Temping Ends in FIVE!

Next week is my celebratory week, for sure. MY eight-week assignment in the outskirts of town ends on the 16th. If I said this made me happy, I'd be grossly misrepresenting myself. The thought of me never having to get up at 5:45 to be at a job that starts at 8 again makes me so delirous with pleasure I can't hardly stand it. Hey, this kind of thing screams for over-dramatics, ok?

I was going to talk about the woman with the supremely annoying voice who likes to chat with Speller Boy all day long. Her voice is like nails on a chalkboard. It's high pitched and whiny and reminds me of my voice at age 13, when I was a spoiled brat. But then, a fellow temp and friend (who I'll call T), found The Voice's myspace page and we decided she's OK in our book. Mostly because she has the same interests that we do, and she lists Depeche Mode and The Cure as her favorite bands of all time. So really, how can you hate the girl? So we've laid off her. Her voice still grates on our nerves, but we've given her some leeway on the account that she's got photos of herself at the exact same Kill Hannah/Clear Static show Phillip and I were at last year AND one of her favorite movies is The Royal Tenenbaums. Dare I say it, she could almost be my BFF!

But today I'll talk about a fellow temp worker that drives me nuts. I'm so thankful I won't have to see her again after Friday. She's the office snoop and office gossip. She took it upon herself to let everyone know that both me and my friend T won't be returning to this job if it's extended past Friday (which is a possibility). She asked me about 20 times if I was going to stay on OR if I was interested in being hired for the position - something that may or may not also be a possiblity. At a meeting we had on Friday, she repeated the fact that both T and I "don't want to work here anymore", which I thought was the rudest thing anyone could say. First of all, all the Important People, you know, the people who have any say in what us temp workers do on a day-to-day basis, already KNOW that T and I would like/have other assigments. Not only that, it's obvious that these Important People are sick and tired of hearing her ask if she's going to get hired on. She makes a point to tell everyone that she'd like to work for this company on a daily basis. At one point during her rant about how she and another woman are the only real choices for the job (because the rest of us are slackers), one of the Important People said "OK, we GET IT!". But the thing is, this woman talks non-stop, so she didn't even hear. I was moritfied to be in that meeting because this woman is so embarrassing. There's more to her personality, actions, and morals that I hate, but I'll leave it at that. It's just sad that she's pretending to be concerned with the rest of us and what our plans will be after Friday, when her OBVIOUS goal is self-promotion. She's gossipy for her own gain, and I hate that shit.

ANYWAY (as Chuck Klosterman, a topic of another rant, would say), Phillip and I went to see The Host last night at the Uptown. It was good, but not as awesome as all the reviews have made it out to be. I thought it was enjoyable, but Phillip hated it. I hated the people sitting behind us because they kept screaming outloud when all the suspenseful stuff was happening. Actually, they were screaming even when NOTHING was happening, which is super annoying. Sometimes I wish we could go to the movies and have the whole place to ourselves. And not have stupid movie-goers act like 13 year olds all around me. Bitter? How'd ya guess?

While I was waiting for the movie, I had about 1.5 hours to kill so I walked around Uptown. At 6:00 Phillip called and said he was let out of work early, so we met up for dinner at the Uptown Bar. Before he met me, I was coerced into buying two boxes of cookies from the Girl Scouts that set up shop in the mall. I wasn't going to purchase anything from them, even though I love me some Caramel Delights (or, as Samoas, as us over 30 crowd knows them to be), but their sad, pleading Girl Scout eyes made me feel so guilty that I had to buy two boxes. Seven dollars later I've got myself a box of Caramel Delights and one Thin Mint. "They keep well in the freezer!," she tells me. Thanks Girl Scouts. Like they will ever last long enough to make it to the freezer.

Don't Dooce Me. This Story Is A Good One.

I think my first post about my temp job mentioned a guy who sits behind me who i thought was my nemesis. He's not my nemesis, he's my archenemy. That's far worse than any nemesis I've ever had. I wouldn't mind having a drink with my nemesis so I could tell her how awesome my life is while hoping hers is terrible. But this guy, my archenemy...I don't want to have to share the air we breathe, if you catch my drift.

Since I have two weeks left (although it might be one week left, I will find out on Friday) I feel I can tell you about this jerkface that sits behind me. I probably could have written about it sooner, since no one reads my blog or anything, but I wanted to wait til now.

I'll protect his identity a little. Or a lot, since you can Google him and, well, I just don't want the trouble. Let's say his name is Justin. Justin has this extremely annoying habit of spelling out his last name whenever he's on the phone. It's gotten to be so annoying and so repetetive that I have his opening introduction memorized. It goes a little like this:

"Hi can I speak to Mister Johnson please? This is Justin Akrub. A-K-R-U-B. I'm calling about...."

If his constant spelling of his last name isn't annoying enough, he's got this super smarmy used car salesman kind of voice. Every time he speaks the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It's really hard to describe how awful his voice is, but I'll try. He sounds like someone who is trying to be all slick and suave. You know, Lounge Lizard Larry type of smarm. The thing is, he's so unattractive that the sound of his voice is even more absurd. Can you hear it in your head? I hear it over and over all day long.

Anyway, one of the chicks I've become friends with at this place (she's also a temp) hates this dude as much as me. She's about three cubes away from the him, but she can hear him all day long too. I see the hairs bristling on the back of her neck when he talks, as well. But today was particularly horrible.

The nature of this job is to call people and get money from their dead family members. I mean, it's not my job (thank god), but the attorneys who work right next to me have to do that. Well, Justin A-K-R-U-B called someone today and was so rude to the person on the other end. He was demanding money and being just so smarmy and rude and disgusting. His voice was dripping evil. I can't even remember the exact conversation, but I do remember him telling the person on the other end (who recently lost a loved one) that they must pay up NOW because the "deal" that "his client" made with the debtor is going to expire at the end of the day and then, well, what are they going to do? The language he uses is totally threatening and if I were on the other end of that phonecall, I would have hung up as soon as he started spelling his name.

He does this kind of thing all day long. It's maddening. And on Monday I listened to him talk to another guy about how he watched "all the stupid bitches" try to dig their cars out of the snowbanks. My jaw just dropped. How is this guy allowed to work in public? He's a foul mouthed, unprofessional, disgusting, mysogynistic asswipe. I hope that karma gets him and when someone HE loves dies, he's harassed by a collections agent who lacks compassion and basic people skills. See how he likes it.

I hate this guy, and I'm so glad I'm out of there in two weeks. I hope I never see that jerk again OR hear him spelling his name. I hope I never meet another person like him again for the rest of my life. He makes me feel like I'm covered in a layer of slime and need a shower to get rid of it. All from the sound of his voice!

Next time I'll write about a woman who is OMG! IN LUV with A-K-R-U-B and spends all her free time talking about absolutely nothing in front of his cube so he has to notice her. I haven't seen that kind of behavior since Junior High.

Oh, how I love working in an Office!

ps) I wonder if Justin Akrub A-K-R-U-B introduces himself like that at dinner parties? I doubt it. I mean, he'd have to get invited to a dinner party first, right?