Author Topic: Your nemesis  (Read 5949 times)

Laurie

  • Guest
Your nemesis
« on: August 24, 2006, 05:46:14 PM »
Do you have a nemesis at your place of work? The person who inexplicably loathes even though you've been helpful and nice to him or her from the very beginning? And once you realize she or he doesn't particularly like you, you attempt to ingratiate yourself. (And I'm abandoning the ambiguous pronoun conceit now, because it's rather cumbersome.) You hand her shit. You call English-speaking clients at her request, which is, like, the only time she talks to you, when she asks you to do something for her, because she totally hates your guts. And trying to be nice only You smile at her in the morning, say buenos días, ask her how she's doing. She deigns to give a noncommittal answer if she's in a good mood. Your attempts at niceties only serve to exacerbate her disdain for you.

God, I sit right next to her! I see her five times a week, for almost eight whole hours! (I say "almost," because this cabrona has no work ethic. She breezes in ten minutes late, she takes a forty minute lunch, and then she leaves fifteen minutes early. Oh, AND she leaves her cell phone -- she has the third most annoying ring tone ever. Almost as annoying as that Crazy Frog ring. Ugh. She receives about five cell phone calls a day, each lasting about five minutes, and she calls people, too, cackling like a goddamn bruja throughout the entire cell phone calls.)

As an experiment, I decided to avoid any greetings in the morning. I said, absolutely nothing to her, hoping I was just being paranoid and sensitive as usual, but it looks like I was right. She definitely doesn't like me, because wouldn't you say good morning to the asshole who sits next to you. I liked her when she first started working here six months ago. I thought she was a sweet lady at first. Now I want to hit her every time she does that stupid baby voice, whining for one of our co-workers to come to her and help her with something. If you want help, get your lazy ass up and ASK for help. I'm trying to concentrate.

I think I might hate her. It's not quite as bad as Darren of Consolidated Cardboard, but it's getting there. And I do get along with other people at work. I get invited to baby showers and quinceañeras. I go out for drinks and dinner after work with friends from work. I've even gone on vacation with a co-worker. So, I'm not completely unlikeable. I think.

So, who's your personal Darren?

Emerson

  • Tarsel tunnel syndrome
  • Posts: 309
Re: Your nemesis
« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2006, 09:15:26 PM »
I work temp jobs, mostly, so I don't usually get to know my co-workers well enough to hate them. I don't think humorlessness, sanctimony, martyr complexes or the icy grins of abject horror look good on anyone, and I expect those people to treat me like garbage no matter how nice I am. But if I'm really going to hate you, you need to display some loathsome characteristic that I've buried deep within myself, something I've always denied but never quite overcome.

Plotting to kill me will do it, too.

I've worked a lot of service industry jobs, and I've noticed that the people with the most self-righteous, perpetually victimized personalities will *always* cut me out of my tipshare.

~EmD
"You said it. I didn't."

Andy

  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 6112
Re: Your nemesis
« Reply #2 on: August 24, 2006, 11:24:55 PM »
at about 4:30 am everyday this is my arch nemesis, because she wants me to pet her:


but seriously, in my job driving the truck that sucks the waste out of  porta-potty's I don't have a lot of co-workers, so I guess I would have to say my nemesis is anyone who parks in front of a porta-potty that I have to clean thereby making me pull the crap-sucking hose around their car.
Breakfast- I'm havin' a time
Wheelies- I'm havin' a time
Headlocks- I'm havin' a time
Drunk Tank- not so much a time
George St.- I'm havin' a time
Brenda- I'm havin' a time
Bingo- I'm havin' a time
House Arrest- I'm still havin' a time

Sarah

  • Guest
Re: Your nemesis
« Reply #3 on: August 25, 2006, 09:45:36 AM »
Well, I work at home, so it's only tough for me when I'm going through a self-loathing stretch.  Occasionally, I may have hard time with particular author, but that just means a few weeks of annoyance.  It was worse before e-mail, when some needy authors would insist on lengthy phone calls, but now contact is blessedly limited and usually quite terse.

CPM, I presume there's supposed to be a picture of your cat in your post?  Or is "pet" a euphemism?

Laurie

  • Guest
Re: Your nemesis
« Reply #4 on: August 25, 2006, 11:31:17 AM »
She brought dulce de leche cookies for EVERYONE else in the office! Even the new guy! Are we in fucking kindergarten? She did it on purpose, after I brought chocolates from See's Candies for everyone, and even gave her, my motherfucking nemesis, some. And she heard me tell a co-worker how much I love foreign snacks. I like pre-packages tapas wafer thingies from Spain. I like Jet bars from Colombia. I like Cadbury chocolates and curry flavored snacks. I love dulce de leche based snack foods.

Also, she hums, so she must be evil.

Dan B

  • Achilles Tendon Bursitis
  • Posts: 642
Re: Your nemesis
« Reply #5 on: August 25, 2006, 01:21:06 PM »
There aren't really people at work that I don't like, but at school I have an arch-nemesis.  He's just a big jerk to me, but I have plenty of zingers to keep him in check.

Jordan Michael

  • Plantar Fasciitis
  • Posts: 4
Re: Your nemesis
« Reply #6 on: August 27, 2006, 04:49:59 AM »
Patrick Swayze is my nemesis, but I don't think he knows it yet.

Josh

  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 1386
Re: Your nemesis
« Reply #7 on: September 26, 2006, 12:21:41 PM »
not nemesis-specific, but...
TO ANYONE WORKING IN ANY SORT OF SHARED OR OPEN OFFICE SITUATION
PUT YOUR CELLY PHONE ON SILENT

Someone was just in the bathroom and their phone went off at their desk, meaning everyone else had to listen to that "Hello Moto" thingy. THEN the voicemail had another ringtone! AHHHHHHHHH


"Alright, well, for the sake of this conversation, let's say the book does not exist."

Fido

  • Space Champion!
  • Posts: 1017
Re: Your nemesis
« Reply #8 on: September 27, 2006, 08:46:22 PM »
She brought dulce de leche cookies for EVERYONE else in the office! Even the new guy! Are we in fucking kindergarten? She did it on purpose, after I brought chocolates from See's Candies for everyone, and even gave her, my motherfucking nemesis, some. And she heard me tell a co-worker how much I love foreign snacks.

YES!!!! That is so kindergarten!  How unbelievably petty... so petty that it's laughable.  I got a good laugh, but not at your expense -- at your co-worker's expense.  I hope that it makes you laugh and not cry.  She is a great nominee for factory-wrapped douche of the week/month/year.

I could tell many, many stories about my arch-nemesis at my former job.  I am afraid to launch into the whole subject, since I think I would be typing all night.  Maybe another time. 

John Junk

  • Guest
Re: Your nemesis
« Reply #9 on: September 28, 2006, 03:36:02 AM »
My new job is managing like 100 art studios with an art student in each one of them.  There are a few "problem students" but these aren't really like nemeses, more like if your job is hearding sheep and these are literally the black sheep who insist on fucking everything up.  It's what black sheep do!  I can't hold it against them.  Last week somebody rolled around naked covered in tempera paint all over an otherwise freshly cleaned out and painted studio, and that made me mad, but it's so outrageous and ridiculous that it also makes an excellent anecdote. 
There's an older lady I work with who was always extra nice to me as a student, but now that I work with her I can see it was just a facade and she is actually seething with contempt, but I never really hang out with her enough to care.  I used to really get driven crazy by this dude that wanted to ask me for advice on what furniture he should buy for his Park Slope Brooklyn co-op, and would make me watch Ali G web videos all the time, and that was annoying.  But nothing like the special resentment cookies.  That shit's lame.  You should throw a turd in her face.

Laurie

  • Guest
Re: Your nemesis
« Reply #10 on: September 28, 2006, 12:57:43 PM »
She brought dulce de leche cookies for EVERYONE else in the office! Even the new guy! Are we in fucking kindergarten? She did it on purpose, after I brought chocolates from See's Candies for everyone, and even gave her, my motherfucking nemesis, some. And she heard me tell a co-worker how much I love foreign snacks.

YES!!!! That is so kindergarten!  How unbelievably petty... so petty that it's laughable.  I got a good laugh, but not at your expense -- at your co-worker's expense.  I hope that it makes you laugh and not cry.  She is a great nominee for factory-wrapped douche of the week/month/year. 

Well, I was all pre-menstrual at the time I created this thread. I cried, yes, but that's not saying much, because Publix commercials make me cry even when I'm NOT PMSing. Oh my god, especially the one with the little boy who makes a heart-shaped cake with his mommy for his valentine. While they're making the cake, she says, "This must be some special girl," or something like that, and he says, "She's the best." Or something like that. And then she drops him off at school, and she's all, "But you forgot your cake!" And he just smiles at his mommy and walks away backwards, grinning. AWWWW! For those of you who don't live in Florida, you can catch glimpses of a Publix in that awful movie Bully, also known as that movie wherein Michael Pitt totally makes out with a dog.


Jason

  • Guest
Re: Your nemesis
« Reply #11 on: September 28, 2006, 04:07:39 PM »
I went to the Publix in Pompano Beach a few times, it was better than any supermarket I'd been to before in the US but the most striking thing about it was that, without exception, everbody working there was black and everybody shopping there was white.
I've been all over the world and I'd never seen anything like it.

John Junk

  • Guest
Re: Your nemesis
« Reply #12 on: September 28, 2006, 08:02:52 PM »
Dude I totally had a bonding moment with the allegedly resentful older woman I work with.  She told me to go home and have a good stiff drink and I'll feel better about things.  Nice!

I am currently in my tenth year of boycotting all Larry Clark movies.