They Work Among Us

I read a small article in the Sunday paper about two women who had been fired from their jobs at the University of Texas at Arlington. Apparently, the women had been praying for a coworker who they believed to be possessed by demons. The coworker became "uncomfortable" when the women began chanting, rubbing oils on her cubicle wall, and commanding the evil spirits to remove themselves in the name of Jesus.

To my disappointment, the article failed to say whether the coworker was, in fact, the victim of demonic possession and, more importantly, if the ritual chanting and oil anointing had a positive effect. I would have liked to have known that for future reference, since I'm sure that I've had a least one coworker who would have benefited from a banishing of evil spirits (on the days when her demons were particularly frisky, she made Linda Blair at her worst look like Dakota Fanning). I've also had passing experience with a number of fellow employees who, while not probably in the grasp of demons out-right, could have improved with some well-directed chanting. I doubt this is an isolated incident.

A meander through the career section of the bookstore showed me that working with difficult people is such a persistent problem that there are at least a couple dozen books targeted for the frustrated coworker. No books whatsoever were available for people who loved their jobs and their workmates and just wanted to find innovative suggestions to make their already fulfilling work experience better and better.

Albeit, the titles indicated that the material dealt with such tamer topics as setting boundaries, gaining consensus, and communicating more effectively with your less-than-cooperative colleagues. I didn't see any books entitled "Employment: Evil and the Law" or "12 Steps of Highly Effective Exorcists" or "Demons for Dummies." But we can all relate to having to spend 9 hours a day with a problematic person (or people). You often see more of your coworkers than your friends and family, and, sometimes, you know more about them as well.

I've had incredible good fortune working with delightful people who became good friends, but, like everyone, my path is strewn with characters. I once worked at one of the largest engineering firms in the country with a guy we used to call "Tipi Jim." Jim lived in a tipi in a cactus patch on the edge of town and his residence did not appear to include such amenities as water. While I did not witness this myself, my male coworkers found it incredibly disconcerting to encounter Tipi Jim standing naked in the men's restroom, washing himself with wet paper towels at the sink.

I worked with Tipi Jim at the same time I worked with Cocaine Dan. Dan was so coked up most of the time that little puffs of white dust would waft up out of his beard when he became agitated, which, given his serious habit, was always. Cocaine Dan was one really cranky guy.

In the same department we had Bible Bob. Bob was a very sunny character, but seemed incapable of answering a neutral question without either referring to his profound faith or quoting scripture. A simple inquiry like, "How are you doing today, Bob?" would be answered with, "Ingrid, I am spending each and every moment thanking my Lord and Savior for the blessings that He bestows on me. I am truly grateful." To which I could only reply, "Well…good for you. Glad to hear things are going so well." In truth, it was easier to pass the time of day with Cocaine Dan or Tipi Jim than have to endure the exhausting joy exuding from Bible Bob.

At the same firm, we also enjoyed the companionship of Lewd Ronny. Ronny was the courier for the firm and was obsessed with pornographic magazines. Ronny loved to share his literature with anyone who would look his way, and the females on the staff were hugely (and rightly) offended that management turned a blind eye to Ronny's behavior. Keep in mind that this was the early 80's and the concept of Workplace Harassment was light years away. Eventually, Lewd Ronny was hauled off to jail when his "inappropriate" behavior crossed the line into illegal behavior.

Tipi Jim just didn't show up one day and I never heard what happened to him. He was a thin and fragile man, so perhaps he was eaten by javelinas during the night. By then my workplace concerns had been diverted and I was focused on Firearms Carl (who brought handguns to work to sell - when it wasn't considered odd in Texas to do so) and some guy who wrote erotic poetry and wanted to share. Cocaine Dan was fired and not missed. Although I didn't stay at that asylum longer than a year, I'm pretty sure that the parade of personalities continued. Instead, I started working for the State Department of Agriculture and made the switch from working mostly with men, to working mostly with women. All supervisory positions went to men, no questions asked, no women need apply.

There, I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with Angie and Mandy and Mimi and Dolores and Bunny and Carla (the champion female bow hunter), and Floyd and Pete, my supervisor. The women were consummate hive workers; drones working indefatigably on the 15th floor of a concrete bee box that had been sealed against air and light since its construction in the 50s.

Floyd was some sort of division director. Technically, he was probably a Big Kahuna but he had been completely emasculated and prevented from doing any sort of kahuna-ing since the political winds had blown in a new Agricultural Commissioner from the opposing party. Floyd was very near retirement; he could not be fired, but he had been prohibited from doing any useful work.

Floyd and his secretary, Bunny, had been lovers since LBJ had been a junior senator from Texas. They had raised children and grandchildren in the intervening years (though, not with each other) and now their days were spent huddled in Floyd's office, awaiting their inevitable fate when they would be forcibly parted and have to spend their days with their spouses instead of each other.

I didn't see much of Bunny, although she would take it upon herself to occasionally emerge from the love lair and assume the mantle of faux authority. Once she prohibited me from knitting at my desk during lunch hour. My desk was in the environmental section, crop dusting oversight division on the top floor of the Stephen F. Austin building where no one ever came. She felt it gave a bad impression of idleness (to whom, I do not know), and suggested that since going out of the building was not an option at lunch (the elevator was so slow that the lunch hour could easily be squandered just getting to the first floor), I could knit in the ladies' restroom. I took to knitting in the hall next to the vending machines.

Bunny's other habit was to rifle through desks. She tried to be clever about it, and do it at night or on the weekends, but she was clumsy. She was caught so many times in the act that people took to leaving notes for her, "Bunny…there's nothing in here. We put all of our private and incriminating notes somewhere else. You can have the gum and the quarters if you want a Coke." I had no idea what she was looking for - I assumed she was digging for a morsel of information that would return to her some of the lost status she had enjoyed as the devoted secretary/woman-on-the-side to a minor bureaucrat. Bunny's cloak and dagger days were over and she had become a fading shadow of the office manipulator that she had once been.

Mimi was a real study in dysfunctionality. Mimi was one of those people who feels constantly singled out for oppression and discrimination. When the fire inspectors told her that she could not make a wall around her cubicle with card board boxes to increase her privacy, she felt unfairly targeted. When fellow employees decided to go outdoors for lunch (and use the stairs), she protested that they were trying to exclude her since they knew she wasn't physically capable of negotiating the stairs. One was often tempted to jack around with Mimi's hypersensitivity, just to see how quickly she could dissolve into a hysterical mess. (We didn't, but the temptation was like an undertow. On the Office Supply List, I suggested purchasing a small tranquilizer gun in the event that Mimi just needed a little quiet time to regain her overwrought composure.)

Mimi was in a wheelchair. Not because she couldn't walk, but because she had a bad knee. Her doctor wanted to do a knee replacement, but insisted that she shed some weight first to reduce the stress on the new knee. Mimi preferred the wheelchair to knocking off a few pounds. But when she found that a bit strenuous, she (unsuccessfully) petitioned a charitable organization to purchase an electric wheelchair for her. Then she decided to stop driving and began taking transportation for the disabled.

Our work area was tight, and Mimi filed a discriminatory complaint because her wheelchair did not fit into her cubicle. Mimi had to park the wheelchair in the hall and walk the 15 feet to her desk. Keep in mind that Mimi was not disabled beyond a bum knee, nor was she an elderly person (she was in her mid-30s). She just preferred to enjoy all of the great perks that come with faux paraplegia. Mimi drove me insane. After what seemed like an eternity at the Ag Department (one year, in fact - and immediately after I left, Pete was put on suspended leave for losing his mind and shoving Mimi) I left for a job with a small environmental engineering firm. Life was really good there and the core staff was the best anyone could hope for, but even in workers' paradise we had the odd duck swim through.

Someone hired a young woman as our receptionist who had been a running buddy of Anna Nicole Smith's in Mexia, Texas. Joni was often M.I.A. as she had a tight schedule that included tanning appointments and pets with odd mishaps. One morning she called in absent because her dog had broken its pelvis. Another time she left work because she was bored and thought a trip to the mall would help. Her complete lack of even feigned interest in work was the stuff that stories were made of for years to come.

We hired one guy who started taking his vacation in his first week, after which he used up his paid sick leave. After his permanent departure about 5 weeks later, the firm got wise and overhauled its generous vacation/sick day policy. Another guy reduced his hours to 10 per week (that's 2 per day) because any more was just way too much. He left pretty quickly, too.

We had one long-timer named Gonzo who was a constant festival of surprises. I loved Gonzo, although no lunch was safe when he was in the building. One day, I looked in the fridge and my lunch had disappeared. I was able to track my food down pretty fast in Gonzo's office just as he was finishing it off. I mistakenly thought our friendship made me immune from pillaging. When I protested, he looked up apologetically and said, "Hey...I'm sorry. If I had known it was YOUR lunch, I would have eaten someone else's.

On the way to work one day, Gonzo had gotten caught in a bad rainstorm and came in wringing wet. He took his wet clothes off, then cut some clothes out of blueprint paper and stapled together a paper outfit that he wore as long as he could hold it together. He really was one of a kind and we were much saddened when Gonzo left his job in engineering to pursue a film career in Sweden. Before he left, I said, "Gonzo, I didn't know you were interested in Swedish film." To which he replied, "Who isn't?" True. Very true.

You may be asking yourself if I am such a picnic to work alongside and if I may be possessed of demonic spirits myself. It's hard to say. My weaknesses and strengths are probably evident to everyone but me, and I would just as well keep it that way. But should I hear quiet chanting from the next desk, I'll be sure to look into it.

Note-to-Self 2: My friend, Anna, sent this over and thought it might be of interest. If you have ever been interested in doing a public radio broadcast, this may be your opportunity. Check it out soon (the deadline is April 16th) at http://publicradioquest.com/.

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Ingrid is currently living and respectably employed in Austin, Texas with a firm specializing in environmental law. She hopes to get back home to the San Juan Islands next spring to stay.
While Ingrid is spiritually promiscuous, she credits her guru, Jimmy Buffet, for her mantra..."If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane." Besides a passion for Tiki Studies, Ingrid is borderline biblio-obsessive. She is an old-school Libran - i.e., she won't be leading the Revolution, but she'll work to make it an attractive affair and hire the musicians and caterers."

Her column appears every other Thursday in San Juan Islander. To contact Ingrid, send emails to ingrid@sanjuanislander.com

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