The Assholes In Your Office Are Not Unique

Every office has them, hooray!

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#1 The "I'm Too Good For This"

Mr X is not an employee like the rest of us. No: Mr X dictates to his boss what he feels he should be doing at work.

Mr X: Sir, this project, I think enough people are on it already?
Boss: I want you on it as well. It's a small project but I want to make sure there are no mistakes.
Mr X: But sir, surely the main tender bid needs more help? I understand this year there is quite fierce competition.
Boss: ... you want to join in with the main tender bid for the development at Ridout?
Mr X: Yes sir, I think my experience would be beneficial for the bid.
Boss: You have an English Literature degree. What are you going to do, make sure that the tender document got no spelling errors?
Mr X: And that the engineers don't make any inappropriate references to Desdemona. It might detract from our overall position.

Translated -

Mr X: Sir, I want to be important important important noticed important. This one you assign me, not important enough
Boss: But I said so
Mr X: No not important enough the other one more important can I do the other one
Boss: You want to do the other one ...?
Mr X: Yes I think I can one just let me try give me chance I want to be important
Boss: You will be useless there leh, I think
Mr X: No I won't be let me do it let me do it please I need to be important
Boss: OK then I will blurly allow you to do the other important one and make all your colleagues unhappy and mark myself out as a lousy boss ... enjoy dude will promote you asap because you are so noticeable
Mr X: Thanks boss

Solution: Bosses need to wake up!

#2 The Lazy Liability

I advocate laziness as much as anyone, but when your laziness results in more work for other people, you are a lazy fucker.

Boss: Can you go and do more research on this point. You cannot just say elephants are blue without any substantiation. Even my mother can do a better job than you.
Mr X: OK boss.
[two hours later]
Mr X: Here boss.
Boss: This is a picture of an elephant, coloured blue by you.
Mr X: Yes boss. Blue elephant boss.
Boss: And you didn't even colour inside the lines.
Mr X: Boss I masturbate too much I cannot hold my pencil properly.
Boss: Get lost.
Mr X: Boss you want pink colour I also can.

Solution: Ask your mother better

#3 The Nice-to-Superior but Shit-to-Others

These are all over the place. It's easy to spot them: they are the ones who have transformed the most since you last saw them at school. Having taken on their boss' soporific interests, they are suddenly now incapable of performing menial tasks themselves.

Mr X: Hey, boss! The Brut d'Orsay '72 is really good!
Boss: Heh, haha, issit? I never try before.
Mr X: (grandiloquent gesture of disbelief) How can that be, boss! I am sure you have. You just have so many good years in your cellar you must have lost track! Ha Ha Ha! (sycophantic laughter continues for 10 seconds)
Boss: Er, no, really. I ... don't have a cellar.
Mr X: You don't?
Boss: No. (changing topic) Anyway that report I asked for yesterday, have you gotten it done already?
Mr X: Oh, my secretary is typing it out now. It should be ready soon. (starts to fiddle with fountain pen with special super-duper ink that must be bought in bottles with quill motifs on them one)
Boss: Your secretary is typing it out? What did you do, dictate to her on tape?
Mr X: Uh, haha, yah I did! Easier that way, my thoughts flow more naturally also ... like this Cyan-Magenta Mont Blanc Meisterstuck Solitaire!
Boss: Sure whatever but I need the report quick. How much longer?
Mr X: She said should be about half an hour more, but I will rush her. She got to work late lah, said got traffic jam from Punggol ... I guess HDB property, you get what you pay for ...!
Boss: I stay HDB.
Mr X: ... oh??? Hahahaha!!! (sycophantic laughter continues forever)
Boss: That's why I don't have a cellar.

Solution: Every employee must clean toilet one day per week. This gives them a proper outlet to brown-nose

#4 The Coveter

Not so much different from #1, but this one gets mistaken for having "initiative". Examples: the subordinate who claims back weekends for a junket; the female co-worker who assumes ownership of the corner office, under cover of night and ostensible authority; the colleague who uses others' milk in the pantry fridge.

Why are these behaviours contemptible? Because they are not other-regarding. These persons only consider themselves, and they universalize their standards onto everyone else. They do not wonder why it is that they are compelled to do all their furtive acts secretly - they do not see the hinted paradox there. Instead they think: "It's a dog-eat-dog world. I must do what I can. Others will do the same." No, dipshit. Others are too busy being considerate and countenancing more humane value systems to indulge you and your Hobbesian foreplay.

The main variations here are the Credit Whore (consolidates work of peers into one email, bearing only Credit Whore's name), the Favour Player (a stranger in the office for most part, but oozing honey in their time of need) and that old standby, "O$ but never P$". We've heard too much about those already, though.

Solution: Just stay away. Chances are these secretive and self-augmenting "professional" types will also delete their Facebook accounts before long, so interactions can well and truly be kept to a minimum. (Just be sure to occasionally ask them about their salary and bonuses.)

#5 The Proud Incompetent

"Yes, yes, I know, I know, I thought of it already, yes, I know." And two days later you still get the same piece of crap handed up to you.

It is one thing to be proud. It is another to be incompetent. But if you are proud and incompetent, you are nothing but a waste of space. Is advice really that difficult to take? Is doing a task properly really that difficult? Do you know how many fives make thirty-five? Do you know that Pluto is no longer a planet? Do you know that you are an idiot? Oh you didn't know that one, did you. Well, here's my advice -

Solution: Get them involved in a task that is simple to do, but with a massive downside upon failure (e.g. goalkeeper).

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But the bottom line is that people are too concerned about their own bottom lines to give a shit. They say to themselves: "This doesn't affect me that much, it's no big deal, I'll just find some other avenue. My job is too important to jeopardize for some nebulous notion of social justice." And so an entire cabal - no, society - of assholes is propped up, because we're all practicing the fucking virtue of forbearance. How great are we? Oh, sorry - my language offends you? I see.