Something To Talk About

so i get back from lunch with the adorable one and i pass my coworker's cube where oscar de la grouch is perched. now, my coworker, whose cube is next to mine, i like a lot--he's a generally good fellow. he does work more than any mere mortal should (leading me to believe he's a vampire) and he's a perfectionist to the nth degree, but he usually is there to coach and mentor me. when he's not being monopolized by cabbage patch head.

but i digress. so, while i'm getting situated, checking messages, etc., i hear them speaking in hushed tones. now, i may have mentioned this like a thousand times or so, but i run a million degrees of hot. about every day. in fact, unless it's freezing outside, i'm sweaty. nope, it doesn't make sense to me either. but to keep me relatively comfortable, i have a fan at my desk. which is great, but throws a real monkey wrench into the equation when you want to eavesdrop. i can't turn off the thing without being totally obvious.

anyway, it's apparent that oscar is unhappy about someone's performance. probably mine, despite the fact that we barely work together because he always chooses cabbage patch head for his projects. which secretly pisses me off. because the work is supposed to be shared between us and he gives her all of his assignments. it's not like i even like working with oscar because he's cranky, crabby, a perfectionist, and because we had a tiff of sorts last year, still carries a secret grudge. seriously, he likes just about everyone else in our group except for me. he calls everyone else by their last names, jokes around with them, but with me, it's like the kid-glove treatment.

the reason i think oscar is talking about me is because he's mentioning things like "inconsistency" and the thing is, he's never, ever happy with anything i complete for him. it's just a given he hates everything i do. well, hate is a strong word. let me put it this way--no matter what i draft, he shreds to pieces. i could write, "the sky is blue" and i swear he would re-write it. my coworker that he was talking to is the same way.

anyway, i'm pretty sure he was talking about me because i asked him for help with a list of projects i was pulling together yesterday, on short notice. i normally wouldn't ask him for assistance, but the projects fall into his business lines.

of course i couldn't just go over to either one and say, "hey, i heard you talking and i think it's about me." it was just the way they were talking that made me think it was me. and i think this because my coworker that resides next to me was using terms like "the importance of the team" and that generally means he's giving some kind of pep talk about sucking it up and making things work.

my point is, if you are going to talk about someone, and if that someone is me, do it in private. because i am already paranoid about people talking about me. obviously. and narcisstic as i think everything is about me. unfortunately, paranoia and narcissicim is a bad combo. it's a wonder i get through every day. thank god for drugs, huh?