20 December 2008
Corporate Cavemen #1
Most days at work, Dick encounters behaviour so awkward, strange or downright repulsive he spews in his mouth a little. These are his stories.
I used to work in the vicinity of a corporate lawyer who I’m going call Chris Farley. This is something of a misnomer. While the real Chris Farley was tragicomic, corporate lawyer Chris is just tragic: a soft-bellied bumbling loudmouth with a nasty wheeze and a hideously awkward “sense” of “humour”. Farley only ever moves if has to, and when he does, his wheeze is so painfully obnoxious it could be guerrilla marketing for the end obesity campaign. Though some of the Firm’s older staff have decades on him, Farley was the reason our office death pool didn’t make it beyond planning. No one wanted to bet on anyone else.
Around the time the death pool got abortive (see what I did there?), I was working closely with a quiet, neutral junior solicitor I’m going to call Beth. Beth had been unlucky enough to work with Farley on a pretty big matter, and whenever the wheeze rattled and coughed in her vicinity her shoulders would tense just a little. By her Swiss standards of neutrality, this was a declaration of OH BLOODY HELL ITS FARLEY AND HE’S WHEEZING THIS WAY.
One time, I was chatting to Beth in her office, when Farley burst in.
“Have a look at this patent application!” he said. He waved a bulky document.
“Oh, wow” said Beth.
“It’s the only patent application in the world that has pictures of breasts in it.”
Beth took this in.
“Um.”
“Want to see?” He asked.
Beth didn’t answer.
“I’ll show you!”
He flicked through the application, but he couldn’t find what he was looking for. I kept watching. Beth sat stiffly. He flicked urgently.
Finally, he found it.
“Look!” He shoved the grainy photocopy under Beth’s nose. She looked.
She didn’t say a word.
“I’m not going to tell you who they belong to!”
He guffawed, which brought on a minor coughing fit.
There was a pause. Beth gave me a fleeting look. Her eyes spoke of pure terror.
Farley left.
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