Got Crazy? Come on in!

First of all, paranoia update: Mike D., shouting across the table in front of three strangers "Hey, how's the blog going?!"

Three strangers, quizzically:
1) What's a blog?
2) You mean Mike (me) does something more than work? *collective gasp*
3) What's the website?
4) What do you mean "none of my f***ing business?"
5) Seriously, you won't give me the URL?

That's right--feel priviledged, because I don't hand my URL out to anyone unless they pass the test of not using my crazy life to tease me with (MD--you're on the verge :) )

One person in particular keeps asking me for clues so he can find it (google my family members' names in a Boolean search and there's only one possible hit, so I guess eventually I'll be found out).

So, I'm a little hesitant to reveal work information, because I don't want to be fired. But seriously, I'm pretty careful.

That being said, this week I encountered a guy from my company who is an absolute Fruit Loop. Let's call him Rob. He is supposed to install a relatively complex laser array in a machine that we were demonstrating this week for some scientists.

The encounters with Rob this week were so disturbing that I seriously thought at some point that we should call a doctor or something--he could possibly need to be hospitalized. Either that or he is the most socially inept person I've ever met. No, there's no question--he is totally nuts.

Rob is an older man who just started with our company a few months ago--I've already had an encounter with him in which he started telling me what he was going to do and what he wasn't going to do when it was time for him to work, so I was prepared for a little assertion of his independence. One of his excellent communication techniques includes the use of the term "between you and me", as I immediately found out.

"Between you and me, I'm not working after 5:00! I'm too old to do that--Between you and me, those guys (in the other office) just cut out whenever they want, and, between you and me, this laser-scanner they sent us doesn't even work in the first place, so I'm not staying up here all night!"

I smiled and nodded. There are things I can't deal with: Black-hearted evil people walk over me, Liars fool me all the time, Needy people can distract my full emotional attention.

But Crazy? Oh, yes, I can manage Crazy! I'm an expert.

So I just smiled and pretended that I didn't hear him (This is one of my secrets--smile and say little--the poisoned brain is a much better instrument of torture than anything I can devise) and we went into the lab. We end up working til after 7:00 and Rob did a somewhat good job, so I complimented him.

It turns out that someone, probably as a joke, told him during the day that I was an "important person", and I saw that this made a difference to Rob. He started stammering and contradicting himself at every turn, trying to correct his political errors. I played upon the fact that he thought I was important, feeling a little guilty but realizing that it was both for the good of our weeklong project and also for Rob's own good that he senses that there are boundaries not to cross--especially since we are guests in the lab and he apparently doesn't have self-control enough to reign himself in just for the sake of pride in his work and normal civility and sociability.

When it was just our group around, Rob could be overheard constantly muttering to himself about how the company was trying to get away with screwing him around, how others from the company are members of the union and get special priviledges that he doesn't get, and even how his boss was more powerful than our boss (I told him that we could meet at the bike rack after school and settle it). His chatter was incessant and nonsensical. He would suddenly and randomly come to us throughout and report emergencies with equipment, scheduling, and situations, at first causing everyone to jump into action to solve them, only to learn that there really was no problem.

Crazy people have a self-centered reality that makes them operate in this "messy" manner to focus attention on themselves, and this was what Rob was up to--he was craving attention so much, and wanted his work to be valued, that he was just generating fake problems so we would all spring into action around him.

After a couple of these moments over 2 days, I walked up to Rob quietly and said, "Hey, Rob, between you and me, I want this week to go as smoothly as possible--maybe some of the other members of the team shouldn't be bogged down when everything goes to hell so bad, okay? Just come and get me quietly and I bet that, between us, we can solve it." He was so flattered by this that he actually did it, making a show out of coming and getting me out of meetings to step outside and discuuss problems, glancing over my shoulder to make sure everyone was watching him--of course, they were, because they couldn't believe their freaking eyes.

"Uh, Mike, the lab manager told me that our system is unacceptable! He wants us to use dual monitors on the computer. Between you and me, I think we ought to do it, but I'll need to get a "y" splitter and extra VGA cable." (minor problem blown up to large problem--solved via $15).

"Sounds good, Rob--thanks for letting me know. Here are my car keys--do me a favor and go to (told him a specific store which would take him an hour longer to get there and back than the closest store) and grab these things for me." (Whew, dumped him for a few hours, at least).

He looked down at my keys in awe, then back at me. It was at that point that I realized I've just armed a crazy person with my personal vehicle, hoping he doesn't decide to drive to South America or something. Luckily, other than being stinky, it came back okay. That's me, Mike--the smooth operator. Yes, I am a pro at handling Crazy--I started feeling good about myself. The big debate in my mind was whether or not to report how nuts this guy is when I spoke to his boss, or should I wait until he feeds one of my co-workers through a wood-chipper Fargo-style and spoons the remnants into jelly jars. I could nod and smile and say "Yeah, I saw that coming..."

Dealing with Rob became just a humorous sideshow to the intense work that I was doing all week, so I didn't mind it too badly--it was like comic relief in a Shakespearean play. The problem was that it was also the least productive time spent all week--he actually did do some work, but it all had to be redone because it was imcompetently performed.

Then there was the lunch incident.

We decided to take the whole team of 5 people out for lunch on Thursday, and Rob was invited. One of the girls of our group was just too softhearted to acknowledge my "nix" sign when we started talking about lunch plans in front of Rob--I did the cutthroat sign and a big "X" with my arms, but she ended up inviting him anyway. I even tried to thwart it by asking Rob if everything was working right, thinking he would start complaining, as he had all week, about something or other that needed his expert attention. Nope, he saw right through me. Then I dangled my keys in front of him and asked if we needed any more supplies. This had been one of Rob's favorite things to do all week--make a supply run (which actually came in handy on occasion), during which he would disappear for hours. I'm sure he was out in my car, robbing banks, buying crack and picking up hookers or something. My car is probably on some police watch list, now. But this time, Rob smelled a free lunch and, amazingly, all was suddenly right in the universe and he was free for lunch with no plans.

We all piled into the car and, as we drove into downtown, I explained some of the historical parts of Dallas as we went by them, and mentioned the fact that there is still a lot of racial tension in the city and how lots of debates in the city are divided along racial lines--recently, during some building renovation, some water fountains were uncovered which had "Whites Only" printed above them. Many of the group, who were older, nodded and said they remember those times from their childhood.

Rob piped up, "Well, I was raised by the most bigoted man there ever was, and, you know what? We used to call those people..."

I saw where he was going, and cut him off loudly "Rob, I'm telling you right now that I know what you're about to say and I don't want to hear it!"

Rob let me finish, then proceeded, "Well, we called them (highly offensive racial epithet which starts with 'n'".

Me: "Rob, I can't believe you just said that when I asked you not to."

Rob: "It's a real word in the dictionary--look it up. It doesn't mean anything racial."

Me (thinking to myself) That doesn't make sense--he just identified it as a bigoted remark!
(out loud, calmly): "Okay, Rob, let's just drop it."

Just an aside--I had a Sunday School teacher who used "the n-word" all the time, practically ever week, justifying it in the same way by saying that it was just a word and that any external connotations were purely invented. Still not nice.

At lunch, Rob blew his nose at the table into a large, disgusting, bacterial-laden handkerchief and then immediately turned to me, sticking his hand out for me to shake: "No hard feelings, okay?"

(how long do you have to boil your hand to purify it?)

Actually, I patted him on the shoulder and just smiled at him, thinking, this is the part of the shoulder where they are going to tighten your straightjacket, you crazy bastard!