Thursday, April 5, 2007

The Hoarder

Every office has one.

This guy takes it to the next level. He's a well-paid, middle-aged engineer (so he should have enough money to buy food, right?)

When the bagels are delivered on Mondays, he's right there to grab 5, which he promptly puts in a bag and it goes into the freezer. He then takes 2 more and toasts them and slathers with cream cheese. On Mondays he gets to work at 8 am. Other days at 10.

Sometimes when the fruit delivery comes, he comes to the kitchen with a shopping bag. He pretends he's at Whole Foods. He inspects, smells and pinches the fruit from each of the boxes, fills his bag, and goes back upstairs.

There's a Whole Foods just down the block...and a bagel shop...actually 3 of them.

Sometimes I wonder if he's like Kramer on Seinfeld and has some Japanese business men stashed in his filing cabinet that he has to feed, since he charges them room and board. He is skinny, after all. He couldn't possibly be eating all the food by himself....

We had a Hoarder at the last place where I worked. This guy actually did eat all the food he hoarded. He was a big boy.

The IT department would draw straws when his computer needed fixing. His keyboard was so full of crumbs and so mucked up with yesterdays meal, that no one wanted to touch it.

One time I had a lunch time meeting with him over in the sales area of the building. As we walked over, sales was opening up a lunch buffet to celebrate some-poor-fool-who-bought-a-big-honking-chunk-o-product. They offered for us to partake.

The Hoarder loaded up a plate with a leaning-tower-o-buffalo-wings and we headed into the conference room. He was wearing a paper-thin polo shirt that he'd probably had since 1980, and I could make out all the folds of his flesh and all of his ample body hair. I tried to focus on his face while we met. But, he really got going on the wings...

Soon his whole beard was ensconced in bbq sauce. He was talking as he snarfled on the wings. Then it happened....

A huge chunk of chicken wing dislodged from his mouth and landed square on his left nipple. As he talked, his man-boobs were jiggling up and down highlighted by the chunk of chicken wing.

It was all I could do to make it through that meeting without laughing, puking, or both.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Lovely post! Though we don't have any hoarders in the office where I work, probably because I work with 95% women, we do have a couple of users who leave the better part of their lunch/snack in the keyboard.

That reminds me, I need to bring some latex gloves for situations that require "hands on" support.

Wait, maybe I'm the hoarder?! Just kidding.

Itinerant Rick said...

I have met the 'hoarder' .... Remember the other hoarder, the one who would hoard a few of the biscotti (which always disappeared within a few moments of arrival) and shared them during the afternoon 'super strong coffee' break? Now if I could only remember who that hoarder shared with?

chatterbox said...

crick - I have no idea what you're talking about. ;)

tony - yeah, women tend to be less prone to the hoarding gene! We do have one woman hoarder in the building. She pales in comparison to the guys, though.

Chris said...

We have a fat guy with an untrimmed beard at work. It is common to be talking to him after he throws down a few breakfast tacos and notice little clumps of eggs and sausage still tangled up in that mess of a beard. You would love it. I will see if I can get a picture for you.

Jackie said...

Oh, man. man-boops with bbq sauce. O my I'm laughing and laughing....

chatterbox said...

chris - I would say I'm looking forward to a photo, but....yikes!

Jeff Moser said...

The paper thin polo shirt comment made me laugh. I used to work with a chain smoker that wore those same shirts. Very little fabric left after a few decades of washing. He had very few teeth left, and the ones he did have were clinging to life. I was always waiting for one of the front ones to land on the conference table when he got excited...