**NOTE: I don’t actually work with these people anymore (in fact, two of them have retired) but this is what I had to work with for over a year in 2008. Now, of course, there are new harpies but I don’t think any will ever hold a candle to the strangeness of this particular microcosm.**
The Boss: One of the only “normal” people here, and believe me, it hurt me to write that. He’s FAR from the conventional idea of normal, but compared to the Harpies, the man is downright BEIGE. He’s about 5’4”, 60-something and weighs about 60lbs. Very frail looking, all stooped over and quiet… and stubborn. He’s anal-retentive about the STUPIDEST things, like HOW we check a list. What does it matter if I cross off names or put a tick next to the name on the list? They’re still accounted for! But, oh no, we have to do it HIS way – like, he’ll come right up to my desk and INSTRUCT me on how and WHERE to make the tick (I’ll tell you where to put the tick, you jackass! Grrr. He frustrates me). No joke!
He also makes noises like a “skeksi” (or whatever they’re called) from the Dark Crystal. It’s actually disturbing – it makes my eyeballs hurt. Calls me into his office “to go over something” and then proceeds to read it TO me. Usually, it’s something that he’s asked me to read or look at already, then he takes it back to his side of the table and reads it out loud to me – SLOWLY. Usually with a pencil, underlining things. Ya… it takes ALL my strength (and a fair amount of jaw clenching) to keep from screaming in frustration.
I think this is the only job he’s ever had, and he’s had it since the Big Bang. As such, I think that means that total bureaucracy and micro-managing are the only things he’s ever known. He’s like some poor, frightened native whose homeland has just been invaded by the Spanish. Terrified of being held accountable for ANYTHING but the good stuff, he is completely incapable of making a decision without seeking the comfort of a million unnecessary meetings and getting everyone else’s opinions (so he can hang them with said opinions later).
Once a decision has been made, though, he needs everything pertaining to the decision, the change it will effect and the decision-making process (which he organized, but didn’t actively participate in by actually offering an opinion) copied in triplicate, signed, stapled, stamped, signed to document the filing, filed, pulled from the files,looked at (to be sure all the signatures are accounted for, because he’s forgotten), lost on his desk somewhere, found, signed to document the finding, stamped again, copied and cc’d to everyone who previously signed it, and filed once again. Good thing this guy’s in management! He’s so OBVIOUSLY cut out for it! [snort!]
*Update: A few months before my time in purgatory was up, the Boss called in strange one morning. He spoke to Harpy #1 and told her that, although he was at the subway station across the street from our office, he wasn’t feeling well enough to come in to work. Harpy #1 hung up the phone and quickly called the Police to go looking for the Boss, because she said he sounded so strange. A bit of overkill in my mind – couldn’t one of US have just gone to look for him across the street, instead of involving the Police and possibly affecting the Boss’ career? Anyway, long story longer, the cops found the Boss at said subway station and ended up taking him for a psych evaluation at CAMH. I guess they decided that not having taking a single sick day in 35 years might have indicated a slight mental issue because they kept him at CAMH for three months. It clearly did him good though; he was a different person when he came back to work. He started talking about retirement and I was (thankfully) transferred not long after that. Kinda feel bad for the Boss now. Hope he’s retired and happy now, but I know he’s likely lining up paper clips or compulsively gardening during his retirement. Some people really need to learn to relax (and/or drink).
Harpy #1: The Ringleader, a.k.a. “The Princess of Chintz” (see below). She’s worked here since Christ was a child. LOVES to tattle to the boss and complain about the “pressure” of her Supervisory duties while wielding the power with thinly-veiled glee – she’s very fond of issuing edicts and placing the blame for said proclamations on The Boss. Easily offended, and will complain if anyone is caught whispering and she’s not told what they were whispering about, right away (saying that the orders about whispering in the office came from The Boss, of course). This Harpy is the main reason I have job stress – she’s the one who got on the phone when I was in the ER and told me that my job was in jeopardy – all because of The Boss, of course. She seems to revel in causing inter-office conflict, and will happily tell everyone what she THINKS she overheard, regardless of the circumstances, and then follows with her own opinion, citing it as FACT.
She’s never been married, never had any designs on marriage (so she says, though she has about a million stories about her old flames. In fact, she only goes to the various work get-togethers so she can spy on them). I wonder if the fact that work is about all she has to talk about might factor into why she’s such a COW about creating conflict.
Everyday, there is some fresh fodder for the fashion cannon. Most recently, she’s taken to wearing wigs to emulate the stars (sorry, which star is it that wears a $10 polyester wig that looks like it came off a doll’s head?) and even went out and bought straight clip-on hair extensions (that don’t match her at-home-bleach job OR her perm) for when she wants her hair to “have more body”. Also recently purchased a pom-pom covered knit black poncho thing and matching black beret (which is then precariously perched atop her wig/extensions) and wears them with her slinky-material ”dress slacks” and open-toed kitten heels with the most gigantic bows on the toes.
The real trouble is that she wears all this, then clumps around the office like a Yeti wearing a year’s worth of makeup. Honestly! How am I NOT supposed to giggle?! In fact, if I didn’t find her wardrobe so damned entertaining (and if I actually LIKED her and thought it might WORK), I’d be nominating her for “What Not To Wear”. Honestly, the woman’s fashion sense is atrocious. Worse than mine, if that’s possible. Think of a 50-something-year-old woman who’s gained quite a lot of weight, but is still squeezing herself into the clothes she wore in the 1970s then telling you how fashionable she is! YIKES just about covers it. Just about.
She keeps photos in her desk of herself circa 1976 and of her apartment, and insists on showing everyone what she believes is her ‘superior’ decorating ability. I have taken to calling her “The Princess of “Chintz”. If your definition of ‘superior’ interior decoration involves covering everything in pink roses, then the Princess of Chintz is for YOU!
I live in fear of one day turning into this woman. So much so that I have actually issued a blanket kill-order to all my friends, should they see me leaning this way in my later years.
Harpy #2: The Gossip. Also has been working here since the dawn of time. Has an incredible memory for names and faces, and uses it to her advantage, spreading gossip. If we could harness the speed with which this woman passes along “secret” information, we’d have a MASSIVE new power source and could give up on nuclear energy forever. No joke! Every time any piece of paper comes in to the office regarding a marriage, divorce, shacking-up, breaking-up (those are mostly Benefits forms), births or deaths, she knows them ALL and tells me their life stories. THEN takes her little gossip-fest on the road and travels the building, telling everyone this “confidential” information. Jesus, I hope she’s retired by the time I ever get married!
Also an unwitting fashion victim (I know, it sounds rich that *I’M* ribbing people about their fashion sense, but REALLY. I may not actually HAVE fashion sense, but at least I update my wardrobe every couple of years!), who is a 50-year-old partial to inappropriate skirt lengths. I don’t think she wears the short skirts to be sexy, I think she bought the clothes back in 1985, when that length of skirt was all that was available in the stores, and has just never grown out of them or felt the need to replace them. I can honestly say I’ve never seen her wear pants. Skorts, skirts, leggings, sure, but no pants.
Has an unhealthy (I would say, at least) interest in “fashion”, along the lines of Harpy #1. Wears stirrup pants and a Ralph Lauren sweatshirt with nautical flags stitched on it (circa 1988?) to work and assures us that this is what she’s seeing in all the magazines these days. Recently, has become obsessed with owning what she calls (and she SPELLS it out), “The U-G-S boots”. She can’t even figure out how to SAY “Uggs” and she wants a pair?! Ugh. Most unhealthy fashion obsessions: anything to do with Disney (in summer, she wears Crocs -ick!- TO WORK, with little Disney pins all over them), Ralph Lauren circa 1988 and “Coach” purses. I can just imagine her walking to work in her lemon-yellow Crocs, white SOCKS (oh yes, it’s true), black stirrups and a navy blue RL sweatshirt that ends at her waist, toting her million-dollar purse. ACK!
Is obsessive-compulsive about what she eats (eats according to a daily menu, made up by asking aged people what they ate to stay young) and eats all day long – on the phone, handling papers, everything. Also spends her whole day drinking strange concoctions – teas with essential oils and odd plants/herbs/spices added in. The woman’s desk drawer is a frickin’ spice rack!
Also has never been married, nor had any designs on marriage. Has never lived anywhere except with her Mother; lives there still, same house and all. Must have a very active mind, because she’s ALWAYS distracted, except when imparting juicy gossip. Must do EVERY task (which are the same things, every day) at least 18 times. Harpy #1 calls her “very much a creature of habit” [snort!], but at least Harpy #2 doesn’t have photos of her poncy dog all over her cubicle… Oh wait, she does! Oh, and did I mention that she’s never lived anywhere except with her parents?
Also someone I fear turning into… although at least I don’t live at home anymore. More kill-orders issued to my friends about the possibility of evolving into THIS.
Harpy #3: The Nosy Nazi. Has been working with the company for about 10 years, with the other Harpies for about 4 years now, and has decided that that means that she knows EVERYTHING. She’s physically incapable of being wrong (and she’ll tell you that, loudly). Also fond of issuing edicts, but doesn’t feel the need to blame them on The Boss -she blames the need for said edicts on her co-workers.
One of these edicts regards the length of lunches/break times, etc. We all have to rigidly follow the schedule that she put together, but SHE can take her breaks whenever she likes, for as long she likes, and the boss “doesn’t need to know”. If I come in even 3 seconds late, she looks at me, looks at the clock, then looks back to her computer. After I’m out of her line of sight, I can hear her PHONE Harpy #1 in the next cubicle, and tell her that I was late coming back from break. NICE.
She also checks everyone’s work, LOOKS for mistakes, and then is a complete cow in pointing out said mistakes to everyone BUT the person who actually made the mistake. But heaven forbid that anyone say anything to HER about one of her mistakes! Those, she somehow finds someone else to blame, or shifts the conversation to someone else’s most recent mistake. What I find MOST distressing is that NO ONE says anything to her about her bitchy ways. Well, until *I* joined the office. 
I’m sure it irks her that I’ll argue with her when she tries ordering me to do things. Just one more service I offer. 
Aside from her interesting fashion (but she has an excuse – she came to Canada in the 80s, with very little money, from a Communist country. At least she doesn’t try to tell me how fashionable she is, she just wears what she likes and damn your opinion. I can respect that, even while I titter at some of the too-tight or fuschia clothing, which is nothing, compared to the fashion of the other Harpies) choices, there are other interesting ideas lurking. She, like Harpy #2, is afraid of aging and getting sick. She’s convinced that EVERYTHING will cause cancer – her computer monitor, cell phones, the FLU SHOT. No joke!
When Almost-Harpy and I went to get the free flu shot, Harpy #3 subjected us to a lecture about the dangers of immunization, including the fact that they have mercury in them, AND that the government is using free flu shots to track us. Man, if the government is tracking me, at least I know SOMEONE cares. 
This is a woman who won’t allow her daughter to immunize her 3-year-old grand-daughter (which, if you ask me, is none of her business, but apparently, her daughter is easily swayed)! If her little conspiracies and rants weren’t so annoying, they’d actually be comical.
In all fairness, though, I can understand how working with Harpies #1 and #2 could be just frustrating enough, over a certain amount of time, to mold you into a bit of a bitch. Various personality quirks aside, this Harpy is in the #3 spot because she’s the one I mind the LEAST. There is a slight danger I might already BE this woman. Ack!
Almost-Harpy: The Chatter. The one woman in the office that’s NOT menopausal, and actually NORMAL, comparatively speaking. No fashion faux-pas here; she’s quite tiny and dresses appropriately, if sedately. Extremely fond of talking, to the extent that she’ll follow you if you try to walk AWAY. The Boss is terrified that someone will come in, hear us talking and think we’re not working, so WE (even though SHE’S the one talking) get warnings all the time about talking too much. Geez.
She talks all the time about all the same things – it’s as if her conversation is on permanent loop! Most of them start with the phrase (and out of the blue) “See, that’s what I’m talking about…” and follow into a rant of unexpected proportions from such a small woman. Inside her tiny 5’4” frame lurks a scary, angry and ragious demon, mark my words! Generally, I get trapped into these conversations when everyone else is out for lunch and it’s just the two of us in the office. As much as I (sometimes) like the Almost-Harpy, I would still like to take advantage of the fact that The Boss and other Harpies are out of the office by slacking, NOT listening to her chatter about something I heard four times already this morning!
That said, however, she IS the nicest person in the office. She always patiently answers my stupid-ass questions and gets outraged at the smallest things with me (sometimes it’s good to have someone else get angry for you, you know?) and is usually not as bad a gossip as the rest of the Harpies. She’s sort of in league with Harpy #2, in that they’re both from the same ethnic group and they whisper together ALL DAY in their language – lucky for me, I actually studied some of the language years ago, so I can pick out bits and pieces – like when I caught them talking about me in the shelves, and how I’d done something wrong and caused more work for the Almost-Harpy. Yup, this is the NICE one.
Johnny Co-op: Poor bugger. Some obviously disgruntled and possibly deranged person in Employment sent an innocent little 16-year-old male Co-op student to work in my office, with The Harpies. It’s like throwing a calf to the sharks! He’s 16, earnest, smart, funny… and upsetting attractive. Okay, I’ll admit to having felt like a dirty old lady for looking at him twice! He’s BEAUTIFUL. Like, carved from marble perfect. It’s SICK. In fact, the first thing out of Harpy #1′s mouth when he came in was, “SO good-looking!” I feel bad for the poor bugger. Of course, because I’m the youngest in the office (and have the least to do and I think I scare him the least), I was elected to show him around the building and get him acquainted with the office.
The Harpies? Busy, whispering in their cubicles about how much he looks like a young Elvis, or JFK Jr. (they call him John-John, isn’t that terrible?!), and how good looking he is. Cue me, trying to distract the poor boy (who, inexplicably, doesn’t know that he’s gorgeous & doesn’t look 16, and is completely clueless about the Harpies, planning the theft of his virginity in their minds every time they look at him – which is a LOT. Like, as much as they can get away with. There were even unnecessary walk-bys; and these are LAZY women, who PHONE each other from their cubicles. ~sigh~).
I am happy to report that, by the next day, the initial shock of having a good looking CHILD (ever vigilant, that’s me) in our office wore off. Well, for ME it did. I can’t say it did anything but get worse for the rest of the floor. That’s right, I said FLOOR. All day on Wednesday, there were unnecessary visitors to our office – all female, all over 40, and all looking for a peek at little Johnny Co-op. Poor bugger, I wonder if he’s noticed that he’s become a bit of a sideshow?
Now, we’ve spent so much time working together that we’re like siblings, but occasionally nicer to one another than siblings tend to be. There’s a lot of sarcasm and insults, and the occasional pseudo-slap. He certainly makes work more interesting – he’s not interested in gossip, either, so we end up talking about comics/books, games, movies, the girl he likes or The Harpies (okay, maybe that counts as gossip). Mostly, I just want to freeze his personality right now and age him 10 years. If he manages to stay this sweet when he’s 26, he will make some lucky chick VERY happy. Ah, l’amour.
