Tag: Team ?

Behind the Wall of Sleep

Get the fuck out of here! – That’s exactly what I said, loudly right in the middle of the office.

I couldn’t believe it. The gossip that spread today was completely unexpected. Which made for a great buzz around the office but even more than the buzz around town it was a decisive victory for Big-Ass.

Nobody thought she’d be able to pull it off (Well to be honest I thought if anyone could do it Big-Ass would have the best chance to date) but she did and it’s a marvelous victory!

Well to someone on the outside, who doesn’t work for The Company it might not seem like such a feat but here the office was set a-twitter.

Ok enough mystery let me explain exactly what the hell I’m talking about.

As it turns out, Big-Ass has made it her mission to investigate and find out exactly what Mr. ? does and exactly where Mr. ? goes through-out the day. She’s become an outright special agent, literally tailing him in a company car at various times throughout the day.

For the past few days, since she’s turned into Secret Agent Big-Ass, she’s noticed that immediately after leaving for lunch he heads home. He stays home for well over an hour. (Now I don’t know if you’d call this spy craft by a manager creative or creepy but I find it triumphantly, hilarious that someone would have to go through such lengths just to find out what one of their employees actually do all day long.)

Let’s say Mr. ? spend an hour and a half to two hours at his home pretty much every day this week (probably every day, every week but no one was watching before Secret Agent Big-Ass was on the case.)

So after a few days, there was a Showdown in old coral (or in Big-Ass’s office if you’d rather be more realistic.)

So Big-Ass had enough, and basically was like “We’ve checked the GPS in The Company’s car and you spend well over your lunch hour at home. What the fuck are you doing because you sure as hell aren’t working?”

“Napping”

“Wait did you just say, Napping? You’re fucking napping on company time and admitting it?”

“No, Actually I’m power napping on my time and admitting it”

“You get one hour for lunch, not an hour and a half – TWO HOURS!!!”

?”No you’re wrong, I get an hour for lunch and two fifteen minute breaks. I just combine them into one break and I go home and take a nap. Like I said it’s all done on my time”

Mr. ? had a little smirk because he thought he outsmarted Big-Ass but she wasn’t having it.

“NO FUCKING WAY! That is not how this works. First off fucker (yes she screamed fucker in the middle of the office right in the middle of morning coffee rush. Everyone on the entire floor heard it. It was fucking HILARIOUS) I make the rules not you! And from now on I need to know what time you take your breaks so a.) I can keep track of where the fuck you are and b.) I don’t have too many people out at one time. Those 15 minutes breaks are so you can relief yourself so you don’t shit your pants in the middle of the afternoon, not so you can run home and take a nap.”

?”Power nap”

I literally thought she was going to swing a chair and hit him in the head but Big-Ass restrained herself.

“I don’t care what kind of nap it is. All I know is you better get your ass back to work within your lunch HOUR or I’m going to Power Punch you in your fucking Pussy – Nap boy!”

Imagine that a women manager telling a fifty something year old slacker that she was going to punch him in his pussy in front of the entire building.

Big-Ass – My Pussy Punching Hero.

 

Mr. ?, Bagels and Big-Ass

Ok, here is a story about Mr. ? that I just have to tell you. (I did promise, right?)

Since I am friendly with Big-Ass, I get the low-down on a lot of happenings in her department. For some strange reason wacky things seem to follow Big-Ass. I mean since she adopted a department for one week and then had a run in with Ethyl. I may have forgot to mention that after the major blow-out between those two The Company thought it would be best that Big-Ass take over that department on a more permanent basis.

With that came the perks and torments of Mr. ?.

On one hand, she had a gopher that was happy as a pig in shit to go out and run stupid errands for her (albeit, taking 3 hours to do a job that should have taken 20 minutes, but it gets done…. Eventually!)

On the other hand, she has to deal with Mr.? – useless employee that nobody knows what the hell he does, he complains about everything and will drop names and threaten to report back to The Gestapo if you “interfere” with his work (basically if you try to do your job and actually give him a job that is Mr.?’s definition of interfering.)

So it was a beautiful Tuesday morning and up until this point Big-Ass wanted to confront Mr.? but always backed off. Outside of him getting paid to disappear for the day he really hasn’t done anything that made Big-Ass blow her top. It all changed that Tuesday morning, Big-Ass couldn’t take it anymore.

Ok a little back pedaling, we were at lunch on Tuesday having some Thai food (a local joint we frequent at The Company) when Big-Ass looked down at the red chili paste on the table and said, “I’d like smash his fucking head open!”

It was so random, but I knew there was a good story to be had, so I asked WTF ?

She smiled and just said, “This reminded me of blood and how much I’d like to kick Mr.? in the face.”

“What did he do (or didn’t do) now?”

She got all flustered and goes, “What would you have done. Get this…”

And with that she proceeded to tell me the story. Now I’ve known Mr. ? for years, and he’s made some ballsy moves but this goes way beyond what I thought he was capable of doing. This has to be one of the ballsiest things he’s pulled.

A little background.

On Friday morning’s in Big-Ass’s new group they all chip in for bagels.

Naturally, Mr. ? is the one who volunteers to pick them up.

You’d think it was because he lives around the corner from the bagel store so he could leave his house five minutes early and pick them up on his way to work, but this is Mr.? we’re talking about.

He drives to work right on time and then jumps in a company car and travels 20 minutes back to the bagel store (you know, the one right by his house.) This alone would freak me out.

He comes back with the bagels fucking pissed off as all hell. When asked what his problem was he proceeded to tell the department the whole story.

As he was driving back to work he caught a “FLASH” in his rear-view mirror – maybe his manager can’t catch him but the Red Light Camera on the corner of Main St. sure as hell did.

For the rest of Friday it was business as usual (except they all knew he was pissed and got a red light ticket but other than that BAU (business as usual), Mr. ? disappeared most of the day and packed up twenty minutes before quitting time and left exactly on time. But I’m guessing that he was doing some thinking over the weekend and ending up writing his thoughts down.

Apparently, Monday was business as usual but right before he left for the day he ended up emailing the entire department the following letter (from his apparent epiphany over the weekend) .

(Big-Ass keeps a copy in her purse because no one would believe it otherwise.)

To the whole department,

During my trip to get bagels last Friday, I ended up getting a ticket for the red light camera on Main St.

Since my trip was for the benefit of the whole department I think it’s only fair that either I will not contribute for Friday bagels until the $75 is paid or we split the cost of the ticket between the entire department.

This is why Big-Ass wanted to see blood. She was fucking fuming, I thought it was fucking hilarious.

“Hey, Mr. ?, are you fucking kidding me???” She confronted him and he made it out to be a joke. Believe me, nobody in that group thought it was a joke, especially Mr. ?.

This will be the talk of The Company for a while.

You can’t make this shit up…

Hilarious.

Introducing Mr. ?

Mr. ? is a favorite talking point around the old water cooler.

He is a man who has, probably, the most seniority but nobody (and I mean NOBODY) has any idea what he does for a living?

People have spoken to his personal friends and family and they also ask “What the hell do he actually do?”

He basically arrives on-time, punches in and then takes a company car out. Then he returns somewhere around a half an hour before quitting time, takes a half hour to pack up his shit and then he proceeds to leave, exactly on-time.

The worse part of it is that his manager also has absolutely no idea what he does. You may think that is strange but the way management changes around The Company with people getting promoted, or making a lateral move to another department or people quitting or retiring. You never seem to have the same manager for more than a few years (3-5 years maximum in most cases.)

So, management is getting younger and younger and Mr. ?’s line of bullshit and name dropping is getting better and better so the rumor is that The Company lost track of exactly what Mr. ? does around 3 managers ago. The fourth manger before the current one had some vague idea about what he does and the fifth and beyond (Mr. ? has been around for MANY, MANY years.) has long moved on from The Company.

Mr. ? is a good bullshitter, I’ll give him that. Here’s what always happens.

A young kid in his mid-to-late twenties becomes manager promising to get to the bottom of exactly what Mr. ? does. He will be the one to lay out a job description and force Mr. ? to comply.

What actually happens when the new manager starts is (let me make a bulleted list for simplicity):

• Mr. ? disappears like 5 minutes after his start time so it will take the new manager weeks (or MONTHS) to actually track him down.

• The first time he tracks Mr. ? down the new manager is given a load of bullshit that I like to call “THE VP NAME DROP HEAD FUCK”

o The sense of urgency of Mr. ? is perceived as very high

o Mr. ? drops some big name and something very important that needs to be done for him/her.

o Mr. ? vanishes again without a trace

• The next time Mr. ? is tracked down (could be a week or a month later) he tries the “THE VP NAME DROP HEAD FUCK” again, but since the new manager checked with the VP the last time Mr. ? pulled this and there was definitely no pressing issue (like the one being reported by Mr. ?) he moves on to stage 2

o He’ll use something that the manager mentioned to someone in the department and act like he’s following orders directly from the manager. (He is really good at listening and knows how to grab a few pieces of information, just enough to make him sound plausible.) He might say “I’m running to grab those papers at the attorney’s office that you told one of the skank sisters to compile and pick-up”

o While you wrap your head around whether or not he’s lying or whether you actually mentioned this to him he bolts out of the door. He always uses some reality with some weird urgency to get out the door while you think about whether you actually said it or not. (He needs that 30 seconds of confusion for this to work.)

o The new manager usually finds themselves completely confused while thinking about whether he was ever told to do what he says he’s doing. Meanwhile Mr. ? leaves. I like to call this scam “THANKS FOR THE CONFUSION”

He has a couple other tricks up his sleeve that he uses. This will go on for years until the manager either moves, quits or gets promoted. The joke around the office is that you “adopt” Mr. ?.

On the plus side he is good to have around if you need an errand run during work hours, go to the store or drop this off at the attorney’s office or go pick up some bagels. (Remind me to tell you a really funny story involving Mr. ? and his latest bagel run – Hilarious!)

I know what you’re thinking – Why not just fire his ass?

Mangers have tried and this is where some of that name dropping and errand running has probably served him well. People who have worked at The Company for a long time have become accustomed to having Mr. ? around. Some of the errands he runs for VP’s are real (I’d say 1/5 of the errands – but if he did something for a VP this week he’ll use it for a “THE VP NAME DROP HEAD FUCK” anytime he’s asked what he’s doing during the entire month.)

His back pocket name drop is, of course, The Gestapo. They’ve worked together for a while and The Gestapo loves having a gopher around to do whatever crap he needs done. (I’m not exactly sure if The Gestapo knows that Mr. ? is nothing more than an errand boy.)

It’s just unfair to the current manager that Mr. ?’s salary is in their budget yet the most productive thing he does for the department is get bagels and coffee.

It’s well known that nobody can fire Mr. ?, unless The Gestapo fires him. Every manager I’ve worked with, that “adopted” Mr. ? and after realizing that they can’t outright fire him, thinks they can turn The Gestapo against Mr. ?.

So far nobody has come close, but since Big-Ass is his new manager and she doesn’t seem to take too much shit from anyone, it will be really interesting to see if she can pull it off.

 

He’s already on her shit list… Stay Tuned.