Damn hoodlums…
(With the holiday we had to begin this week, I’m a day behind doing everything. I’ll make it up to you with a second post today — unless I, you know, don’t post a second post today.)
It’s not even an hour into my day, and I’ve already been affected by the office jerk on more than one occasion. For the purposes of this post, the office jerk is a single entity I have deemed responsible for every discourteous occurrence within the office where I work. It’s a single person, at least in my personal imagining of who it is. Also it’s a guy — just based upon the demographics of our office, an educated guess, but also because of some of the things I’ve noticed in the bathroom. Just suspend your belief system and go along with my ranting.
Normally I wouldn’t care enough to write about something like this, but I’ve been affected by this villainous evildoer twice already today. And since no one (and I mean no one) reads my blog, I felt I should let the world know about this dastardly bastard. Hopefully this is an entertaining read to all none of you.
We drink a lot of water in this office. That’s a wonderful thing — water is tasty and a necessity. Also a necessity is changing the Poland Spring jug when you empty it. This last aspect of the water cooler life cycle is lost upon our office jerk. In an office of about 30 people, we go through about 3-4 jugs a week. Yet, multiple times each week, I find the jug to be empty, and not replaced. Mathematically, I shouldn’t be that unlucky. While I might drink more water than the average employee, that’s still pushing it that my number will come up that often. All references to my rugged manliness and jug-changing ability aside, people (likely just as rugged as me, as in not very) must be coming across this empty jug and ignoring it.
Besides water, I drink coffee. In fact, that’s about all I drink on a daily basis. When I get my morning coffee, it requires sugar. Luckily, our benevolent workplace has provided such accommodations for our caffeinated endeavors. This morning, however, I found out that the sugar… plastic jar thing… was empty. Not disposed of, but just empty. There are also sugar packets to use, so I did not go sugarless (I know, you can calmly exhale). But this empty jar means that, at some point, someone emptied this, and left it there. Or someone emptied it, and someone else came across it, and did nothing — but let’s keep our focus on the emptier.
Who does that? Who leaves empty water jugs and empty sugar jars? In America? In 2012? Unbelievable. (Remember, for our purposes this is the same person.) Who’s either that malevolent or, worse yet, functionally aloof? Do they do this in their homes? Do they empty things, and just move on from there? Are they accumulating water jugs and sugar jars to line their walls, too passive or stupid to figure out what they should do with them? I hope so. I hope the water jugs and sugar jars create a nice decor alongside their yellowed newspapers, tuna cans, dog food bowls, bicycle parts, and other garbage. And I hope one day their columns of filth topple upon them, crushing them like a modern day incarnation of the Collyer brothers. And on that day I will say “AHA!”
Alas, this will not happen. We will not discover the identity of our office jerk that simply. They will continue to terrorize our office for years to come. Alongside their kitchen horrors, our antagonist also imposes his will upon other rooms. I’m talking about you, men’s room. In this room, the office jerk takes on the form of a phantom pooper, defiling around the clock all day, every day. He doesn’t clean the bowl, or turn on the vent. It isn’t that much of a stretch to assume he doesn’t wash his hands, and he touches all of your stuff when you’re not looking — or so I envision.
He also spins the paper towel and toilet paper rolls until they’re empty, and does he replace them? Pffffft, no. Why should he? While this decision could be applied to malevolence or aloofness, as mentioned before, we cannot make assumptions. Perhaps he has no thumbs? That would be a valid explanation for an inability to open the cabinet above the toilet which stores our extra paper products for restocking. That would be a lot to ask of our jerk: turning, reaching, grabbing, and placing a paper towel roll — which requires a jaunt all the way across our spacious 4″ by 2″ men’s room. Pffffft.
I mainly frequent my cubicle, the kitchen, and the men’s room, so I may not be an observer of the extent to which our office jerk is terrorizing us. Imagining a guy who lives on a diet of sugar water and perhaps toilet paper, monopolizing our men’s room toilet, and emptying containers left and right gives me a small feeling of awe. That takes a lot of skill, work, and effort. In that small regard, I salute you, office jerk. You’re the best at what you do, and no one can ever take that away from you.
But I don’t like you, and you’re mean.
Respectfully,
An adult spewing sour grapes and making accusations