At some point a long time ago I wrote about an evil woman shaped like a pear in my office. The woman is an embodiment of pure evil. Before you accuse me of hyperbole, let me give you Daniel Webster's indicators of evil:
1) Someone who is completely unpleasant to everyone but tries to hide that fact by putting a candy dish on her desk.
2) Someone who hasn't had intercourse in such a long time she solicits a prisoner via the prison pen pal system, ignores the fact he has eight terrible children, and marries him three weeks after his prison release even though several of the eight terrible children have told her that the only reason Dad likes her is because she gave him a place to stay.
3) Someone who does not say thank you.
4) Someone who doesn't learn the names of people who sit two cubicles down from them for eight months.
5) Someone who shouts loudly on the phone about every personal issue they are having including medical, personal, and sexual.
6) Someone who tries to mask the fact they are a horrible person by putting two Christian books on her desk and constantly pretending to love God.
This week was the last day in our office for Someone. No one liked this woman. You could be having a genuinely pleasurable conversation with someone in the office, and she would stop by and start being loud for no reason, then leave.
The person, who needs a name for the sake of the blog, we'll call Amy (because every Amy I've ever meant is crazy except for one and because this person was named Amy) sent an email last week saying, "Sorry for the short notice. I'm leaving." She was leaving my company for a competitor but for some reason HR let her stay for a week. This proves HR has no idea what they are doing.
As soon as she announced she was leaving, people started to ask what we should do for her. "We need to have some sort of pot luck." "We should pool money and buy her a gift." "We should probably take her out to eat on her last day." No. No you shouldn't. You shouldn't do any of those things. Amy was a horrible person. Everyone disliked Amy. Even you, anonymous people who made the above quotes. For some reason people were worried Amy would feel bad if the people she worked with for eight years did not go through the normal "someone's leaving" office routine.
Here's the deal. If you spend eight years treating everyone that comes your way like garbage you don't deserve a celebration. You don't deserve to be acknowledged. You deserve to fade away into the ether and be brought up in stories that begin with, "I can't believe that so and so ever worked here. Remember the time she ruined (insert story here)." That's what Amy deserved.
Instead Amy got a pot luck. I was out of town for the pot luck. And Amy got a gift. I was in town for the gift, but I did not contribute. I would rather spend three dollars on a bag of Doritos that would leave me feeling bloated and unsatisfied than spend it towards a gift for someone who doesn't deserve one. When the office presented Amy with the gift we all stood by her cubicle as she stood there smiling and happy and said, "Oh I'll miss all of you. Keep in touch." And all of us said, "We'll miss you too. Make sure to stop by when you are in the area." None of us meant any of this. Then Amy made sure to reiterate one last time how great of a Christian she was even though her body of work appeared to be more in line with the Dark Lord than that of Jesus, et al.
After the gift was handed out, it was time for lunch. I skipped lunch. For one, I'm on my umpteenth diet in the last five months and for two, I don't like Amy. No one likes Amy. If the lunch were free, I would have maybe considered going. The lunch was not free. What's worse is people made me feel guilty for not going. Why did they do this? Was I a bad person for not trying to make a monster feel just a tiny bit better about herself?
After lunch Amy was gone forever. Everyone was happy. Hopefully she stops by when she's in town.
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