Characters We Work With – Saturday Night Live
The Linda Richman
Linda is great to have around the office. She’s been here a good while, does good work, always on time and reliable as a good worker usually is. But Linda’s gift reaches well beyond the scope of her tasks and assignments. She is the nexus of the gossip universe. Her seat, amidst a sea of cubicles, is perfectly placed in the center of the office, and through the years when no one was moved directly next to her on either side, she seemed to annex that real estate as her own. She now has the equivalent of three average cubes within which she has set up chairs, a small table, a few small electronics, mini-fridge, one-cup coffee maker, and of course the Zen section complete with waterfall and garden, all of which are running all day long. It is the perfect setup to encourage others to have an audience with the queen, and they sure do. At nearly every minute of the day, someone is situated at Linda’s station enjoying a cup of coffee and having a laugh, which for Linda is loud, a little gruff, and you assume someone is the target of the latest hubbub, hoping it is not you. Whether it is or not you decided as did most long ago that it is harmless, it lightens the office mood and clearly keeps her and her ‘studio guests’ motivated.
The Stuart Smalley
Stuart is a bit of a challenge as far as co-workers go. He is a smart guy, knows his job and generally does it well. But it is all dependent on what is going on in Stuart’s personal life, particularly his relationships. When in a good, healthy relationship, Stuart is a dynamo, able to do two or three times the work of the average person and is simply beaming with happiness throughout. He will bring in donuts, although he won’t eat any as he will tell you he needs to watch his caloric intake, he will do you favors and help you in anyway when in the happy zone. The Happy Stuart is positively a delight to be around. Unfortunately, that Stuart emerges about two or three months at best each year. The more common Stuart Experience is one either in the midst of a breakup or headed that way, and everyone knows it and lives through it. He walks in sad, goes through the motions of work sad, gets his coffee sad, goes to lunch sad, and while people try to comfort him here and there, no one can hang too long with him or they too will feel nothing but sadness. It is not easy managing your work relationship with Stuart, except for those brief periods when he is happy, so you generally steer clear until you see the beam of light and hear the birds singing upon his arrival, which is your clue that Happy Stuart is back.
The Target Lady
The Target Lady is simply a Hoot. She has thoughts and opinions on just about everything. Thankfully, she is productive in her work, never leaves tasks undone, although is easily sidetracked if she overhears a conversation that touches on an area of expertise, which encompasses nearly every topic imaginable. If you are within Target Lady’s range, you can expect to hear her butt in with a sometimes strange, loosely related factoid that you had yet to bring into your discussion. It is never an opinion or judgement about a stance you may have taken or anything negative or even positive. It is just a semi-related story that ties into whatever you and someone else were talking about. The constant stream of uninvited commentary does wear on you through the years, but she is who she is, and because she is so nice, you are able to ignore it for the most part, letting her add extraneous notes while you continue without skipping much of a beat.
The Ladies Man
The Ladies Man is very popular around the office. People seem to love talking to him, while you find him and a lot of what he says a little off-putting. He marches to his own beat, always has a smile on his face, but the way he looks and talks to people gives you a bit of a creepy vibe, as though he is after more than just casual conversation. The Ladies Man is one worker that you are not exactly sure whether he is good at what he does or not, since he is not in your direct workgroup. All you ever seem to see are the stoppers by sharing what looks to be too close a conversation with him as though both parties are keeping a secret between them. You have never been up that close or personally with The Ladies Man feeling that you may hear or experience something you would regret. Plus, you have seen too many times in the past that both The Ladies Man and some of the previous day’s chat partner come to work in the same clothes they had on the day before. The coincidence is too common and too obvious to neglect what may be happening. But so far there has never been a complaint about The Ladies Man, so you leave it alone, and assume he must be making people happy.
The Debbie Downer
Debbie does not have a lot of friends around the office. It is not because she is mean, rude, or hard to deal with. In fact, she is easy to work with from the standpoint of knowing what her job is, who she should be partnering with to complete projects and associated work and does so flawlessly. She is super intelligent and highly effective as a worker. She unfortunately brings with her a dark cloud of pessimism that depresses everyone with whom she comes in contact. It will sometimes be a very personal comment or story about her own life, but more often it is a random factoid about something you have said or done that is concerning. When you told her you were going on vacation to Hawaii, she shared the story of the plane that went missing over the Pacific last year. When you shared that your son was the star quarterback on pee-wee football, she shared the story about the NFL player who suffered so many concussions that he now lives like a vegetable. When you shared that you were thinking of going bungee-jumping next weekend, you actually ran out of the room knowing you would never do it if you listened to whatever Debbie may say next. You thankfully anticipate what is coming when anything is being discussed, and why you, and most of your co-workers do your best to avoid getting into much conversation with Debbie, dealing with her exclusively to get your work done, which hopefully never involves a project where you two are forced to be joined at the hip.
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