Jack and Jill

I don't normally talk about work or people at work cos there's a thing called Office Etiquette and  one of  the commandments is Thou shall not gossip. People who break this common rule often get a lashing for being an idiot. But just for today, I'll make an exception. Not talking about my colleagues of course, just about  how certain people at work behave, in general. And since none of my colleagues know about the existence of this humble garden, I am going to throw caution to the wind and tell you a story about two people sharing an office. Nothing to do with me, mind you!*rolls eyes* These characters are totally fictional and they are not associated with anyone dead or alive. There. That's my disclaimer. Those of you working in a law firm (I'm looking right at you LW and CL) please advise and tell me if this is enough to keep me safe from future lawsuits. 

Right. As I was saying, this is a tale of two colleagues; Jack and Jill. Jack and Jill shares an office. Jack is a Mongolian whose English sounds a lot like Japanese and Jill is your all-Malaysian girl who finds it difficult to understand Jack's incoherent English. Despite the language barrier, they're cool with each other. Until recently.

When Jack first came, he hardly ever stayed in the office cos he had heaps of field work to do outside. After he's done with field work however, he started coming in more frequently. That's when Jill discovered Jack's real traits and one of them was his annoying eating habits. You see, Jack makes excruciatingly annoying sounds when he eats. It's like everything needs to be demonstrated and stressed in the eating process. Like if he eats a bag of chips with a can of coke, he'd rip the packet out-loud and munch and munch and munch on them like cookie monster would devour his cookies. Remember Sesame Street? Right. Because he's too hasty in his attempt to finish the chips, he often chokes on his food and in desperation, he would take a few big gulps of  Coca Cola to help move the food down. And then he burps. Out loud. Which is cool with Jill, if this was done during the lunch break or at the lounge suite where people have their lunches. But no. He just has to do it in the office - all the time.

Oh, by the way, Jill takes her wee baby to work every day. More about this later.

When he's done eating, he'd start making himself a cup of coffee at the pantry. He comes back from the pantry with his Nescafe, places the mug on the table (loudly) "THUD" and then stirs it with a spoon "TING TING TING" before he starts sipping on  it and making this sound SLURRRRRRPPPPPPPP...Ahhhh  Don't know what's with the ahhhh.., but he constantly does this when he's slurping on his coffee. It's like a finale to his extraordinary eating habits. When this happens, I, I mean Jill, just feels like shouting "Can you stop eating like a pig?" but for the sake of harmony, she normally keeps her mouth shut.

After a few sips and slurps, Jack gets on with his work. He takes out his files, puts them on the table THUD THUD THUD and starts typing on his keyboard, CLICK CLACK CLUCK CLICK CLACK CLUCK. This goes on for hours. It is as if he's playing mortal combat with his keyboard. It is traumatizing cos she can hardly hear herself think with that CLICK CLACK CLUCK CLICK and SLURRRRRRPPPPP Ahhhhh. This happens all the time.

Aside from that, Jill's baby also has a hard time having Jack around cos he always closes the door loudly with a bang. This startles the baby of course especially when she's sleeping. Baby starts crying and poor Jill has to stop whatever she's doing to comfort her. And Jack? Oh, he's oblivious to all this cos he's so caught up in his own little world. Being the kind and patient person that she is, Jill remains silent and drives herself crazy with imaginative murder plots.

One Sunday (about a month ago), Jill decided to go to the office to catch up on her work. As she was about to open the door to her room, she noticed that someone was inside. It was none other than Jack! What was he doing in the office on a Sunday? Jill peeked through the see-through window on the door and got the shock of her life. Jack was watching an adult entertainment site! How interesting. Jill knocked on the door 3 times before turning the knob. This of course pushed  the fella's panic button. Hehe. He quickly clicked the X button on the screen before turning to say "Hi". His face, pale white. Guess what happened next? Nothing of course. Jill just smiled knowingly and pretended like nothing happened. Poor Jack has to live with the fact that he will never know what Jill knows.
 

Since that incident, Jack has been conveniently occupied and doesn't go to the office on a regular basis anymore. When he does show up, it's usually in the late afternoon, when Jill's about to leave. Jack probably feels awkward being around Jill and deep down she does feel sorry for him. Well, only a little. Now that Jack can't annoy her with his eating habits, she can finally do her work in peace. Life is good again. 

 

The End.

The moral of the story? I'll leave that to you. :)