The Death and Return of Oh Face
I vaguely recall mentioning that the infamous and illustrious Oh Face disappeared from work almost immediately after he began. It’s sort of become a running joke in the office as to whether or not he’s going to come in; he worked for about a week when he first started, and since then Oh Face has come in maybe three times total. Two of those times, he left early; three of those times, he came in late.
So, on Thursday, it was a party in the back office. Gregory, Julie, Eric, and I all sat in the back. I didn’t realize how much fun it is to be in the back, because on Thursday mornings I’m always in the front, and by the time I get to go to the back, everyone has left. Since Jenna wasn’t coming in to work, Sally decided to randomly assert authority by changing the way everything is done and shoving Bianca up front for the morning.
Around eleven, Eric sarcastically asked, “You think Oh Face’ll show up?” Then, we started making fun of him and hypothesizing about his whereabouts and why Jenna still keeps him on the payroll. The back of the office is sort of L-shaped, so Eric and Gregory were hidden on the small side of the L, at the computer desk, and Julie and I sat with a prime view of the big one. After about five minutes of talking shit about him, who comes around the corner, dopey grin on his face, but Oh Face.
“Oh shit,” I said, and turned to Eric and made the international gesture for “shut the fuck up,” all bulging eyes and throat-slashing.
“Hey, guys,” Oh Face said quietly, and suddenly everything got very tense and uncomfortable. He put down his bag, took off his coat, and then disappeared. So, we took the opportunity to whisper shit about him for a few minutes until he came back.
He’s quite a goofball, though. He left early yet again, but even so, he just sat in the back doing homework. Every half hour or so, he’d get a phone call and disappear out of the office for 45 minutes. When he didn’t get a phone call, he’d leave intermittently for cigarette breaks. Now, I’m not exactly thrilled with this job, and I don’t give it my all, but at least when people call me at work, I try to keep it short. Sometimes I don’t even bother answering, since I can hardly get a signal anyway.
But maybe I should. I mean, if he’s rehired and nobody seems to care about his Extreme Slacker™ behavior, maybe I should start doing the stuff I always used to do when I’d get bored with temp jobs and start pushing them as far as I possibly can to see how much I can get away with before they fire me.
Of course, I won’t do that, despite the fairly indifferent mediocre performance evaluation I got (more on that in my next entry; I promise). While this job has really been more comedy fodder than actual worthy employment over the past semester, some crazy shit has gone down here, and I’m almost completely deprived of financial aid. Columbia has ever canceled the long-standing 5% tuition discount initiative they gave to students who paid all their money up-front and immediately, which is money I used to use for books (and, as the tuition has increased, have begun using to pay for the majority of my frivolous expenses during the semester).
Point is, I suddenly find myself needing this job. All the financial aid stuff, coupled with being on the verge of having a girlfriend who may actually stick around for awhile, means that I’m going to actually need money. Consequently, I need this job. Well, maybe not this job, but a job, and since I’ll never get fired, I may as well hang on to it, right?
But Oh Face… Oh Face, man. If he lasts another semester, I’ll be very surprised.
Posted by Stan on January 10, 2004 2:37 PM | Permalink | “I’m a Living Joke!” - Horror Stories from the Workplace | Digg It
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