20 Questions Tuesday: 80 - Coworkers

I seem to be in a bit of a rut as far as coming up with topics for posts. Yesterday got so bad that I subjected you to a crappy writing exercise, and today, to come up with a topic for 20 Questions Tuesday I had to resort to some randomizing processes. I threw a stapler over my cube wall to see what it interacted with. I was expecting today’s question topic to be about dented printers, but it turns out that it is about angry coworkers who don’t like random staplers being lobbed in their general direction. I felt that “angry coworkers who don’t like random staplers being lobbed in their general direction” was a bit too specific, so I broadened the topic to merely “Coworkers.”

Thanks this week go to themikestand, Dustin, Sassyfrass, Dr B-Dawg, Wifey (who posted yesterday {what up wit dat?}), and allrileyedup.

On to the questions:

1. What are your top three complaints about your coworkers (be as general as necessary to avoid dismissal)
Number 1: Not nearly attractive enough. If I am going to be locked in a box for 8 hours a day, I should at least be able to share it with some non-troglodytic knuckle draggers
Number 2: They do not respect the genius that is SRH
Number 3: I mentioned that they were all ugly, right? Some of these monsters could make a train take a dirt road.

2. Are you a worker, or a shirker? Where are you on the work-shirk (1-10) scale, assuming there's a normal distribution bell curve and +/- 1 standard deviations encompass 34.1% of the distribution on either side of mean.
I would fall in the first standard deviation on the worker side, probably around a third of the way towards the second standard deviation. I am motivated, but not supremely so.

Did you seriously just answer that last question?
Ummm… yeah

3. What's the angriest you've ever seen a coworker? Were there tears? Did they throw something?
He stood up and angrily said, “Fuck this, I’m going to go buy a Jaguar.” He left the building and we didn’t see him for 2 weeks… When he came back, we all wanted to see the new car. That made him even angrier.

4. Do you find you and your coworkers are angriest in the morning, or near the end of the day? What about during the week? Early or late?
This changes pending on the coworker in question. I would say there is an even distribution. Some people come in angry early because the weekend is over, but some people end the week angry because of work stuff that accumulated over the week.

5. Is it wrong to despise a co-worker who hums incessantly?
Depends on what they are humming. If it is the Raiders of the Lost Ark theme and they aren’t running around, then without hesitation, yes.

6. Do you sometimes feel like office settings are really just extensions of High School? There’s a popular clique, and then the techno geeks, and then everyone else…?
I think this is valid for many a work place, but pending on the market sector, the popular clique varies wildly. For example, at the civil engineering firm where I work the “cool kids” are still civil engineers.

7. Do your co-workers try and suck you into political conversations?
Rarely. Since my viewpoint is typically radically different from theirs, and most political discourse is not really about a civil exchange of political ideas, they stay away from me.

8. Has a co-worker ever stolen your lunch?
Yep. They are no longer working. (Was that menacing enough?)

9. Who are the angriest workers? I'm going to go with the old cliché standby of postal workers. They even have their own catch phrase, "Going Postal".
The angriest I have seen are bank tellers, but the ones that make the news are postal workers and machinists.

10. Are workers angry more because they are at work at all or because of something that happened at work?
A little of Column A, a little of Column B

11. How many angry employees does it take to make an office environment uncomfortable? Is the anger from angry employees usually from personal or work circumstances? Is it wrong to make the angry coworkers angrier, if they have a better desk than yours and you really want it?
If they are effective, just one can ruin it for all the rest. I think most anger at work stems from personal stuff associated with the angry person. They most likely have a shit ton of stuff going on in their life that they are not “allowed” to be angry about. Being angry about work is socially acceptable, but being angry at an emotionally unavailable family member is not. I am more interested in the better desk chairs than better desks…

12. In a no touching workplace, can you freely taunt angry coworkers like a tiger that is safely behind a 5 foot fence and has no chance of actually harming you?
I think the recent San Francisco tiger attack, should indicate that taunting any caged beast is not wise… tiger or co-worker

13. What do you do if a co-worker wants to be your friend, but you don't reciprocate? What if it's someone you just happened to meet at Wal-Mart? You don't have to give them your phone number, right? Why does this always happen to me?
Ummm… I ignore coworkers and Wal-Mart patrons whom I do not wish to talk with.

14. What is the perfect number of people (co-workers) to have in an office? 5? 50? 500?
50 to 200. Enough people to know most everyone and enough to avoid some if you don’t like them.

15. If your coworker were crackin' corn - would you care?
Depends on if they were crackin’ the corn for a purpose or if they were just crackin’ corn to crack corn. If they are just crackin’ corn for the hell of it… and much depends on if they go by the name "Jimmy"

16. If you were a gay bee, and one of your co-workers was a gay bee - which they're not - but if they were...would you be their valentine?
I assume I would be required to be the gay bee’s valentine if I were also a gay bee.

17. I know that your most hated job ever would be to be an assistant crack whore. But what job would you be doing if your coworker was an assistant crack whore? Would you be willing to share a cube?
I imagine I would have to either be a crack whore or a pimp, and if there is one thing we all know, it is that it’s hard out there for a pimp.

18. Ever blamed a coworker for something you did wrong? Ever taken credit for a co-worker's good work?
Nope, and nope

19. Why co-worker? why not cow-orker?
Cow-orker seems a bit… ummm… dirty. ewww

20. Do you participate in office gossip, or merely listen in and laugh occasionally?
Hell, I start most the rumors.


To Recap:
No coworkers were harmed in the making of this post
Some coworkers wanted to be harmed in the making of this post
They are a bit weird
And could live under bridges demanding tribute from billy goats
Did I mention more attractive co-workers would be nice
I have said it before, and I will say it again, “Hyperbole is the funniest form of humor”
I am reducing the amount of caffeine added to my system
It is a difficult task