The Office Jester: Strange Colleagues

The Office Jester… every office needs one to make strange colleagues look normal

Colleagues are almost always “strange”, “weird”, “obnoxious”, “unusual”, and more often than not, damn annoying. We’ve already covered annoying colleagues before in under the ambit of Office Jester. We’re now going to focus on “strange colleagues” in this post. Fear not, though, gradually, post by post, we’ll get to all those little adjectives.

Strange colleagues: everyone has them, no? It’s almost as if it’s an epidemic. You come in contact with one strange colleague and you turn into one too. It doesn’t matter why you’re strange. The strange colleague viral strain can manifest in unique ways in different people. I, myself, am a strange colleague in at least five different ways. It’s a great achievement, I know. What are my strange ways? I have five different for every one of my colleagues! Yeah, I work hard at it. You’ll see bits and pieces throughout this piece (Author’s strange way #1: irritating wordplay).

Coming back to the point; strange colleagues can be a source of extremely irritation and frustration or the root of some good laughs. Which way you direct your mental and emotional energy is up to you. With this post, we hope to nudge you, nay push you, into the side of light so that you become a Jedi and not a Sith Lord (Author’s strange way #2: Nerding out).

Strange Colleagues in an Office Meeting

The format of the video is quite simple and very helpful. It will allow us to approach each of those strange colleagues one by one and, maybe, give them a wet willy every time they didn’t meet our requirements (Author’s strange way #3: vindictiveness hidden in humour). Here goes.

1. The Time Nazi: I have been guilty of this offence a few times too (Author’s strange way #4: Insisting on punctuality). The Time Nazi, as the video suggests, believes in punctuality jihad. This means that the individual doesn’t care about anything else except being on time. He’ll sacrifice his first born, his income, and any number of other critical things to just be on time. By the way, that’s Nazi and Jihadi in one para. I believe this post’s readership went up by hundreds since the secret service is now reading it!
2. Get Here When You Can Guy: This guy is the arch nemesis of the Time Nazi. He’s never on time. What’s worse is that he never has a valid reason to be late. He does always give a reason, but it is always lame. Still, since he’s always late, you have to appreciate his consistency.
3. The Negator: The Negator, literally, has no friends. Even other Negators shun a Negator. It makes you wonder why a Negator is a Negator? What’s the reward in it? Perhaps, it’s not a choice but a disease to be so pessimistic. Perhaps, we should pity the Negators. It’s so damn hard, though!
4. ‘Ol Thin Skin: AKA the Offended Diva. In simple terms, they get offended quickly and then need special attention to become normal. You see the trick in this trick, right? It’s about getting that special attention. The anti-thesis of this psychological game is to simply let them get offended and move on.
5. T. Ephraim: The term Ephraim is used for high functioning African origin males. The key delineators here are that these guys are highly intelligent and charming but they’re also incredibly abstract in their thinking. Sometimes, they’re so abstract that others can’t follow them. Either you can follow them into their Wonderland or ask them to come back to Earth. I prefer the former (Author’s strange way #5: Always initiating a pseudo-thought experiment).
6. The Rambler: Courting controversy here but isn’t it always a woman who is the Rambler (Author’s strange way #6: loves to court controversy)? In either case, these guys or gals are probably the most bothersome in an office. They yap about anything and everything under the sun and never get to the point. It’s like their neurons fire too much or don’t fire at all. They need a binding agent for their verbal diarrhoea.
7. The Dominator: Some will say that I’m guilty of this too (Author’s strange way #6: Thinks he needs to be forceful everywhere). The best way to describe the Dominator is The Terminator. They don’t stop, regardless of how often you prove them wrong. They just keep coming like automatons, trying to prove their point. These people like to be right all the time so they fight tooth and nail to not be proven wrong. They also like a good fight. Walk away. Walk away now. Do your best Gollum impression: “Leave now and never come back!” Maybe they’ll have pity on you.
8. The Social Networker: This is probably the most virulent type of strange colleague these days. They’re everywhere and multiplying like rabbits. They’re not only multiplying themselves but also multiplying their tools (Read: new social media tools such as SnapChat). Perhaps, you should schedule a digital meeting with them?
9. The Underachieving Scribe: The sincere, devoted, dedicated, and committed employee. Every boss’s dream recruit. Tell them to do X and they’ll do 10X. Wonderful people with an exceptional drive but they lack an original mind. They can’t come up with a creative idea, no matter what. Maybe you should take away their pens to spark something other than tumbleweed in their heads.
10. The Leader: If the title is deserved, it’s good but if it’s an oxymoron, you’re in trouble. The video presents the oxymoronic version. Time to switch jobs, if your head honcho is this guy.
11. Bonus – visual presentation: We’ve really done presentations to death. Still, since they’re in this video as a bonus version of strange colleagues, we felt a couple of lines won’t hurt. Since visual presentations are so insidious in the office setup, they can be seen as an extra colleague. Here’s one on PowerPoint presentations gone wrong and another on annoying presentation habits.