MetaChat - Hobbette: tales of a mad co-worker ctd.

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15 March 2007

Hobbette: tales of a mad co-worker ctd. Awhile ago I posted a thread about Hobbette, an insanely annoying co-worker of mine. Here's a little something I wrote and sent to Kay, a co-worker of mine who is equally as maddened by Hobbette as I am and has to sit much, much closer to her. I like to tease Kay that the two of them are secretly best friends.

So here we go... 10 Things Kay and Hobbette Like To Do During Their Sleepovers...

→[More:]1) Dress up in LOTR costumes and role play.

2) Bake triple mocha fudge brownies and eat them (Kay eats 3 brownies, Hobbette eats the rest of the pan).

3) Scheme and plan ways to get "Philip" [cute-ish tech guy whom Hobbette has a huge crush on] to notice Hobbette. Possible methods include thought waves, a Seventeen magazine inspired makeover, and a "secret admirer" whose attentions to Hobbette will make Philip jealous.

4) Call Philip, giggle into the receiver, and hang up.

5) Do each other's hair and try on one another's clothes.

6) Read to each other from their diaries (which are pink and purple and have little locks).

7) Sit on the couch together with a box of Kleenex between them and watch Julia Roberts movies.

8) Put on matching pajamas and have a tickle fight.

9) Play video games, and get into a hair-pulling match when Hobbette "accidentally" erases Kay's higher score.

10) Solemnly promise to be best friends forever.

Kay told me that when she got this email she was feeling really tired, and that upon reading it she laughed and laughed and didn't feel tired anymore. But, she continued, she was still going to have to kill me for writing it.

post by: Orange Swan at: 20:33 | 29 comments

Here's another Hobbette story...

Two of my co-workers were sitting in the almost empty company lunchroom chatting. Hobbette was at a table across the room.

One co-worker was telling the other about her experience of moving in with her fiancé, and saying they were enjoying setting up house but were lacking in a lot of necessary furnishings still. Co-worker number two said, jokingly, "Well, that's why you get married, so you can get lots of gifts."

Hobbette, who again, was across the lunchroom and was NOT part of the conversation called across the room, "Some of us don't think getting gifts is a good reason for getting married!"

Good thing we have Hobbette around to keep us on the straight and narrow, ethcially speaking.

posted by Orange Swan 15 March | 20:40

Orange Swan, it pains me to say this, but this is a little too notes passed in 8th grade study hall for my taste.

posted by jonmc 15 March | 20:40

This thread is useless without yearbook pics ... um, images.

Oh, and thanks for the link to the earlier thread — I needed a good laugh.

posted by rob511 15 March | 20:52

Jonmc, I dunno, seems more like your old dumbco tales.

Which, I enjoyed them too. :-p

posted by bunnyfire 15 March | 20:52

bunny, I made fun of the bosses, not some poor sad girl who like LOTR. And it pains me cause generally orange swan is a nice person. This isn't her style.

posted by jonmc 15 March | 20:54

Sounds about right for a sleepover! Man, I miss sleepovers. I miss my best friend :-( Growing up is fun, but it's sad that we don't have sleepovers anymore.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 15 March | 21:02

TPS, we can have a sleepover when we have our cheese party.

posted by youngergirl44 15 March | 21:05

YAYAYAYAYAY!!!!! That will be fun. And if the cheese party were up in Chicago, my best friend could come!!!!!

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 15 March | 21:05

What's this about a cheese party?

posted by box 15 March | 21:07

Oh jon, this woman is just so hard to take. She makes every day a protracted struggle to concentrate. And she has no compunction about chastising anyone she pleases for what she considers transgressions. I recognize she has problems and I'm actually not mean to her. My way of dealing with her is to avoid her like the plague when I can and be very civil when I can't. Almost everyone else does the same, except those extra kind people at work who try to be nice to her and get extra helpings of her garbage for their pains. She'll never find this (she doesn't know about my pseudonym much less hers) so there's no real harm done.

posted by Orange Swan 15 March | 21:09

Fair enough. It's just that every place I ever worked there was tons of office gossip and character assassination behind peoples backs, and it was often about my friends (and probably about me when I wasn't around), so I'm probably oversensitive to it.

posted by jonmc 15 March | 21:15

box, we decided one night in IRC that we're going to have a cheese party! A CHEESE PARTY! WOO HOO! Cheese by the ton! And now we're going to make it a CHEESE SLUMBER PARTY!

What will you be bringing to the party?

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 15 March | 21:22

Brie. And have you ever tried dipping it in jam? This is a recent innovation of mine and it is either something really disgusting that only I would do or the best idea food-wise I ever had since the time I got the idea to make pumpkin apricot muffins - I can't decide which.

posted by Orange Swan 15 March | 21:34

I was skimming a Bridal magazine tonight at the nail salon (it was all they had!), and there was a couple who, instead of having a cake, had CHEESE. Wheels of cheese! "Hey everyone- come over here! It's time for the bride and groom to cut the cheese!"

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 15 March | 21:37

pinky: I've got a recipe for beer-cheese muffins that I've been wanting an excuse to try out. I'm also pretty decent, or practiced anyway, with cheesecakes (a little old lady at work said my mint cheesecake was the best she'd ever eaten) and cheese fondues.

jon: Yeah, and that office gossip and character assassination is as much about the bosses as anybody else.

Your anti-bossness is more McNulty than Ziggy. I worked shit jobs, some of which I really enjoyed, for years, then busted my ass and went into debt so that I could do meaningful work that I loved. But instead of cataloging ephemera or answering weird reference questions all day, I've become a middle manager.

We're all trying to get by, life is a series of compromises, and things are tough all over. Let me buy you a beer.

posted by box 15 March | 21:40

I'll bring swiss, tillamook cheddar and my nail polish. Manicures! The gliders can come too. And I'll make some exciting fondue.

posted by youngergirl44 15 March | 21:41

box, the guys at DumbCo who I would grouse about here were not middle managers or supervisors (I don't have a beef with a good boss), they were gazillionaire robber baron types (literally). There's a big difference there. But, ultimately, you're right, grousing about anybody behind their back is kind of shitty.

(and i when i said Ziggy was a distillation of my worst traits I was talking about impulsiveness, recklessness and a dumbass need to 'prove' myself. although I'd never shoot a Greek fence)

and the finest cheeses are gorgonzola, parmigiano reggiano, and stilton. I like it stinky.

posted by jonmc 15 March | 21:49

jonmc: try steak covered in gorgonzola with a bit of alfredo sauce and then broiled until the cheese is hot... so good!

posted by youngergirl44 15 March | 21:53

I'm picky about cheese. What I like:

Cheddar, ricotta, Monterey jack, provolone, mozzarella, room-temperature feta,colby, cottage/farmers, leicester, munster, gouda....

What I can't stand:
American, Parmesan, any sort of blue, swiss, brie....

Type O's are supposed to avoid dairy anyway.

posted by brujita 15 March | 23:19

Brie. And have you ever tried dipping it in jam?

Orange sections dipped in chili powder or cayenne pepper. I raise you two.

posted by danf 15 March | 23:24

In retrospect, I think usually I was either my office's "mad co-worker", or a friend of whomever was madder than I was. But, even in a 'normal' Los Angeles workplace, there is a higher number of freaks-per-office. And I got a lot of entertainment from most of them.

But if she really got annoying, taking things too seriously, I'd reflexively turn up the snark... "No, Hobbette, I love your hair. I always know when you're in the office, 'cause I can see it halfway down the hallway..." Then SHE would be going out of her way to avoid ME.

posted by wendell 15 March | 23:39

I made fun of the bosses, not some poor sad girl

Oh.

Of course.

posted by dersins 16 March | 01:20

I suspect I am the Hobette of my team. I know I was when I worked in a team that was mostly women. It made me feel really good when they'd all go off to their special chatty lunches together, or all stop talking if I approached a group of them.

posted by essexjan 16 March | 02:30

But you're the OMGoddess of our team, essexjan, and we're funner. And smarter.

posted by taz 16 March | 02:39

What you need e/j is for the assorted hordes of metachat to come stand outside your office waving "Jan" banners. Then when anyone comes out, we'll ask in revered tones if they know you. Answers of "Yes" will result in much cooing and touching.

After a couple of hours, you can ask us to leave and we'll disperse silently. Your office workers won't know what the hell is going on.

posted by seanyboy 16 March | 03:46

seanyboy, buy me a ticket to the UK and I'll totally do this.

posted by deadcowdan 16 March | 05:18

deadcowan, this is for THE JAN! You pay your own way! It's like paying your own way to Mecca, it's part of the journey.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 16 March | 09:23

I was just going to comment on, well, what others have noted. I'd hate to be Hobbette.

But seanyboy's plan is ludicrously awesome and makes the whole thread worth it. I'm envisioning it like those scenes from Galaxy Quest where the friendly aliens first meet the TV show cast - heaping, steaming mounds of religious awe.

I am also available for this gig if there's a plane ticket in it. Quick! Who has an expense account and a credit card!? You're about to fly in a bunch of "experts" and "consultants" for a "brainstorming session".

posted by loquacious 16 March | 18:21

The descriptions of Hobbette make me think of Jean Teasdale. And for that, I think we can all cut Orange Swan a break, because there's a limit to how much of that a normal human can be expected to take on a daily basis.

posted by contessa 16 March | 20:58

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