Office Space

I regret to inform you that Crazy Asshole will no longer be working with our Unit. I will be posting this position this week.

She “regrets”? Who is she kidding? She took the call and then (briefly) unclenched and did a wild dance of joy, most likely while still sitting at her desk. But lets be honest, regrets she had very few. The giant thorn under her state-issued saddle is gone and won’t be back in the building without a security detail.

I had regrets. I regret that I wasn’t as nice to him as I should have been - But at the same time he was never as nice to me as he should have been either so I guess we are about equally at fault. I tried, I really did. Because he was a giant, crazy asshole I kept our interaction to a minimum. I gave him phone messages and he would never give them back. It was his passive aggressive side. I was very passive about his aggression until my yearly review told me that me that I needed to be more aggressive about getting the slips back. So I started to ask him for them back. But I didn’t really put my heart into it. I knew he wasn’t going to give them back and he didn’t give them back.

And then I had another annual review and my pink slips were again a topic of conversation. The next time I told him I wanted my slips back I got a couple. They were months old and he was snippy when he gave them to me, but he gave them to me and I was mollified. And months passed and I would get a couple of times a week a slip, usually weeks old. So my boss instituted this little routine for me. I was to email her every Friday by nine in the morning to let her given me back what and the names and phone numbers in question. I was religious for a while but I hated doing this. I hate tattling.

This was getting old. I started to “forget” to do it. My boss does not forget things, so now Crazy Assholes problem was my problem and I seemed to be the only one getting in trouble for it. I was getting really tired of discussing pink slips with my boss, and always about the missing pink slips that always belonged to Crazy Asshole. Time passed. The pink slips are slowed to a crawl. The last time I demanded them back I got a few. I decided this “asking” business was for pussies. I wasn’t going to “ask” him for anything anymore. I was going to tell this asshole to give them back or I was going to take them back.

The Conversation as I remember it:

Me - Asshole.

Crazy Asshole - Crazy mumble, whine, crazy crazy.

Me - Give Me All The Pink Slips You Own. Those and those and that one back there. Don’t make me get them myself.

CA - Accusatory Mumbling. Not done with them.

Me - !@#$ you. I want them Now. I’m taking them NOW.

CA - Not. Done.

Me - I’m done with you. I want them NOW.

CA- Crazy, passive aggressive, crazy.

Me - Give Them Back To Me Now Or I Will Kill You And Hide Your Body On Campus. Don’t !@#$ with me on this, I walk my dog all over here. I can and will hide your body where no one will ever find it.

CA - Laughter.

Me - Not Laughing. Give Them To Me Or I Will Kill You. I’m not kidding. I don’t care. You’ve had them too long. I want the slips right now. All the slips. All. Of. Them. Now. Asshole. I Will Kill You. Don’t consider this a threat.

It worked. He gave me bunches, veritable bouquets of months and weeks old pink slips. I rewarded him by not killing him. And after that, I told him to do things and he did things. But never before he was told to do them. He did not respond to “asking”, he responded to force.

We did have a one brief non-hostile, non-threatening back and forth between our neighboring offices about putting things and people into wood chippers. All the things you can put into chippers. It made my friend across the hall very uncomfortable. I think it was the longest non-work related, non-hostile conversation Crazy Asshole and I ever had. Crazy Asshole brought the hostility out of me.

Anyway. I decided to try to be nice to him and he rewarded me by being a Crazy Asshole. It was more than not giving me pink slips, it was a lot of office crap. If he was a passive aggressive dick to me he was even worse to our boss, did I mention the pornographic joke he sent around with her in a featured role as a Nazi? I hope he is getting the care he needs. The long term, inpatient care he needs. Bless his heart. Anyway, he's gone and I feel like a bitch now because I wasn't nicer to him.