Yay - stories!

There are many stories about Hobbette's various neuroses and idiocies, but here's a sampling:

- She has a collection of all things that have been removed from her body. Teeth, tonsils, a bone from her foot, etc. I can only imagine that the jars these items must be in form a tastefully arranged centrepiece on her kitchen table.

- She complains a great deal about getting Word documents because when she moves them into our editing program she "has to go into them and remove all the hard returns manually one by one". Perhaps the search and replace all function is just too easy for her to use.

- She's adopted, and claims that being adopted automatically ruins a kid's life and that he or she will never feel loved or wanted or happy. I have three adopted cousins who would beg to differ.

- She blames all problems with the overtaxed Canadian Medicare system on "the cheaters with three health cards". The logistical problems with the viewpoint don't occur to her immediately? Can she really believe that people are willfully and senselessly having three times as many appendix removal operations as they need?

- Hobbette does the intranet for her department (she works in different one from the one in which I work). Another co-worker and friend of mine used to do it back when he worked here, and in his day it contained useful information about who was away for the day, reminders about meetings, etc., with perhaps some little tag thing about trivia or an amusing photo. Hobbette took it over after he left and has turned it into her personal blog which features zero useful information and her blathering on about nothing. I find it painful to read. My co-worker "Allan" likes to amuse/torture himself by reading it, and by occasionally secretly replacing some of her jpegs with something else.

Here’s an excerpt from a few days ago:

"I have been rather . . . annoyed by comments lately by some co-workers who have felt the need, for whatever reason, to tell me that my hair is too long and that I need to cut it. It's really nobody's business (do you always walk up to someone in Reception and start a conversation this way?), but all I will say in reply is this and that [links to Guinness World Record holders for long hair]. See? I'm practically bald." Followed by happy face icon with its tongue sticking out. What an appropriate use of company resources.

- She has a loud voice and mule-like laugh and spends a lot of time standing around and yapping. Her supervisors are constantly asking her to be quiet so as not to disturb others.

- Shortly after she began working here, before people really knew who she was, her father died. A sympathy card was circulated and everyone in her department signed it, and it was given to her. A few weeks later she approached a co-worker, "Kay", and asked her for her help with some work. Kay said of course she would do it and asked where Hobbette sat so that she could take it to her desk when done.

Hobbette snapped, "Don't you know who I am?"

Kay said, "No, I'm sorry, I don't."

Hobbette said, "But you signed my sympathy card!" She then proceeded to *scream* at Kay for signing her sympathy card, saying that since she didn't even know who she was, she shouldn't have signed it. She later chewed out some other people for the same reason. Certainly people who are grieving deserve understanding and allowances for not behaving perfectly, but this seems beyond the pale.

- And there's more. Oh so much more.

I think we found a mate for Urinal Man.

More! More!

WOW!
I had no idea that they still make these chicks.

She must be one of the last from the 1982 prodcution line.

I do wanna hear more though...carry on...

She has a collection of all things that have been removed from her body.

I've just the song for that.

Man, you people are insatiable;-)

On our company intranet homepage there is a "What's Hot" list — basically, it's list of the links to the most used/visited stuff on the intranet. Very handy for when you're looking for the page you need often. Some of the geeks in the computer department thought it was funny to have the name of one of their (really not hot, nor personable) co-workers at the top of the list, so they created a script that activated his link 1,000 times and put his name at the top of the list. And I have to admit I laughed at it when I first saw it.

Well, Hobbette likes to have her blog appear at the top of the list, so she sat and clicked her blog link 1,001 times or whatever until it was first. At which point the computer guys simply ran the script again so that Not Hot guy's name was first once more. Hobbette was livid.

Hobettee is gangstah!
(lol. she's funny too.)

Orange Swan, you have such great stories that I think you should GYOFB. No, really. I mean that nicely.

so she sat and clicked her blog link 1,001 times or whatever until it was first.

O.M.G.

It sounds like she's constipated from eating too much lembas.

What the hell? People get paid for this kind of shit?

Oh to be able to access that intranet.

What the hell? People get paid for this kind of shit?

If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire
you'll really vomit. I ama fashion god.

Let us help you deal with her. I am sure, among us, we can figure out some harmless little untraceable bumps to put in her day.

Put rubber cement on her chair back.

Put a little sand in her pencil tray. Rub soap on the rim of her favorite mug. Change her chair adjustments. Put copier toner on the underside of her desk. Steal her desk accessories and leave them in the copy room. Hide an anchovy in the struts of her desk.

Some people are just interpersonally tone deaf. It's very entertaining to laugh at them, but is it really fair?

METACHAT: Interpersonally tone deaf since 2005.

Single girl, Single girl - do just what she please!

Fair to laugh at them? Probably not, but it's better to share stories than to suddenly snap and go "medieval on her ass".

Sounds like this one's already medieval.

Oh, I'm not going to do anything to her. I have to listen to her kvetching about stuff enough without giving her more to complain about. I avoid her as much as I can, try to tune out her noise so I can get my work done, and am pleasant when I have to actually deal with her.

There are people around here who are friendly and nice to her and try to help her, and the garbage they get from her...

One of my friends, "Maura", left the company a few weeks back. Maura arranged to have lunch with a few people on her last day. Hobbette had previously asked if she could come, Maura said sure, but as they were about to leave, Hobbette refused to go after all because she was in too bad a mood and "you people don't really want me along anyway".

Lovely little slap in the face for Maura, who actually rather likes Hobbette and is friendly to her (while admitting she certainly has problems).

Some gems from Hobbette's blog on the intranet:

And a happy 32nd birthday to Alanis Morissette. I still can't believe she got her hair cut. Cut. All off. Cut. El poof-o. When my hair grows up, it had wanted to be Alanis's hair. I mean, her hair . . . I . . . I . . . *sob*

Someone's waaaaay too invested in her hair.

Knock knock! Who's there? Rain and construction. Rain and construction who? Rain and construction, and just when the heck am I gonna get to work? Just what exactly is the hold-up anyway? I could get out and walk faster than this for crying out loud! Over two hours to go 21 miles seems reasonable to me! I . . . did that sign just say it's going to be like this until Fall 2007? My sanity. Has anyone seen my sanity? It was here just a minute ago. I may as well just put my car in Park. Does anyone have something for a massive headache?

Man, that was the WORST knock-knock joke I've ever heard

I don't even have a comment for this one.

Also, a very happy 1-year birthday to my beloved Scooter! Scooter is the variegated ivy I picked up during the Earth Day festivities in the Lobby last year. Once on the verge of a seemingly inevitable death, Scooter has made what can only be termed a miraculous recovery (okay, not so miraculous—he had some fine TLC), and is now over, I'd say, a foot and a half long. Go Scooter!

This must be one of the plants on her desk. Her desk decor is another story in itself....

If I were elected Prime Minister my very first act in office would be to make getting into a car accident during rush hour a federal felony punishable by a harsh tongue-lashing and having to listen to music by Wham! for 16 hours straight.

It seems there *are* worse things than having Stephen Harper as PM.

Orange Swan, you have such great stories that I think you should GYOFB. No, really. I mean that nicely.

Thanks, TPS. And I do want to launch my own blog, but it'll be a site where I post reviews of books and other reading materials. I don't think I'd ever do a personal blog. For one thing, I don't think my life is interesting and I don't think I've got the talent required to make it seem like a worthy topic. Some people do an excellent job of writing about themselves and there is a place for that sort of thing in literature, but most do not, and I have a horror of being like those self-absorbed, preening twats Leah McLaren and Rebecca Eckler.

And then there are privacy issues. You can't write about yourself without writing about the people you care about, and I don't feel I can or should do that.

So a book review site it is. And MetaChat is a good forum for me to post the occasional item about my life, if you people don't mind my doing that. Sometimes I do think that this time I'm surely going to hear a chorus of "get your own blog, fuckwit";-)

Good stories and I don't mind reading them at all, but these two would make good MeCha catch phrases:

MetaChat: the occasional item about my life

MetaChat: GYOFB. No, really. I mean that nicely

These stories remind me of this blog!