Walking Disaster

Sometimes, normal, well-balanced people are driven to the brink of madness. When the same bullshit happens everyday, with no consequences, even the sanest of people can be pushed into lashing out. Which means there was literally no hope for a crazy person like me to stay non-reactionary. I had a “coworker” who worked at most two hours a day (out of four), left early, called in sick, tried to get me in trouble, everything. I know everyone says, “it’s not just me” but it genuinely wasn’t. This is the type of man to question whether women actually need maternity leaves, and cautioned another coworker not to “milk” hers, and no he didn’t mean that as a pun. He questioned the sexuality of other men in the office, simply because they wore glasses and combed their hair. And his astounding incompetence knew no bounds. He wouldn’t even try to seem busy! He brought novels to work and would sit and read them at his desk for days on end, when he wasn’t busy trying to get me in trouble with our equally incompetent manager.

I don’t entirely know why I was his target. I thought our relationship started out fine, because we both enjoyed talking about basketball and football, he showed me pictures and videos of his kid, which I enthusiastically pretended were interesting, and he welcomed me to the company in a nice way. But when I caught him in some shady shit one too many times (i.e. napping), I think he assumed that I would report him to our manager? Which I never would. First, because I’m not a snitch, and secondly, because I would rather document that and keep it in my back pocket for a rainy day. A strategy which I learned, wouldn’t work.

The problem was that I had gotten into enough trouble, just with my own personality when he started trying to trap or gaslight me and my coworker. I, incorrectly, assumed that trying to be straightforward and letting my work speak for itself, especially when I was the only one working, would be enough. Literally the only one. This coworker was part time, and my other coworker was now home with a baby. Instead I was told that I had to change my actions, accommodate his lack of work ethic, and double check his work. But when he tried to take me down and demean me, my reactions to that were deemed negative and aggressive. Which are apparently not compliments.

This is the type of man Tina Fey warned me about. The type to benefit from your hard work, trying to hold you down, with a boss that allowed it. A woman boss! A manager who, while she was a woman, she was of the generation that seemed to believe that being a strong female, meant stepping on other women and being one of the guys. In her book, Tina talked about “Over, Under, Through” and while I tried that for a time, it didn’t work and it didn’t exactly make me feel better. I tried every option I could. I spoke directly to this short asshole, I tried to give him suggestions on how to better do the job he had four years longer than me, I spoke to my manager’s superiors on holding him more accountable for his hours, I tried to give him non-working busy-work to at least keep him from making a mess of things. “Over, Under, Through” was useless on this person. Which brings me to my being pushed over the edge.

I dried out all his pens and markers. Frequently. With Relish. Ours was a job which required constant marking of floor plans, and I always hated starting the day with a pen that was running out of ink. I was originally going to just swap out my bad pens for his new ones, but it sort of spiralled down from there. Every time he grabbed a new sharpie, I waited for him to leave, and then I took it and put it in front of the space heater under my desk. It was immature, impossibly petty, bad for the environment, and relatively strange, but it made me feel so much better. Every time I heard him complain about pens, I felt vindicated. An unintended but fortuitous side effect was that he was now unable to draw penis art at his desk and pin it on his wall, finally.

And similar to how petty thieves continue to grow in their craft, so to, did I. I continued with my sharpie operation, but it expanded to stealing his bulletin tacks, half of his post-it stacks, ballpoint pens, and even lowering his chair. I came close to moving his car a few rows over so he would feel like he was going crazy, but luckily COVID happened and I was unable to do so. Which is probably good in the long run. I felt like a pettier, lazier, and less creative George Clooney. It was amazing. I loved it, I still love it, totally deserved.