We have a lot of stories at my office that have become the stuff of legend around here. Tales that are told to many a new employee who sit in shock and realize they’ve just joined a very strange company indeed.
One of my favorites is the one that is told every other month in our lunchroom – it’s a popular one and I’m not even sure the main character in the story is aware of just how often this story is told. Once upon a time, my company had a long-term temp working here who ordered a chicken pot pie for lunch (we have lunch brought in every day). So did the Most High Senior Banker. Well, Mr. Temp was sitting at his desk enjoying his chicken pot pie when Most High Senior Banker walked by and saw him. Thinking Mr. Temp was eating MHSB’s pie, MHSB proceeded to light into Mr. Temp – calling him all sorts of names and accusing Mr. Temp of stealing his chicken pot pie.
Poor Mr. Temp didn’t know what to do, other than tell MHSB that it was his own chicken pot pie. MHSB continued to yell a bit more, and then went on his merry way, leaving in his wake a trembling scared Mr. Temp.
Mr. Temp left the office that day and never came back.
That’s one fun story that we always have a laugh over at the lunch table when someone’s lunch goes missing, specifically, MHSB’s lunch.
The second story is also about Mr. MHSB – he had put something in the fridge and it went missing (doesn’t everything in a community fridge go missing at some point?). He yelled at the people congregated in the lunch room that his food/drink was missing and that from now on he should label his food so no one will take it. The following afternoon when Mr. MHSB came into the lunch room to get his food/drink, every item in the fridge had a label with his name on it. From the sodas to the butter to the milk for coffee, everything had a Mr. MHSB label on it. One of the VP’s had decided to take up Mr. MHSB on his threat and took the liberty of labeling everything on his behalf.
My third story, however, is about Mr. Metrosexual Analyst – a guy who has a laidback confidence with a touch of swagger. And he’s popular with the ladies (as he tells us every day). The analysts all go out to happy hours every now and again, and one night they all went out for drinks. The next day everyone else showed up promptly at work, but Mr. MA wasn’t there. The office building had a fire drill that day, and so around 11 a.m. the entire floor was congregated around the elevator banks listening to the fire chief go over basic instructions in the case of emergency. At some point the elevator bell chimed, the door slid open, and there stood Mr. MA. Bleary-eyed, half-awake, possibly-still-drunk Mr. MA. He proceeded to turn in the opposite direction of the entire group of 50 people (which included all his bosses) and went down another hallway – a hallway which had no entrance to OUR offices. Fifteen seconds later, as we’re still all listening to the fire chief while keeping an eye on the hallway, Mr. MA walks back to the main area and proceeds down another hallway that does have an entrance to our offices. Needless to say everyone was in hysterics when the fire drill was over. Poor Mr. MA is now the subject of a story every time we have a fire drill.
Like today.