Working for a very large, very old engineering/manufacturing firm, things aren't always as bright and shiny as in most corporate offices. Unfortunately, this includes many of the personnel.
Of course there are the regular office occurrences: affairs, rumours of affairs, denials of affairs and confirmation of affairs; office politics and boss-bum-kissing, but there are a few nuts in the fruit basket of my working environment who make me wonder if evolution somehow managed to pass them by.
It is not unusual to witness an employee of the "higher" echelon sunning himself, topless, on the front lawn of the company at lunchtimes, another carries his coffee cup with him to the loo, and occasionally feels the need to rinse it in the office urn (no wonder my boss complains that his coffee tastes funny). Other members of the office seem to find the kitchen sink as welcoming as their bathroom basins - they feel comfortable enough to wash their faces, gargle and spit into it, before using the dish towel to mop their sweaty brows. This, you really must concede, is not only a result of horrific and possibly incestuous breeding, but also a sincere lack of personal hygiene. Instead of pulling the offenders aside, gently (by the hair), and reminding them that we no longer live in the stone age, to combat this problem an epidemic of mysterious signs have appeared on most of the kitchen's flat surfaces. Unfortunately, it seems as though the anonymous fairy who typed them never passed matric English. (The same fairy must have typed the signs posted in the ladies' loo - 'Please keep taps closed at all times' - well that's fine, but I would really rather actually wash my hands, thanks.)
I have been confronted with a woman who feels the need to share her innermost thoughts and feelings with me - mostly on the subject of g-strings (other women's) and toilet floaters (her own); and an older gentleman who felt it pertinent to adjust his aging testicles while standing next to me at my desk. There is a nuttier-than-squirrel-poo wife, who phones the office and viciously accuses any female who dares answer of having an affair with her husband, and a well-meaning "aunty" who has informed me that (at the grand old age of 25) I am running out of time and better get married and start having babies soon. Obsessive compulsive secretaries who would wipe their bosses' bums if asked, and poor, starving assistants who take leftovers from office lunch functions home in large tupperware containers, after coming back for seconds and thirds, while growling rabidly at any person who dares set eyes on the same morsel.
I suppose it takes all kinds to make a world, I'm just glad that I'm one of the normal ones. *Nervous twitch* Oh look, a marble.....
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