tell me about your oddest colleague?

[StealthPolarBear]

Past or present.
We used to have one who would pick his ears and then make the coffee, it used to have bits floating in the top.

Admittedly, to the untrained eye it may look like I am the odd one Tortoiseonthehalfshell ... but he's just so weird, he makes me want to study him and disrupt his routines to see what would happen.

For lunch yesterday, at his scheduled lunchtime of precisely 12.04, he had 2 ham rolls (white rolls, margarine, wafer thin ham), each ham roll was cut in half, and each half was in it's own plastic sandwich bag. He had a pasta salad for his lunch once, and talked about it for months after ("do you remember when i had that pasta salad? That was quite nice, i might do it again one day"), because it wasn't one of his 'normal' meals. He never did have a pasta salad again.

Every 4th Thursday he goes to the same Italian restaurant and has exactly the same meal (minestrone soup, ham and pineapple pizza, 1 glass of red wine, 2 pints of beer). He bought me a mug from his holiday, but he is obsessed that i am the only one to use the mug, and he told me off when i left the mug on my desk overnight, because somebody else might have ignored the hundreds of other mugs, washed my mug, then used it. This made me leave the mug on my desk every night to see what he'd do, so he decided that i couldn't be trusted to look after the mug, and he comes to collect it from me at 16.25 every day to hide it, until he unveils it again the next morning (He is the chief coffee maker).

I could go on, but i think i have outed myself as a complete mentalist who keeps files on my colleagues. Please tell me someone else does this? It keeps me amused!

I've been reading these in a boring telecon and trying not to laugh. Marvellous.

I work in IT so the office has a lot of middle aged, single men with, er, "quirks". I work with a really annoying bloke who often has personal phone calls at the top of his voice. He's always trying to help his mother with her computer and often enlivens his conversations by shouting "listen to me, you stupid woman, just do what I tell you." I was astonished when I heard it was his mother. He's a really loud sneezer as well, a real "AHH CHOOO". And then he reaches for his hanky...

I bought my MP3 player mainly because of him.

Am saving this thread to read later
When I was about 18, I worked in a bar,there was a older lady who had been there for ever. She never ever spoke to me, she disliked me intensely, blatantly left me out of staff christmas cards. I have absolutely no idea why!
The only think I can think of is that I was a very hard worker and the landlord and landlady would sometimes comment on that.

The girl (recent graduate) temping with me for six months who never once asked me anything about my weekend, holiday, family, anything at all! She was the same with everyone, only ever answering direct questions. She would always choose to come out on socials though, and would always sit there silently, putting a damper on our usually lively nights out!

When I was 17 I worked in a pool hall, and had to serve drinks (which i think might have been illegal seeing as I was underage?) and my weird boss had this massive parrot that used to fly around over all the pool tables, depositing little craps everywhere. I had to clean these up with a dustpan and brush

And once all the non-regulars had left, he used to put porn on the big screen

Only worked there for two days...

I walked into the ladies and caught the manager's secretary with a foot up on the bench under the coats dry shaving her legs.

Her discarded pelt was there for weeks afterwards

Roffle at "discarded pelt"

When I worked in a call centre the lady that sat next to me for a short time had a smelly fanjo. She was well dressed, always well-groomed, but her fanj stunk like rotting kippers.

We used to hot desk but one particular woman would insist on sitting in the same place every day, despite always turning up late and her team being on the other side of the office. When she found me in 'her' seat one day she went mental, tipping up my waste paper bin all over the desk, sweeping away all my pens and paper and grabbed me by the ponytail, pulling me away on my office chair into the middle of the aisle, headset still on. Crazy bitch.
During her disciplinary she claimed it was because she felt sick if she couldn't see the road.

Reading with jaw on keyboard.... I thought 'oh I'll have loads of those to contribute', but after reading this mine hardly compare - I mean we had a phantom crapper, but it wasn't on the WALLS fgs! And we had some men who made lewd comments but not jizz in the desk drawer and men shouting 'goal'!!?! Blardy hell, I clearly haven't lived.

I did have a boss that called me by the wrong name every single day - not the same wrong name - he called me either Sarah, Mary, Rachel, Georgina, or Jane. I sat right outside his office every day for two years and not once did he get my name right. I had a male colleague who liked to work in his underwear. After HR gave him a warning that he couldn't strip off in front of his female colleagues, he used to go off to the stationery cupboard with a laptop and tell us 'don't come in, I'll be working'. He smelt very strange - like a hops/malted type smell. He was very overweight but told us that he never ate at all - not just that he didn't overeat, but that he never ate anything - he told us to look it up on the internet as there were 'resources' to help humans live without needing food. But when any of us had chocolates or biscuits in our desk drawer they used to completely vanish overnight, and he would always say it couldn't have been him because he didn't eat. How we did laugh...

PrivateBenjamin I hate to break it to you, but you really are the weird one, sorry.

I once worked with a very sad individual, who had a very hard time outside work and little emotional support.

This person could not through anything away - think of cupboards full of used, ripped envelopes. When moving the office for the first time in 30 years, there were tears and tantrums as it was very difficult for her to cope with. During the clear out, we found an old cardigan in a cupboard. 'Oh, that's X's, he left here in 1987 and he's dead now, so I've kept it'

After a bereavement in the family, a car accident revealed a major issue - her house was full, so in clearing out the relatives house had filled the car up. And left it there for about 4 years - been driving around with a car full of her relatives' stuff, until someone crashed into her and the garage needed the car empty to repair it!!

I sound mean, but actually felt very sorry for her. Drove me mad though!

Some of these are brilliant!
Mine are very boring in comparison but I've worked with the 'fart' guy ('Can you smell that? Ahhh that's a beaut, smell it, smell it, ahhhh that smells disgusting')

The manager who used to regularly take the phone off the hook and put up paper on the window to his office and tell everyone he had an urgent meeting. I had to get him once because something very urgent came up and he was sat there on his own, reading a book. A couple of minutes later he went on a 15 minute break for an hour and a half. He once also disappeared in the run up to xmas for 4 hours whilst he did his xmas shopping. He switched off his phone and so we couldn't call him about a customer who was waiting to speak to him. When he eventually turned up he bribed her (with money!!) and us with boxes and boxes of chocolates so that we wouldn't tell his boss. We didn't. He got promoted.

Then there was the sexual predator who used to hide around the stock room, jump out at you and try to feel your boobs. This happened at least a dozen times a day. Luckily the manager sacked him as soon as we complained.

I do suspect I was probably the weird one in most of the places I've worked though.

Not odd so much as creepy and plain wrong: when I was 17 I worked for a few months at a department store. The security guard on the door at the staff entrance was always a bit too friendly, and loved going on about how I had red hair just like his 3-ish-year-old son (I don't, it's got a red tinge, but only slightly). Anyway, he used to monitor all the security cameras and one day I was at the till (in ladies' accessories, since you ask) and he phoned me up to tell me he'd been watching me on the camera, and didn't I look lovely today, and he could see everything I was doing. I wasn't too pleased but didn't say much other than 'That's nice, bye then' - to which he replied that he'd be 'keeping an eye on me'...

Thinking about it, that was the job that on my first day a stranger put his hand up my skirt on the tube on the way to work. When I turned round to confront him, at the next stop, he simply indicated with his head that I should get off the train with him and go... god knows where. When I think of the things like that which happened to me in my teens, I really worry about DD - even though she's not yet 3. Mind you, she's far more bolshy and fearless than I ever was, even at her tender age...

O where to start! The man who throws hissy fits like a 7 year old if he gets too many phone calls or the marketing lady who loves herself and thinks she looks like a page three model?

There was a bloke I worked with who, every morning, would come in and make some back handed comment about my weight. We were always the first two people in the office at the time so nobody to back me up when I complained about it, and nobody ever heard him as he would only do it in the morning . I wasn't even that big, size 14.

Same bloke would say he has chosen the spot on the car park roof where he would sit and kill everyone if we continued to piss him off.

Less colleagues than company
I temped at a famous ferry company
to get a new biro you had to take the old one to the stationery manager so she could check it was empty
lovely lady
I only lasted two weeks there

PrivateBenjamin

The guy you're spying on sounds like Aspergers.

I know it keeps you amused, but give the poor guy a break and let him get on with his work, and keep his job - of course when redundancy rounds come along the slightly odd are the first to loose their jobs.

A fella who was obsessed with loading the printer paper (the old dot-matrix type that was just one long roll). One day it went wrong and chewed up the paper, and he slid down the wall pretending to have a heart attack.

A 40-odd year old woman who, on her first day, set up her desk in an open plan office by absolutely COVERING it in soft toys, including a huge hammock hanging from the section divider thingy full of toy rabbits.

I also worked in an all-female office once where there were hormones aplenty. Girls who'd had rows with their boyfriends would come in crying, there'd be a big heart-to-heart, and then they'd be sent home to 'rest' by the far too understanding office manager

privatebenjamin awww your colleague sounds lovely to be honest, I feel sad for him

Yup, huge red flags for ASD or some variant of OCD there. Probably invovles huge panic attacks for him if you leave out the cup and quite potentially fall out for anyone who cares for him.

But you know, ha ha.

Ooh I have another couple.

The manager with the book that I talked about in my last post also had a thing with the security cameras. He used to walk into the room and just stare at the screens and then ring us on the shopfloor with really bizarre requests and would always make a point of describing what we were doing so that we'd know he could see us. Very odd.

I worked with one guy who came into work very upset one day. I asked if he was ok and he burst into tears. The manager took me aside and told me that my colleague had been arrested at the weekend for taking photos up women's skirts. Needless to say I avoided him after that until he eventually resigned during his disciplinary process.

I used to work for a company that leased photocopiers years ago - yawn!
One of my colleagues had been there forever, she told me that when they used have board meetings, the Chairman would go for a wee and leave the door open and carry on the meeting. Sometimes, he'd say I'm going for a dump, so I'll close the door, don't minute that bit Margaret !!

I also worked at a place where we had a receptionist who had just left school on her first day, she piped up, I had sex behind Jack Fultons last night with a boy I just met, does that mean he's my boyfriend?

Same girl again, in a meeting, one of our colleagues was a lesbian. Just before the meeting started, there was a lull in conversation and the girl shouted, well my problem is I couldn't be gay, I just love cock too much. Cue much coughing and erm, ahems from branch manager............

Never had any phantom shitters though !!

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I've just come out of a meeting where one of my colleagues put down her key fob on the table, along with her packet of contraceptive pills.

Hmm I think this is a bit harsh. I monitor things he does but i am nice to him (that's why he bought me the timeshare in the mug), and he's not in danger of being made redundant PlanetOfTheGrapes.

He knows that i have the leaving times spreadsheet, he jokes about his 16.38 leaving time, and tells me when he has done something different to his routine because I'm interested in it. He is really sweet, but an odd workmate. I thought that was what this thread was about?

Limbergse you have just reminded me of the 34 year old woman who was a self-confessed virgin who brought in her contraceptive pills to show us when she got engaged to someone she'd only met online. It was like being back in the fourth form.