It's Not Me, It's You

This week I finally succeeded in banishing Anonymous Officemate!  That’s right, I’ve freed myself from the daily rundown of his food diary, his odoriferous tuna fish, and the rest of his incessant banal chatter, mostly relating to food and video games.  Apparently he hasn’t yet made his craziness apparent to senior management, so he’s not banished from the company but he is banished from my office.  His numerous strikes have won him his very own cubicle.  Unfortunately I won myself a new Anonymous Officemate courtesy of the current space shortage at work.  Honestly, I don’t know where they find these people; Anonymous Officemate II is just as insane as Anonymous Officemate.  He’s been in my office for all of one day and has already shared that he thinks he may be a hoarder but he’s trying to make an effort to throw things away.  I’ve also learned that at his last job, he used to work back to back shifts and he’d come back on shift to find crumbs all over his desk.  Crumbs!  Can you believe it?

Nothing beats our very first introduction:

AE: “Nice to meet you, I’m AE, your new officemate.”

AO II: “Nice to meet you too.  Do you know how often they clean this office?”

AE (looking up from my multibillion dollar excel model): “Um, no sorry.”

AO II: “Well, is there a cleaning schedule or something?”

AE: “Honestly, I don’t really know.” [pause to answer phone to discuss other multimillion dollar excel model].

AO II: “Maybe I’ll file a request for someone to come vacuum; I could do that in my last job you know.”

AE: “Sure, go for it.”

Anonymous Officemate II then opened up his briefcase, pulled out an array of cleaning products and proceeded to disinfect the entire office.  I caught him wiping down my phone and keyboard when I came back from the kitchen with my coffee.  Let’s see if he shows up with his own vacuum on Monday.  I think maybe I should swap desks for the cubicle and let my two Anonymous Officemates be nuts together.

Anonymous Officemate Strikes Again

Friday afternoon, my office phone rang with a number I didn’t recognize.  I picked up to hear the all too familiar voice of Anonymous Officemate.

AO:  “Anonymous Expat?  It’s Anonymous Officemate, I was hoping you could do me a favour.”

AE:  “Sure, what do you need?”

AO:  “Well, I locked myself in the stairwell.  I was hoping you could come let me out?”

It seemed that Anonymous Officemate had decided to burn off some calories by doing a few minute jog up and down the stairwell at the office.  While he brought along his cell phone for his impromptu exercise session, he forgot his ID card which he needed to swipe on the door lock to get back into the office.  I briefly contemplated bringing his chair and laptop to the stairwell to make it his new office.  After all, he is way beyond his three strikes and has already been imaginarily banished.  Instead I took the long way to the stairwell.  I may have also stopped for a fresh cup of coffee along the way.  Hey, I let him out and I let him back into the office.  And in reward for my efforts I was treated to the daily rundown of his food diary for the past 24 hours on the walk back to our office.  Wow, I briefly forgot how not fun he is during the few minutes of peace I had while he was locked in the stairwell.  I’m currently accepting applications for new officemates.

Carbohydrates are the Devil

For lunch today, H graciously packed me a container of leftover ziti, tomato sauce, cannellini beans, bread crumbs and a generous grating of mozzarella cheese.  I took it to the kitchen at work to heat up and returned with the steaming container of carbohydrate goodness to my desk to eat.  My Anonymous Officemate, who I have been unable to banish despite his three strikes, looked up from his desk with huge eyes to identify the source of the intoxicating smell.  Seeing it was a hearty container full of pasta, he took the time to tell me about his severely limited carbohydrate intake since the first of the year.  I was fortunate enough to learn that since January 1^st, 2011, my properly sized, not fat officemate has:

• Eaten pasta for dinner once, as his Friday night ‘treat.’
• Not eaten any bread whatsoever.
• Eaten an eighth of a cup of bran with a large serving of nectarines, apricots and other fruit for breakfast everyday.
• Eaten a salad for lunch everyday; I big-heartedly refrained from warning him about the copious amounts of fat that might be lurking in his salad dressing.
• Eaten a baseball sized piece of protein for dinner every night and filled the rest of his plate with vegetables.

Thanks to this, he has lost two full kilos since the start of 2011, off of his already fit frame.  I refrained from pointing out that he neglected to include his alcohol intake, the amount of full fat milk he consumes in his 3+ coffees per work day, or his consumption of an entire homemade Pavlova on Australia Day from his meticulously relayed food diary.  I’m so nice, I know.  I did however tell him that I had already eaten pasta twice this week and that one of those meals was homemade baked ziti pizza with sausage.  I then proceeded to pull out my homemade chocolate chip cookie to await its last minutes before entering my mouth on my desk, in full tantalizing view of Anonymous Officemate.  I’m sorry Anonymous Officemate, I have no imaginary extraneous weight to lose and I ♥ bread, pasta and chocolate.