Fruit cakes, nut bars and cocopuffs

So there are kooky friends, irritating and unreasonable neighbours, odd bods on the bus, fruitcakes on the train and cuckaloopas at the bank, but I believe the cream of the crop, when it comes to fully fledged nutbags, are the more eccentric of our workmates.

Some people might equate spending at least eight hours a day at work with passing time in an insane asylum, but having a complete fruit loop for a colleague definitely moves the workplace into sanitarium territory.

Real workplaces are so much worse…

Anyone that has spent any time in paid or voluntary work has spent time with a certifiable nut bar, but a small (not even that nutty) incident today made me think about some of my favourites over the years.

1) The woman who sent a dirty email to me by accident then got angry at me for reading it when I replied to it saying ‘I think this was meant for someone else’. Ew and oi… my mind was just poisoned with thoughts of your next encounter with your man of the moment; I don’t need you sending an abusive email to follow it up. Don’t blame me for writing the precursor to 50 shades of the biggest load of crap I’ve ever read – that’s on you, Anais.

2) The woman who accused one of our lovely workmates of trying to kill her because she’d Glen 20’ed her desk

Glen 20? Or murder weapon?

after previously working at it. Of course our innocent friend was supposed to know that in addition to being allergic to chocolate, gluten, dairy, and fruit rendering her unable to drink a can of lemonade lest she die of anaphylaxis from all the ‘real lemon juice’ in Sprite, Sneezy McFakesit was also horribly allergic to Glen 20. Her chronic hypochondria ended up with our workmate receiving a formal warning for her attempt to ‘murder’ the victim in question. This is only one chapter in the book of cray cray and her wonderful, litigious adventures and this is a blog, not a tome so I will save the rest for another time.

3) During cultural awareness training, I was lucky enough to encounter the gentleman who took it upon himself to share his ability to do sign language along to the tune of ‘My Island Home’. Ok, a little odd you might say, but when the resulting performance resembled more of an interpretive dance it exercised more than just the room’s cultural awareness, but also their ability to not laugh at one of the most hilarious things that existed on the planet. I still have ulcers that flare up every now and again from how hard I had to bite the inside of my cheek, lest I shriek with laughter and slightly wet myself. Mind you, should I be surprised at this behaviour, when this is the same gentleman that:• thought antiperspirant deodorant is optional in a Queensland Summer. Tip, it is not;

• frequently announced to the room that he needed ‘to go pee pee’. No he was not a five year old boy;

• upon his first day at the workplace, proceeded to introduce himself to a full team meeting with the Vulcan hand signal. Oh dear; and

• chucked an actual hold-his-breath tantrum when people had the audacity of giggling during his workplace health and safety talk. Well, whaddya want from us? You talked about how a workplace accident caused someone to pull a muscle in their ‘buttocks’… you’re talking about bums and said the word buttocks. Hilarious!

4) The beeyotch that had the audacity to ask me why I hadn’t started one of her pet projects, in a team meeting this morning. Well, I haven’t started your stoopid crappy project because:

• you’ve never come to talk to me about it;

• it’s not due until November; and

• I have slightly more pressing items – like a document required by law to produce and managing six people.

Since when do team members get to say patronising things to managers like ‘we get the picture, you’re busy’… yeah. I am, Scrag-face. So back orf.

Ok, this last one wasn’t that bad, but it still gave me the poops.

As infuriating as all these individuals with multiple personalities are at the time, I can’t help but look back at them with some fondness… even if it’s just to use them as a straight-jacket yardstick.

*Thank you to the lovely friends and family who made wonderful blog topic suggestions. They have been filed away for future lack of workmate douchebaggery.