Co-workers you miss

[non capisco]

The guy who bought every conspiracy theory going and genuinely believed that if you were knighted you were then made an assassin for The Queen. This came to light when Ringo Starr was knighted in 2018 and the co-worker in question said "He'll be forced to kill someone for The Queen, then." Ringo Starr would have been in his late seventies, why would they send him? And who's on the Queen's list? I suppose he could have rung Macca up for advice. "Who'd you get on your first go? Knowing my bloody luck I'll get a bloody baby." Co-worker also swore blind there was a 90s TV show starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and a talking mound of green goo called "Arnie and The Blob". 100% sincere in his recollection of this, still no idea of what it was he thought he saw.

I miss that guy. A constant stream of batshit beliefs and false memories.

[bgmnts]

Priyanka.

My first pure crush.

[ImmaculateClump]

I'm officially too nuts to work but there was a time when I was at a garden centre with a guy called Huey and one day he was sitting with a newspaper open with a little pile of sand in it that he was playing with.
That should give you some idea of what bracket I was in.

Quick as a flash I said "Huey. Loose sand. The news!"
Nothing.

He looked like eight ace from viz and carried a salt celler in his pocket. When he had his packed lunch at dinner time, he'd take it out and shake far too much salt on everything he ate. Always a boiled egg in there.
Like he'd start shaking, 10 shakes, twenty shakes. You'd be thinking, riiiiight, he's doing this for a joke now, but he'd still be going.
Probably long gone, I imagine. Folded up all wrinkly like a dead balloon or a shriveled slug

He hummed constantly, even when he was eating, somehow. All red scabs on his face from the sweat that he refused to wipe away.

Never spoke, but he did hum, and he'd do this creepy gibberish ultra quiet whispering thing sometimes and you'd be like "wha? fuck's that?" and then you'd realise there was Huey in the corner picking tomatos and not some daemon whispering in your ear.

No idea why but he often pops into my head, wonder if he's still going and if he's looked after.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

The woman who had aunt bessies yorkshire puddings with every meal and also insisted on saying "heighdth" and not "height"

[dontpaintyourteeth]

The man who always talked at me about football circa the 2006 World Cup in Germany and kept getting very angry about Gary Neville's performance in "gill sen crow hen" (I think he meant Gelsenkirchen)

[touchingcloth]

The guy who believed that people double-barrel their surnames to avoid tax.

The guy that thought that if you stood next to a nuclear bomb when it went off you wouldn't be harmed, but only if you stood *right* next to it.

The guy who said that doughnuts take a fortnight to digest.

These three guys, reader? All the same guy. RIP.

[Sherringford Hovis]

Jonny.

Without Jonny's hapless presence, I'm the workplace dickhead. I don't mind being jobshare dickhead or perhaps supernumerary dickhead, but I prefer not to be exclusively only full-time dickhead.

[Kankurette]

Token non-cunt Annemarie.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Dan the trolley man, got run over by a milk float

[Pavlov`s Dog`s Dad`s Dead]

Nidge. Ex-army, he told me in confidence, as he didn't want people to know. Which doesn't quite chime with the fact he used to rock up in 2 Para T-shirts showing off his regimental tattoos. Over the course of the 12-hour shifts we did together, he gradually told me his story: he'd been a football hooligan, and joined the parachute regiment to find a more socially sanctioned outlet for his violent tendencies. He stuck it out for a while but, frustrated at the lack of any actual combat, he deserted, and went to Africa as a mercenary. The Timeline gets a bit mixed for me here: in my mind, he said it was Rhodesia, but then again he also said he went just before the Falklands War broke out, so was ruing the fact that he was sweating his way around the desert, while his former mates were fighting in pretty much the same conditions they'd trained in round Catterick.

In Africa, he found God, renounced violence, and came back to the UK. He never mentioned whether the army caught up with him, and if so, what the consequences had been. When I worked with him, he said he was volunteering with the challenged youth of Leeds, trying to keep them on the straight and narrow.

He and I worked as a pair on a tile factory production line, screen-printing. I literally spent 12 hours a day watching paint dry. I never did find out whether a single word of what he told me was true, but at least it helped the shifts go by. It must be getting on for thirty years ago, now, but every so often he comes to mind.

[idunnosomename]

no one they should all die

[Butchers Blind]

A guy called Yacob. He was a tall, Ghanaian fella, endlessly amusing in telling stories. Tried to impart the wisdom of keeping white pepper under the bed so you can put a pinch of it up a woman's vagina just before you have sex with her. Apparently it improves the sexual experience.

Not seen him in years.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Dave I

Don't miss Dave II

Will do some Dave I stories soo

[Ferris]

Used to work with a bloke who'd spend his whole day googling images of low-quality food. C-tier kebabs and burgers and the like. Oiled back hair, wore garish Karl Lagerfeld tshirts. A fascinating character, but he didn't speak English so after he was fired that was the end of that.

Also worked with someone who got the sack and I was tasked with clearing out her desk. Full of written lists with hand-drawn emojis like "who will I marry" and "what do I like in a man". Enjoyably batty but very, very fired.

There was one Ukrainian lass who was bonkers but when she was called into an office and fired she just said "no" and went back to her desk and carried on which I've always loved as a flex. Firm had to pay her a load of money to make her stop turning up which is superb.

I only remember the characters who were bizarre enough to get fired. God bless them.

[Ferris]

Chap called Brian who went on the sick when I worked for a bank in Edinburgh but we all knew it was bullshit.

He turned up in the audience of a fringe standup show and went on stage to play table tennis as part of the act, it was recorded and on More4 for a month. Remarkably didn't even get fired, called in; straight back on the sick and presumably still on it. Fair play.

[Sex Wax]

Mark. If Jason Statham had a fetus-in-fetu twin who detached himself, moved to Tranmere and signed up for the merchant navy. We used to wander around South Shields with one of those gallon jugs of Old Rosie each, talking about the UFOs we'd seen at sea and why Richmond smokers were twats. 14 years later and I'm still not sure if I was in love with him or not.

[Mr Farenheit]

I worked with an architect in Malaysia who was on paper more experienced than anyone else in the office but turned out to be anything but.

After a couple of weeks it became obvious that he couldn't handle any real work so he was put on a project that was pretty much inactive. For the next nine months he went through what must have been mind numbing boredom sat at his desk, with long periods spent literally looking out the window (my friend recorded it on his phone, there are 80 minute stretches where he doesn't move). We would sometimes look at what he had done after he had left. I remember counting once that he had drawn six lines in a day (this is not a lot for an architect). Another time he coloured in a drawing someone had done with different coloured highlighters (I don't mean he highlighted stuff to comment on it, he just coloured in the sky, windows, grass etc in different colours and it took him a full working day).

Apart from the catatonic periods at the window, he was quite chatty but it was really inane, boastful, oblivious, weird stuff. I used to write down memorable quotes on post-it notes.

He was always telling us about the value of the Australian dollar and how it would affect his house in Sydney ("us" being his co-workers how lived in Malaysia and all earned less than him). He recounted a trip to England with his ex-wife, although the only thing that made an impression on him was the shop Next and how cheap socks were there. He was into salsa and tango and would show people a picture of some professional dancer that was coming to an event- "I'll be dancing with this lady next Thursday". He'd tell us all about his upcoming salsa trips- one was to somewhere cold in winter and he agonised for weeks over whether he "should buy a beanie". I liked listening to him using the office phone to complain over a period of weeks about a malfunctioning DVD player "I'm starting to lose me faith in Samsung"

The chat was all one way though and he was kind of oblivious to other people. I sat next to him and he said my name wrong almost every day despite people correcting him. Occasionally a name would come up and he would say 'Who is X?' X being someone who sat a few metres away from him. We had a tea lady twice a day, he would order hot chocolate but specify "half strength". The tea lady was pretty droll and told us "He only gave his wife half strength- that's why she leave him".

One day he was told he was going to be in charge of an active project so he resigned the next morning. He was on pretty good money so fair play to him I suppose but it was a kind of lving hell for him- he described the job once as "a black hole in me life". He announced a leaving lunch on his last day and invited people whose names he didn't even know. He made a little speech during the lunch but most people were chatting amongst themselves and didn't notice he'd started speaking.

[Crenners]

Mark. If Jason Statham had a fetus-in-fetu twin who detached himself, moved to Tranmere and signed up for the merchant navy. We used to wander around South Shields with one of those gallon jugs of Old Rosie each, talking about the UFOs we'd seen at sea and why Richmond smokers were twats. 14 years later and I'm still not sure if I was in love with him or not.

Beautiful post.

[Pink Gregory]

There was a chap who joined who was an acquaintance of the two brothers who I didn't like, but I knew he was golden when I heard his phone go off and it was the Alan Partridge theme.

[Brian Freeze]

Really miss Seb, if we gave him money he'd bring back loads of different polish sausage after visiting his family at Christmas. Nice guy too.

[thenoise]

Paul, thanks for pointing out that my boss was being a nasty bully to me when I just assumed I was really shit at my job. I was in a dark place and you helped me claw back a little bit of self esteem.

Angela, thanks for calling regular 'meetings' so that I could rant about said boss. I missed them when you went on maternity.

[Jockice]

If there's ever a meeting, whether planned or accidental, with my former workmates, the name Tex* will come up.

An approaching retirement age ball of fury whose modus operandi was to go out for a fag at least once, sometimes twice in an hour, then stroll back slowly telling everyone else how hard he was working. Then go and make a cup of tea, sit down, phone his wife and tell her how hard he was working.

He'd sometimes add that he was 'carrying' the place. He wasn't. He was a very small cog. A downtable sub. As was I, but because I didn't do the big dramatic 'I am working hard' bit (which I've always fucking hated) some people actually believed him. One of the very few big rows I had at work was with a colleague who had a go at me about this.

But Tex wasn't all bad. He loved watches. Absolutely adored them. He had a huge collection. He'd even give them to people.  I got at least half a dozen from him over the few years I worked with him. Some quite decent ones too, and although he'd occasionally see me wearing one of them and ask for it back, he'd always bring another one in for me. I didn't dare ask where he got them from but suspect they weren't always obtained legitimately.

His nickname came from his love of country music. He'd occasionally write about the local scene, which was ALWAYS followed by letters praising him being sent into the paper. Which, as local papers tend to print almost all letters received always appeared in the paper. I don't know if he asked people to write them or just intimidated them. He had a constant air of repressed violence about him. Someone in the office once said that fishing (another of his loves) was cruel. You could see his fists and other muscles clench and a look of sheer fury on his face. It was like The  Incredible Hulk. I'm genuinely surprised he never hit anyone. There's a photo taken on someone's birthday when he suddenly decided to put his arm around my shoulder. The expression on my face is one of total terror.

So I don't know about missing him (the former colleague I miss the most is the bloke I'd go to loads of concerts with. Since he died about five years ago I can't even have been to a dozen) but Tex was certainly memorable.



*Not to be mistaken for the Tex mentioned by my sister as a near neighbour of ours on a council estate in Scotland. He apparently used to dress as a cowboy all the time. But I can't remember him.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

The bloke who looked like Neil Tennant, and spoke in a sing- song Julian Clary voice.

The bloke who I worked with on a factory floor who looked like Boycie ( indeed, that was the nickname bestowed upon him by his fellow workers) who had a lovely, dry sense of humour and used to sing Rutles songs.

The woman who was even older than me, and I'm an old git, who shared exactly the same taste in music, and used to send me pictures of HWUTPV on that " What is up" thing we have nowadays. We used to sing that Elton John and Kiki Dee song together. Fucking Hell, she was ace. Been over 3 years since I saw her, we're still in touch.

From the same workplace as above, the woman who looked like Daisy Haggard. Not as likeable ( but she *was* very likeable, and told interesting tales from her crew member of an airplane past about meeting Paul Daniels and the like) as the other co- worker, and was a bit dozy, but she let me shag her.

[shoulders]

I miss Vijay who spent all day even on a job requiring people to be on the phone talking to customers chatting with the team, boasting about his exploits, gazillion anecdotes and achievements, self-mythologising, giving people nicknames, and sociopathically engendering a situation where the world revolved around him. It was the type of job where by the time you left for the day your voice was gone through speaking so much. I had to limit speaking so I could continue on the phone... but he could go on forever.

He failed the necessary pre-employment screening checks because of his criminal record and the next time I saw him was his enormous morass of a face splattered across the local paper, 'of no fixed abode' being arrested for burglary.

A thoroughly nasty piece of work who I had pegged from day 1, but the rest of the team thought was some charmingly fruity braggard and bon viveur. He was a dishonest chancer, a liar, thug and a thief.

Cracking, bring him back.

[hamfist]

Claude who upgraded a production mainframe DB2 database on New Years Eve to which our 24/7 realtime payment processing application was attached without telling me, and of course it went tits up.

He was great though. Once did karaoke with his Thai wife and their friends, great bunch of lad-ies

[Des Wigwam]

A thoroughly nasty piece of work who I had pegged from day 1

Wouldn't mind working there.

[shoulders]

🦀😁

[dissolute ocelot]

I worked for about 8 years next to a guy who believed global warming was a conspiracy to stop him driving sports cars, and had many other beliefs sourced from Jeremy Clarkson books. He read the Times and treated Cosmo Landesman's film reviews as gospel, and would regularly talk about going to see what Cosmo had recommended. Every day he went to the gym at lunchtime and ate a yogurt at 2.45pm. He was also interested in stock market systems and believed there was some kind of conspiracy around share prices and after he was made redundant spent several months trying to uncover the secrets. He was entertaining.

[The Mollusk]

Greg who got me into Piper at the Gates of Dawn when I was 16. Used to have a smoke together in the dark recesses of the theme park where we both served scabby chicken and curly fries to hungry, ugly mouths. Once had an acid flashback and tried to stick his hand in the deep fryer. He was one of two supervisors and he made the other one's life a living hell through endless pissing about, grabbing his arse with the chicken tongs, locking him in the walk-in freezer, and one time bringing a big clunky badge making machine in and making offensive and hilarious badges for all the staff. That was my first ever job and I've never had as much fun at work as I did back then with Greg.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Chap called Brian who went on the sick when I worked for a bank in Edinburgh but we all knew it was bullshit.

He turned up in the audience of a fringe standup show and went on stage to play table tennis as part of the act, it was recorded and on More4 for a month. Remarkably didn't even get fired, called in; straight back on the sick and presumably still on it. Fair play.

Heh, someone I sort of know was living in a houseshare with a guy who was a developer for a bank and went off with RSI. They found out that their house was being surveilled by a PI hired by the bank to try and collect evidence he was AT IT.