In my last position, her name was "Amanda". Well I can tell you her whole life history, where she was born, when she got married, about all of her pregancies and labor history, about her ever so wonderful hubby who is just the best person ever, ever, ever!!, and all about her wonderful, super-talented, super-beautiful, should be "models" children.
My office was several doors down, but it doesn't matter where anyone is. Because the OPITA (office pain in the ass) makes sure that everyone hears their stories. They hang out at the fax machine, in the breakroom, or wherever they can have an audience. If they only knew how much they were loathed, by everyone, including the kind souls who actually pay attention and listen, because they don't want to be rude. Not me.
One of my favorite games to play with the OPITA is "match it or beat it." Gather a couple people at the job, and discuss a specific topic ahead of time. Find a topic that someone knows a lot about, or is an expert on. Then, when the OPITA comes in, start discussing the topic with each other and time, just how long it takes the OPITA to either match the story, or beat it. Then they get extra points for involving their super children or super spouses.
We used to play this game with a doctor we worked with. He was the PITA in the NICU I worked in. One day we picked out fishing, as one of our coworkers was into lobster. She came in with these pictures of the hugest lobsters I think I have ever seen that they caught off the shore of Florida. Just humongous. Well Dr Know It All came in, and we started discussing these lobsters and within 5 minutes, he talked about how that past weekend, he caught a shark. Not a big shark, a baby one, but it was much bigger than the lobster. And he wasn't planning on catching a shark, it just happened. By the time he left our area, he had the hugest smile on his face, knowing that he had "beat" our expert on the fish story of the day. If only he knew, lol. What made it even better was noticing two other physicians sitting on the other side of the room, giggling while listening to us. I can only imagine the stories they hear.
Since there is one on every job, you have to decide whether or not you are going to leave your place of employment because of them. Chances are, unless you are independently wealthy, you'll have to suck it up and tolerate the OPITA, so playing match it or beat it can at least put a smile on your face once a day.
4 comments:
Funny! I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree as I once created the game "Who is sicker?" with some friends on the internet to goad a girl that is aways sicker no matter what.
Welcome to the world of blogging.
Oh where is the ranting?
I was having a hard time deciding between a certain supervisor, who now wants to have New Years off, which will disallow me to go to Texas, and my youngest, who I believe you are familiar with. The one with the "whole picks on me" syndrome. The one who swears he didn't get in trouble, despite a binder full of notes from his various teachers. "He won't stop talking. He keeps getting out of his chair. He never has pens, pencils, notebooks, lunch money, homework, etc ad nauseum."
I don't understand why people can't just do their jobs, or why some children just can't follow the rules. I understand about a five year old who can't sit still and has a short attention span, but for a 12 year old, arghhhhhh. I fear he has turned into one of what Spiro Agnew described as "spoiled brats in need of a good spanking."
Probably true of both of them. ;)
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