What to do with an obnoxious officemate

Here’s the deal: I have an obnoxious officemate. Not your typical haha-i-know-more-than-you-and-you-can’t-do-anything-about-it obnoxious. He’s gay, financially challenged, physically unappealing, biting, bitter, slow, arrogant obnoxious.

Now let me make it clear that I don’t discriminate people base on sexual preferences, financial status, physical appearances and so on. But if you think all the planets revolve around you, then you got another think coming.

So what do you do with an obnoxious officemate other than the obvious whim to smack him right across his dark ugly face?

1. Laugh behind his back (or even in front of him)

When he sauntered (according to him) into the send-off party of a colleague, that’s all we could do.

He’s new in the company, only his 3^rd month to date, fresh off from college. That colleague of ours provided him tech support once, twice. OO (obnoxious officemate) justified that HE should be there to see that guy off.

When he came back from the party (eating his fill to make his big belly happy), he had the gall to tell J (our teammate as we were still sitting in our workspaces), “the least you could do is say goodbye” (in a know-it-all tone).

Sure we did that when the guy walked in front of us. And we made sure OO heard it.

The clincher?

OO wasn’t invited!

The GM’s secretary (the one who organized the party and invited the people) related to us how she was amused when she saw OO clapping in the back. She only invited the guy’s closest friends in the company, you see. J and I weren’t invited either.

And no, he didn’t receive an email from the guy saying Thank you and farewell (unlike we did hah!)

2. Ignore him

I don’t even know why he joins us for lunch. Is it to prove to the people in the canteen that HE has a posse? Beats me completely.

OO invited himself with us for lunch. Sure, we used to tell him, “tara, lunch tayo!” But when he acts all obnoxious and moronic, I don’t see the point in wanting to sit across the guy who wolfs down two rice, three viands in 10 minutes flat and won’t even utter a single syllable to you in the whole hour the rest of us sat there and chatted.

Perhaps he was sitting there, changing his position every minute, in the chance that we’d pull him into the conversation (that’s how it felt). We used to try to do that. But why put yourself up to his sneer and biting words when you do try?!

So now, we remain resolute in ignoring him. When his hour was up (or when his dignity finally hits him), he stands up and leaves. And the rest of us are happy beyond belief to finally put our guard down and talk about him.

3. Pray for his quick termination

I know everyone deserves a second chance but this guy has had enough. Our boss doesn’t even know what to do with him anymore. Our boss sent him an email recently; boss doesn’t understand why he’s struggling to write a marketing material (and J and I don’t understand either, especially since he’s a literature graduate).

And I don’t mind if the guy’s slow (as in how do you scale an image in powerpoint or how do you insert rows in excel kind of slow when you graduated from Ateneo and La Salle Greenhills!) but if you’re arrogant and cover up all your weaknesses behind your school or the fact that you went on a scholarship to Japan, or you dated all those foreign guys (which I doubt), or you can get Nikki Gil to emcee for us because you helped her with some papers, then I can’t help you.

J once said that in all his years of working and in all the companies he’s been in, this is the first time that he has encountered such a character. So obnoxious for a fresh grad and new employee but can’t even walk the talk.

So yes, these are all we can do for now.

Ps. In case Your Highness (yes you unless you’re really that dense) casually waltzes into here and reads this, yes we were all mocking you that one time, no make that ALL those times, and yes we think you’re THAT slow (we see right through you), and no I don’t believe that you and that cute guy on your desktop screen became an item (we think ilusyonada ka). My only hope for you is that someday you realize that you’re standing on mud unlike the pedestal you graciously place yourself on and change for the better. Ta-ta princess!