tell me about your oddest colleague?

Terpsichore There are some epic weirdos on this thread but I am crying with laughter at paranoid lunch tray man.

Wasn't it Dennis Nilssen that used the same pan for boiling body parts and then knocking up a chilli at work for his colleagues?

Great thread.

I used to work with a consultant psychiatrist who was very ecentric. He had a long grey beard and hair like dumbledore and was really skinny. He used to sit in the staff canteen everyday with a peanut butter sandwich (one slice folded in half and cut into half again) it took him the full hour to finish - each tiny bite was chewed 100 times exactly.

The poor patients

I worked with a whole department of nutters on more than one occasion (it was a field that seemed to attract them). One in particular was always in the office by about 7.30 am, despite living miles and miles away - we were in central London and he lived somewhere like Hastings, so he must have got up practically in the middle of the night.

He was obsessed with hoarding newspapers, to the point where there was barely space for him to sit in his (very small) office. He never had lunch with anyone, but would go to the staff canteen daily and return with a tray which he would take into his newspaper-stuffed lair. However, he was paranoid about anyone seeing what he was about to eat, so would carry the tray above head height to frustrate prying eyes.

Eventually, there was an office reorganisation and he was told he had to be moved to another room, with consequent loss of the beloved newspapers. On the day he was supposed to go, security had to be called to physically drag him from the room. Everyone else huddled in their offices down the same corridor, listening aghast to his screams as his fingers were pried from the doorframe.

Believe me, he wasn't the weirdest

We had a kitchen porter at my first job who was the oddest person I ever came across. He claimed he was an ex male prostitute and could tell by looking at me that I had a "high clitoris". He was obsessed with horse racing

Another KP used to talk to himself all day and wore waders to work. He was mad as a box of frogs. Apparently he had been something really high powered like a barrister, his wife left him and he had a nervous breakdown.

I have worked with some very strange people, kitchen porters usually tend to be the oddest people you will ever meet.

Worked as a waitress and the three chefs would urinate out of the back door rather than taking the trouble to go to the loo. I loved that job but would never eat there.

First nightshift in newsroom. Senior journalist gave me some change to get two cokes from slot machine. I dutifully did that. He reached into bottom drawer of his desk to retrieve half bottle of vodka (in a brown paper bag) and poured a large dose into both. The odd thing was that he didn't ask me if I wanted vodka. He had to answer various calls about how to pronounce certain words and he would just make them up and mutter to me, 'How do they think I should know'.

(hope this one does not offend) Friend worked as a cleaner in Gloucester. One of the team went off for a week with personal problems and they had to reorganise the rota temporarily. The 'personal problems' began to appear in the press. The following Monday they had a meeting to organise rotas and the manager said, 'I don't think Rose will be coming back'. Understatement. It was Rose West. Apparently she was v meek and mild and work.

My worst was a woman in an open plan office who appeared to be unable to do any thing without saying it. I started to monitor her. If someone came in, she would say, 'door'. It was like a toddler learning to speak trapped in the body of a fifty year old woman. She was in love with the word, 'chitty'. If I bought a pint of milk or a 24p packet of aspirin she would talk for an hour about the receipt going in the chitty box. I think that the fact that chitty rhymed with kitty gave her some sort of comfort.

sloggies my BIL is a police officer. On one occasion there was a visit to the station by a number of local dignitaries and the Inspector ordered a tray of sandwiches and tempting nibbles from M and S. Unfortunately because they were left unmarked in the communal fridge several of the officers decided to help themselves to a few items.

The entire station received a memo from the Inspector to say that unless the culprit owned up the entire station staff would be arrested and charged with theft. Not surprisingly everyone laughed in his face and then went round arresting each other for fictitious offences such as possession of a mini smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel.

Going back to the 80's, working for a Northern Police force, we used to have an Inspector who was untypically lovely, but mad as cheese. He once radio-ed into the control room, asking for one of the PC's to fill his works car with petrol, currently parked in the station yard. Off she went, trying not to panic when the car was NOT there...had it been stolen? A Police car? How embarassing....she gathered her courage, and said on the radio, "Sir, your car doesn't appear to be there". Radio on, everyone inside and outside the station hearing both parts of conversation within a 3 mile radius. He replies, "Oh", and continues to transmit 'dead air' via his radio. Another couple of "Oh! Followed by pause sequences, then "Oh......cancel that. I'm driving it. Over." Salad days of yore.....

It is not exactly on topic, but after seaweedhead and FrusStefanLindman's comments I remembered one by my sister's boss who, on finding a CD room on the floor said "You need to be more careful with this stuff, now I know why we get so many computer viruses!"

Arf, seaweedhead. That's just reminded me of an ex boss in the days when fax machines first became popular. We were to fax a document to a client and as I took the originals to put in the fax he got in a complete panic and said "don't use the originals, Fru, we need to keep them for our files"

DP used to work with someone who would apparently photocopy something then check the copy against the original in case there were any mistakes on it.

The sneezing thing reminded me.

The temp who would sneeze really loudly and I mean really loudly it was practically a shout, I jumped the first time I heard it. then she turned to me and said; 'we sneeze the way we are in bed, I cum really loudly'...I hadn't asked or even looked at her, I'm still bemused!

I used to work for quite a strange bloke - but nothing on the level of some of these. He used to do a weekly quiz night, and the following mornings, he used to make US do the quiz papers then he would mark them and smirk if we got any questions wrong. Every day he would dictate his letter to the Times - I never once saw one published. I used to have long hair and whenever he came anywhere near me, he used to stroke it and tell me how beautiful it was. Gave me me the heebee geebees.

Used to work with a few metalist. Couple of examples:

At my previous job in a bank, we were required to wear ID passes with our picture at all times. One guy used to talk to his pass quite animately.

Same guy had a full blown argument with his sandwiches.

This guy would regularly fall asleep at his desk and have to woken up.

I used to work with a guy who was in charge (in his head), sadly he was utterly utterly incompetent, he'd got the job as his dad was friends with my manager at the time. He'd take every Monday and Tuesday 'off sick' because he'd 'eaten a dodgy pizza/bad prawns' I once got the phone and being very tired and incredibly narky due to late pregnancy, remarked 'You'd think after five years you'd figure out the place is serving dodgy prawns/pizza and stop buying from them...see you Wednesday!'
He'd then come in on wednesday and whisper for the first part of the day (to show us how ill he still was and what a martyr he was for having dragged his half dead body into the office...), the bit that irritated me was that during this whispering phase he would positively pounce on the phones whenever they rang to answer them and whisper down them, to show the world what a martyr he was presumably.
What did it for me however, was when this guy started stealing from our petty cash tins and then telling us we would have to replace the money from our own pocket. When I had a tenner go missing, I snarled that the note had better be there as I was not replacing it, having not lost it, or else (I'm not sure what or else would be to be honest). The following morning my petty cash tin balanced!
A few months later the other girl who worked with us, had to go back into the locked office after work as she'd left her house keys behind, she and security walked in to find office idiot opening the safe (after he had supposedly already gone home!)......

The girl who got drunk at every opportunity and ended up in very scary situations because of it, in the end I would have to make sure she got home safely and leave her in her house. When I stopped going to office parties becasue I had a baby to get back to, I'd come in the following day and hear about the (inappropriate) men she'd got off with and then she'd come in late and tell me she has woken up at xyz with no recollection of going there or how to get home....she once left a trail of clothing in our office after a party.
I was worried about her, she did have ishoos and a finger firmly on the self destruct button.

The girl who embarked on an affair with the maintenance assistant...they took every inopportune moment to disappear together, we got so many complaints from students because they couldn't use the back doors as the two were having a heavy session outside the back entrance (in full view of the security camera).

Mad lady I worked with used so save the half empty bottles of old milk left over from the tea making area on the shelf for weeks until they were separated out into cheese and whey. ( barf even thinking about it) Once they were truly rancid she would flop them out into a bowl and eat it. God the stink in the kitchen where we all ate our lunch. ( retch!!...) it was like she was eating sick. I WAS nearly sick a couple of times. I used to try like mad to eat lunch before her as I could not bear the smell in the kitchen once she had been in there with her bowl of milk/sick.

Stinky Pinky. This was a very blokey, sexist chap whose wife had just left him for another man, crushing his (self) image as a super stud. He proceeded to chat up and ask out every young blonde female who came into our shop, usually getting good results as he was very overconfident and flirty. But he wore the same suit for months on end, amassing an interesting collection of stains, and smelling like a week old bin. The suit was pale pink (this was the early 90s) and reeked. We were so happy when it went to the cleaners. He eventually got a new blonde girlfriend, who was a bit mad and used to buy all the ladies in the office presents, so we would tell him how lovely she was. Unfortunately her reputation as the girl who would poo on a glass table for local pervs preceeded her. At the Christmas do Stinky Pinky got really drunk and told me how much he respected me for not falling in love with him, like most women. Interesting times.

One previous workplace in particular was absolutely stuffed full of nutters, mainly the bosses!

The owner and MD only ever came into work until after 7pm and worked until past midnight - was never seen before sunset (I think he slept in a coffin full of earth from his native Transylvania during the day!). This meant all board meetings began late and went on until nearly midnight. Which I was obliged to attend. At the end of the meeting one of the other directors would offer the others a lift home and leave me to run to the station to catch the last train home alone. In an area full of street corner dealers etc. I'd just like to say thanks a bunch for that Mr Director!

Same MD was a pathological hoarder who had filled his office with so many piles of newspapers and years old photos and other crap that he couldn't actually get in the room. So he permanently locked the door and had to borrow a spare desk in the main office. Apparently his home was even worse with stacks of newspapers up the stairs and all the rooms stacked floor to ceiling with old paper.

One of the other directors was a notorious (and very ugly) lech. He developed an embarrassing crush on his very pretty young assistant who he bombarded with love letters declaring his undying passion and promising he would leave his wife for her. The poor girl was absolutely mortified and did everything she could to keep out of his way. Matters came to a head when he told his wife he was having an affair with this girl (complete fantasy). His wife then stormed into the office and threatened to beat the poor girl up! She resigned soon after, poor girl just couldn't stand any more

When I was 17 I did some temping for a local NHS podiatry clinic. My 'Manager' (not a manager - just the person I had to report to) would stroll in at 9.30, turn her computer on & go out to her car for a fag for 20 minutes, then she'd come back in, make a cup of coffee for another 10 minutes (instant so I have no idea how this is possible). She would then start work at 10.00 before repeating the whole fag + coffee break process at 10.30 & every hour afterwards, I was gobsmacked as to how the hell she still worked there. She was a cat lady & reeked of stale fags & coffee all the time.

In the building I work now (before Mat Leave) there is a particularly snotty receptionist, she had to press a button to allow us into the building where the kitchen was. EVERY SINGLE TIME she let out a massive huff or sigh & matching dirty look. My Manager & I took to giving her the most cheesy smiles & over-enthuasiastic thanks we could "Oh, thanks sooooooooo much!" This pissed her off no end.

I also worked with a woman who I swear was just plain nuts, she would pick a person from our team who she would be absolutely horrible to, she would speak to them like crap & loudly slate them to the rest of the team. When me & another girl started at the same time, I was her target for about 3 months, the other girl was her new BFF. After this, she completely switched, I could do no wrong & the other girl was useless, rude, basically every name under the sun.

I used to work back of house in a big London hotel with a lovely old chap who would go to the tube every lunch break, get on the circle line and go to sleep. He would wake up in time to get off again at the same station he got on and come back to work.

Makes me smile.

I am and at this thread, it's wonderful. 'I think you're ovulating' .

Have clearly worked in far too many normal places, as I can't think of a single thing to contribute. But thank you, this has made my day.

Fathom shitters at my place of work too. V strange there are so many. my mate said that's nothing he worked in IT with all men. They took photos of their stools and pinned them up on a wall of fame.

In my first management job, I was doing the appraisal of a long-standing employee who was not only unpleasant and difficult to work with, but increasingly sly and spiteful, dragging down a great team. She refused to acknowledge a problem and when I pointed out that every other team member believed there was one, shouted at me that history was littered with examples of great leaders who had seemed out of step with the crowd. She was a sales assistant. I decided asking which megalomaniac she self-identified with wouldn't be helpful.

She left shortly afterwards, but my relief was short-lived as I inherited several 'problem' people from other departments to deal with before I left the company some years later.

Have also come across several Phantom Crappers - thankfully not directly. DH was sceptical that it was so common a problem when they had one at his office recently. I am far too cowardly to Google, but am also interested in the Psychology of it.

I thought I didn't have any but then remembered the man I used to occasionally work with who also worked for one of the freeview adult channels who used to take great excitement at showing me pictures on his phone of his nipple clamp

I also recall an old headteacher at a school I worked for doing an assembly to the whole school about how we should raise money for a charity which helps children in third world countries with a cleft palate as they 'want to look normal too' . This was only a handful of years ago btw

When I started at my last job I was managing a small team with a very 'difficult' woman who loads of people had had problems with. A couple of years later she was sent on extended sick leave (long story) but her final act of defiance still cracks me up.

The morning after she left we noticed that there was an internal list of everyone's phone extensions pinned up on her desk (with our names on it). When we looked closer she had placed pins in the names of the people who had pissed her off. I had the most . Sometimes I get a twinge in my shoulder and I wonder if its her voodoo magic .

And she had placed an enormous pot plant on my friend's desk. I loved the simplicity of that. "Fuck you, have a pot plant."