And now I introduce you to...

Awkward Coworker!

He is probably one of the nicer men you'll ever meet, so I feel a little bad for writing this, but...he's just so awkward.

He has a hearing problem. As in he has to wear hearing aids on both ears, all the time. What I'm saying is that he doesn't hear very well.

Because of this, he tends to leave his ringer (on his cell phone) on the loudest possible setting. At all times. Which scares the shit out of me every time it rings. EVERY TIME.

This last week or so, his wife has been in Turkey. And she calls at least five times a day. Since his office is right next to my...workspace (it's hard to call it an office when everyone has to walk through it to get anywhere), I get the pleasure of jumping out of skin at least five times a day.

It is only due to sheer self-control that I have not walked into his office, put my hand in his pants pocket, fished out his phone, thrown it on the ground and jumped up and down on it like a child throwing a temper tantrum.

Also, the ringer is a song from some Irish band. So it's not like it's even catchy. I guess I should be thanking my lucky stars that it's not that Lady Gaga song that makes me want to gouge my own eyes out. Or Nickelback.

The other thing about Awkward Coworker is that he's...well, socially awkward. By this I mean, he often stands in front of my desk, talking to me about things that make no sense to me. With lots of pauses. He often starts somewhere in the middle, as though I might have been present in his head for the first part of the conversation.

"Guess it's a good thing I didn't go out to look at that bridge, because...

...

...

...they didn't tell me they moved the route."

Huh?

My personal favorite is when he says things like (completely out of the blue, mind you), "And that lady was crazy...

...
...
...
...
..."

And then he laughs like he made a joke. But only after 30 full seconds of pause.

He also has just a tiny bit of Tourrette Syndrome.


It wasn't so much a problem when he worked in the back office. We'd occasionally hear a "GODDAMNITSHITMOTHERFUCKER" coming from back there, but for the most part, we were all blissfully ignorant of just how bad it could be.

Heinous Bitch Coworker moved upstairs a few months ago, and SAC followed quickly, so Awkward Coworker moved up to the office in the front. Right across from our boss. Who is kind of a fundie. Not that he won't let a "damn" or a "sonova bitch" slip from time to time, but for the most part, he's a fine, up-standing, churchgoing (sexual harrassing) kinda man.

I can only imagine the look on his face when 85% of the words that leave Awkward Coworkers mouth are "FUCKING SHIT PIECE OF SHIT GODDAMNIT MOTHERFUCKING BITCH BASTARD." Like all day. Everyday.

Poor Awkward Coworker is already pretty unpopular with the boss. He's not a great communicator (neither is the boss man, though), and he can't write (I was assigned the task of editing one of his reports once. I nearly cried. The only thing I wanted to say was, "Start over. And this time use sentences."). He's not exactly the sharpest tack in the shed. But he does the grunt work and the shit no one else wants to do, and he does it without complaint (aside from the cursing).