she stopped talking. I just wanted to tell her it was OK, and that I wouldn't tell anyone that she was talking to herself... without getting permission first.

 

[Mesha]

Mike

Mike bathes in cologne... You can smell him before he gets to your desk, and you can smell him long after he leaves. He doesn't even have to be at your desk... he can be a few desks down from yours and it'll still be like he's standing right next to you. It isn't even a nice smelling cologne either... I guess it *has* to be cheap stuff if he can afford to wear so much of it.

Every time he comes by my desk he picks up my Bumble Bee Guy (from The Simpsons) toy, holds it up in front of his face and says "hola... dios mio!!". He really cracks himself up. If I don't (pretend to) laugh, he'll do it again. (I think I should note here that when he first saw the toy, he asked me if it was supposed to be "that guy from the old SNL that dressed up like a bee and danced around")

He's also one of those people that I know most of you know at least one of... he knows that I do improv, and so now every time he sees me he's like "Hey! Do something funny!". Or he'll ask me "Anything funny going on?".

I'd like to be able to be funny on his command, or tell him that something funny *is* in fact going on, but I just don't think I can top that thing he does with the Bumble Bee Guy...

 

[Mesha]

Jennifer

Nosey, nosey, nosey, nosey, nosey!!!!!

Jennifer has just *GOT* to know every single detail of every conversation that happens in this office.

Sometimes the girl that sits across from me and I will be talking, and Jennifer will get up from her desk to come over and see what we are talking about. If we are whispering, she'll wait until one of us leaves, then she'll come over and ask the other one what we were talking about.

When I use the phone, she'll come over when I get off and ask "what was that call about?".

If I am at my desk doing work, she'll stop at my desk on the way to her's, look at all my papers and junk for a minute, then ask "what's all this? what are you doing?".

She does that stuff to just about everyone here. We call her the channel 12 news, because she also *has* to broadcast all of the things she finds out during the day. You know someone's about to tell you something cool when they say "Don't let channel 12 find out, but..." Even if you tell her that you don't care and you don't want to hear it, she'll tell you about how so-and-so's daughter is in jail, but you didn't hear it from her. Sometimes it's fun to tell her bogus stuff to see who it gets around to by the end of the day.

Also... Jennifer eats lunch in her car every day. I just think that's weird.

 

[Mesha]

Roseanne

I haven't written in this journal for almost ever, but today, I was driven so close to the point of insanity that I just had to start it up again.

Today I bring you, Roseanne, the 'thank god she's only a' temp.

She is temping at the reception desk while the regular receptionist is on vacation. Now, I sometimes fill in when the receptionist misses a day here and there, so I know the workings of the desk pretty well, so Roseanne was told that if she had any questions, that she should call me. Well, she has certainly taken that advice. At first I didn't mind because she had legit questions, but then she started to call and just ask me how I was doing... Then later in the day she asked me if I wanted to go have lunch with her. Being the sweet, wonderful, kind person that I am, I felt kind of bad for her and said sure. BIG mistake. This woman is driving me nuts.

Let's start with summer camp shall we? She works at a day camp over the summer and she thinks that the best idea ever in the world would be for me to come and teach there this summer. This camp is ALL she talks about and she spends most of her time trying to convince me to leave my job this summer and go teach some kids for free. As I have been writing this, she called and said 'Hey. I wrote down all the information about camp for ya!'. She has called to tell me that at least three other times today. I have told her that I like having a job that is indoors, air conditioned in the summer, has benefits, gives me a paycheck, and most importantly-is free of children. I think that she's convinced that deep down I really want to do it and that if she asks me 99 more times within the hour that I'll see that I truly want nothing more than to spend my summer showing kids how to glue macaroni to construction paper and getting my car repossessed because I work for FREE.

You know how after you watch a really scary movie and you're alone and you hear that random noise at the other end of the house and you get that little tingle of 'oh god! it's gonna get me' fear in your gut? Roseanne has me to the point where I get that tingle every time my desk phone rings. I know it's gonna be her and I know she's gonna do something to annoy or creep me out. She called earlier today and asked me if I could come to the front desk. Thinking she needed help or had a question, I went. I got up there and she looks at me and then in this weird voice that was half little kid half alien she just goes 'heeeeello!'. 'Hi' I said. 'I just wanted to say hi' she said (now in her normal voice...). I wouldn't have thought that was as weird (still weird, just not *as* weird) if I hadn't seen her many times already this morning. She'll call me at random times during the day with NOTHING to say... or I'll pick it up and she'll say 'Can you come talk to me?' or 'Come here, I want to tell you more about camp!'.

I would just not answer the phone once I saw on the ID that it was the front desk, but I have to cover her breaks and lunch, and I still have to answer her front desk questions... I hate to say it, but I hope that our regular receptionist is having the worst vacation of her life!!

Stay tuned because I'm sure there will be more temp stories, and there are plenty more People Where I Work!