Because our corporate office contains only women, every birth, every death, every new hiring and every firing must be accompanied with corporate luncheon. This paticular luncheon was in honor of someone I actually enjoy working with, but I, being twisted and completely evil, still managed to think evil thoughts about those who attend. The highlights of those who irritate and annoy me are:

Our Vice President, who my boss and I have agreed, is not quite all there. She is very innocent. To her, no problem is unsolvable. She demonstrates her firm belief in this theory by stating everything in a positive manner, even though you have just told her it is not possible.

Sample exchange:

Me: We will not be able to run payroll today because the system is down.

Her: So, you will be able to run payroll today, right?

Me: No. We will not be able to run payroll today, BECAUSE THE SYSTEM IS DOWN.

Her: Oh! I get it, you will fix the system and run payroll today!

This exchange continues until I glower at her and she shuffles out of my office, none the wiser to whatever I just tried to tell her. My boss surmises the only way she got to be the Vice President is by sleeping her way to the top.

Our Vice President adores food. She will come and eat your food without asking, as long as she can see it. When you catch her, she freezes, mouth slightly agape and then says "You don't mind sharing, right?" While she takes your food she narrirates. "I love chicken and rice. My mother used to make chicken and rice when I was about seven years old, and I just loved it. We would eat it and sit under the tree..." You get the point. And every three words she punctuates with "yes?" to make sure you are engaged in conversation. (I combat this annoyance with lots of nodding and avoidance of eye contact.) Even if you told her no, PLEASE STOP EATING MY LUNCH, she would keep eating, so in the futility of it all, you give her ALL the food, just to get her out of your office. She is also on Weight Watchers and is continually mystified as to why she isn't losing weight. "I have been so good, and only cheated a little!" She cries this every week.

Today she positioned herself by the chip bowl. Shoveling chip after chip slathered in dip towards her chattering pie hole. When suspicious, and almost worried, glances are cast her way, she perkily informs us that she "looooooves dip! But I never buy it at home. Only chips." I restrain myself from marching over there, wiping the white ring away from her mouth and prying the dip can out of her hand, just to watch her cry.

I have no pity.

Then, we have our resident busy body. Any small connection to fame or importance will quickly be made and she will tell you the story several times in minute detail. Every. Single. Story. She. Tells. Takes. Forever. No detail is too small to go unnoticed. And yes, she was the one who was unfortunate enough to have someone in the family murdered. Gave her drama material for months. She once told a story how Mitzi Purdue, the wife of late chicken empire owner Frank Purdue, talked to her at a Chamber of Commerce mixer. Mitzi was SO entranced in the conversation that she told Frank to wait so they could finish what they were talking about. Today's story of choice involved her stopping by the concert hall where we have a few temps working to set up for a show. The stage manager for Allison Krauss walked all the way across the stage and squatted down to tell her we have supplied him with one of the best working crews he has had in the last several shows. Just listening to her tell stories exhausts me.

I have this perverse delight in watching her do her makeup in such a fashion that it makes her wrinkles look deeper, eyes look smaller and her skin look more sallow. She thinks she knows something about everything. And while she might, I would prefer not to HEAR her something about everything.


We then have our collections "manager" who manages to do absolutely nothing, pass all her work off to me, and still get paid. Go figure. I hate this woman with a passion. She is one of those older women who tans like there is no tomorrow. If I am ever in need of a quality leather chair, I will hunt her down and skin her alive. Her hair is that funky highlighted blond that sort of matches her skin. She has lurid slashes of pink lipstick across her face and wears lots of frosted eyeshadow. She continually takes vacations, though I am not sure what she is vacationing from since she doesn't work. She manages to arrange her one working day a week on the day we have food. And she never contributes.

This woman calls me, predictably when I am in the middle of something important, to ask me to fax something to a company. When I suggest I could possibly be busy with something else, she sighs loudly, instructs me what to do anyway, and tells me to do it whenever I get a chance. OR YOU COULD JUST DO IT YOURSELF, YOU TANNED AND PICKLED TROPICAL BITCH.

We then have the woman who orchestrates these affairs. She should have retired, say, fifteen years ago. She has to have her fingers in everything. And it has to be done HER way. She calls people "hon" and "sweetie". She exercises every morning and comes into work in her spandex pants and then changes. This afternoon, in a moment of kindness I was helping her set up for this luncheon. She instructed me, one by one, where to place the chair. She instructed me how to arrange the rolls. And just how thinly the tomatoes should be sliced.

She also enjoys complaining when I don't do HER job. And then complaining when I DO her job, because I have done it wrong. She wears Provacative Woman by Elizabeth Arden. And three earrings in each ear. This woman has got to be seventy-five. When I first started working here, I couldn't help but stare, because her wrinkles were so deep I wasn't sure if she was deformed or not.


We have several more annoying characters. But I have exhausted myself and am starting to loose the vividedness it takes to depict the characters I work with. When I become properly enraged again, I will continue.