Friday - Fun with Office Lunatics
Mar. 17th, 2006 03:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreToday on my drive into work, I was thinking about Ben, who worked in the Revenue Collections department of the Toll Road Authority back in my civil service days, and who probably still does. Ben was, hands down, the strangest person I've ever worked with, and not in an edgy or endearing way.
We had a temp come in to work at the receptionist desk for a week. The temp was a young, burly ex-radio operator recently discharged from the Marines. Old habits dying hard the way they do, I heard him say, "Over and out," before he transferred a phone call on a couple of occasions. This temp had a knack for giving accurate personality assessments of people after talking to them just once.
"He likes people to follow orders and doesn't accept anyone questioning his authority," he said of the executive director. "She seems nice, but I wouldn't want to get on her bad side," he said of a manager. "He doesn't have any confidence and he takes it out on the people beneath him," he said of the head of personnel. He was right about all of them.
When he met Ben, the temp asked up a few questions about him and we cheerfully filled him in. Ben was the office human oddity. Fat and balding and somewhere in his mid to late 30's, he still lived with him mother. He had no friends, either in the office or outside of it. He spoke in an odd, high pitched voice that sounded more like a cartoon than a real person. He constantly made a humming sound, like "Hmmmmmmmmm," a lot like the sound that you make when you taste something delicious, except that he made it just walking down the hallway, sitting at his desk or eating his lunch.
Most of us avoided him when he ate his lunch. Few could bear to eat in the same room with him. He chewed with his mouth open and smacked loudly when he ate his food, and he slurped his soda loudly from the can. I have tried making that slurping sound when I drink soda from a can, and can't do it. It's a special talent unique to Ben. He liked to engage people in conversations, even when they were obviously not in the mood for talking because they were reading a book or the newspaper or doing a crossword puzzle.
"What you reading?" he would ask, "Is it good?" You would tell him the name of the book and say that it was, indeed, good and he would them continue. "What's it about? Do you like to read? A lot? What kind of books to like? Has that author written anything else? Have you read those books, too? Do you plan to?" Many of us stopped eating lunch in the break room all together and instead ate at our desks. Waiting until Ken was no longer in the break room didn't work. He wouldn't eat in there by himself; he waited until someone else was in there before he would come in. You could try eating early at 11 o'clock or you could put off lunch until 3 o'clock, and still look up to find he had joined you. No time of the day was safe.
Ben's creepiest trait by far, though, was the way he acted toward attractive women. He liked them young, pretty, tall and thin. Luckily, I wasn't his type, but for the women who were, his behavior was frightening. In the most obvious way possible, he would look them up and down while he made the humming sound and then stop and stare at the parts he found the most appealing. On his copy of the phone extension list on the wall of his office, he highlighted the names of all of the women he thought were pretty. None of the names highlighted on his list were for people who's extensions he ever called or had to deal with in the capacity of his job. It was a list of the morsels he considered tasty, his "highlighted hotties" list.
The temp thought for a moment and commented, "You know, he fits the profile of a serial killer."
"Oh, shit," I said, "he does, doesn't he?"
A few weeks later I was standing in a group of five women and we were whispering and giggling about Ben. We were talking about the smacking and slurping, which we all found egregious and some of us found quite nauseating. Suddenly, Ben himself came trough the door as we were laughing, causing us to become instantly quiet in that guilty way that announced that he had been the subject of our mirth. We stood there, not speaking or breathing, as his round face grew hard and angry. After a few prolonged seconds, he stormed through the room and out another door. We began laughing again, this time with relief and embarrassment. When we heard him slam the next door we came to, we realized we were still too loud. We murmured our goodbyes and all wandered back to our offices.
That evening after Ben left, one of the other women and I sneaked into his office to look at his extension list. A few of the women in the group had been members of his "highlighted hotties" list, and we wondered if he had perhaps somehow un-highlight them by printing out a new list and leaving them out of the chosen ones. Brenda, the woman who was with me, was one of the chosen hotties. When we saw the list, we both gasped.
The names of the five of us had been obliterated. He did not merely cross our names off of the paper, he pressed his pen into the paper so hard that it tore and the ink stained the wall behind it. My name was completely gone. All that remained of Brenda's name was a halo of yellow highlighter around the ripped up shreds of where her name had been. The three other names got the same treatment.
"Damn," Brenda said.
"Uh, oh," I said. It's never a good thing to inspire that much rage against you in a person who makes you think of a serial killer.
I decided after that to make sure I was never alone anywhere in the building with Ben. I still didn't start eating in the break room again, though I probably could have. After all, I doubt that he would have tried to start any more conversations with me, and I would probably have been able to read my book in peace for once. Or as peaceful as it can be across the room from a grown man who smacks, slurps and hums.
We had a temp come in to work at the receptionist desk for a week. The temp was a young, burly ex-radio operator recently discharged from the Marines. Old habits dying hard the way they do, I heard him say, "Over and out," before he transferred a phone call on a couple of occasions. This temp had a knack for giving accurate personality assessments of people after talking to them just once.
"He likes people to follow orders and doesn't accept anyone questioning his authority," he said of the executive director. "She seems nice, but I wouldn't want to get on her bad side," he said of a manager. "He doesn't have any confidence and he takes it out on the people beneath him," he said of the head of personnel. He was right about all of them.
When he met Ben, the temp asked up a few questions about him and we cheerfully filled him in. Ben was the office human oddity. Fat and balding and somewhere in his mid to late 30's, he still lived with him mother. He had no friends, either in the office or outside of it. He spoke in an odd, high pitched voice that sounded more like a cartoon than a real person. He constantly made a humming sound, like "Hmmmmmmmmm," a lot like the sound that you make when you taste something delicious, except that he made it just walking down the hallway, sitting at his desk or eating his lunch.
Most of us avoided him when he ate his lunch. Few could bear to eat in the same room with him. He chewed with his mouth open and smacked loudly when he ate his food, and he slurped his soda loudly from the can. I have tried making that slurping sound when I drink soda from a can, and can't do it. It's a special talent unique to Ben. He liked to engage people in conversations, even when they were obviously not in the mood for talking because they were reading a book or the newspaper or doing a crossword puzzle.
"What you reading?" he would ask, "Is it good?" You would tell him the name of the book and say that it was, indeed, good and he would them continue. "What's it about? Do you like to read? A lot? What kind of books to like? Has that author written anything else? Have you read those books, too? Do you plan to?" Many of us stopped eating lunch in the break room all together and instead ate at our desks. Waiting until Ken was no longer in the break room didn't work. He wouldn't eat in there by himself; he waited until someone else was in there before he would come in. You could try eating early at 11 o'clock or you could put off lunch until 3 o'clock, and still look up to find he had joined you. No time of the day was safe.
Ben's creepiest trait by far, though, was the way he acted toward attractive women. He liked them young, pretty, tall and thin. Luckily, I wasn't his type, but for the women who were, his behavior was frightening. In the most obvious way possible, he would look them up and down while he made the humming sound and then stop and stare at the parts he found the most appealing. On his copy of the phone extension list on the wall of his office, he highlighted the names of all of the women he thought were pretty. None of the names highlighted on his list were for people who's extensions he ever called or had to deal with in the capacity of his job. It was a list of the morsels he considered tasty, his "highlighted hotties" list.
The temp thought for a moment and commented, "You know, he fits the profile of a serial killer."
"Oh, shit," I said, "he does, doesn't he?"
A few weeks later I was standing in a group of five women and we were whispering and giggling about Ben. We were talking about the smacking and slurping, which we all found egregious and some of us found quite nauseating. Suddenly, Ben himself came trough the door as we were laughing, causing us to become instantly quiet in that guilty way that announced that he had been the subject of our mirth. We stood there, not speaking or breathing, as his round face grew hard and angry. After a few prolonged seconds, he stormed through the room and out another door. We began laughing again, this time with relief and embarrassment. When we heard him slam the next door we came to, we realized we were still too loud. We murmured our goodbyes and all wandered back to our offices.
That evening after Ben left, one of the other women and I sneaked into his office to look at his extension list. A few of the women in the group had been members of his "highlighted hotties" list, and we wondered if he had perhaps somehow un-highlight them by printing out a new list and leaving them out of the chosen ones. Brenda, the woman who was with me, was one of the chosen hotties. When we saw the list, we both gasped.
The names of the five of us had been obliterated. He did not merely cross our names off of the paper, he pressed his pen into the paper so hard that it tore and the ink stained the wall behind it. My name was completely gone. All that remained of Brenda's name was a halo of yellow highlighter around the ripped up shreds of where her name had been. The three other names got the same treatment.
"Damn," Brenda said.
"Uh, oh," I said. It's never a good thing to inspire that much rage against you in a person who makes you think of a serial killer.
I decided after that to make sure I was never alone anywhere in the building with Ben. I still didn't start eating in the break room again, though I probably could have. After all, I doubt that he would have tried to start any more conversations with me, and I would probably have been able to read my book in peace for once. Or as peaceful as it can be across the room from a grown man who smacks, slurps and hums.
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-17 10:59 pm (UTC)That was an amusing read... in a creepy kind of way. It's good that you're still alive to tell the tale. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-03-18 05:25 am (UTC)I guess I'm alive because I kept my distance (even more than I did before) and did my best to do nothing else that might push him over the edge after that day. :P
no subject
Date: 2006-03-20 09:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-20 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-17 11:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-18 04:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-18 05:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-19 03:08 am (UTC)Its makes you want to be extra careful about what you say around people because you dont' know how they are going to take it.
I'd say his mother was dominant in that household too.. if not then he would be the dominant one in the house, and the submissive weedling type at work or in social (of which there aren't any) situations.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-19 05:32 pm (UTC)The people that worked with him closely said that he spent time at strip clubs and "dated" some of the strippers (i.e., they let him pay their bills and he got to hang out with them). He would call them his "girlfriends." I thought it funny that his mother, who everyone knew ran his life, allowed this.
He wasn't as harmless and helpless as a lot of people assumed, either. He spent four years in the Army, then was discharged when he had a nervous breakdown (according to my source in personnel - none of this stuff is really as private as people think). This means he knew how to work a rifle and had some training in killing people.
Yeah, I kept my distance.