I never believed that I would ever write something like this. I have always though that it was below my level and honour to slate someone harshly in this way. Not exactly to slate, but to publicly desecrate someone in the worst possible way. However, the today’s event was simply too much! I was like a gun, read to shoot (write!), and I’ve just been triggered!!!
The person in question is my notorious colleague Bosko. Yes, I am going to mention his full name, because I can sign every world I write here and I might even handle a copy to him.
He is tall and a fat, with a bulging stomach. He has got a HUGE head, a chubby, round face, which looks swollen all the time. He’s got small, piggish eyes and bit, wet lips, especially the lower one, which somehow seems drooping all the time. His ears are a bit floppy and he is in a need of a haircut. Basically, he looks as if he had just woken up and is totally confused.
There is a blank expression on his face, such as the ones suffering of some mental illness have and often, when you ask him something, there is a little delay before he answers. Like on a Skype call. Moreover, when he is asked something, there is this empty, expressionless look on his face, his eyes look through you, before the information finally reaches his pea-sized brain. Sometimes, he does not even answer and just blinks once or twice blankly. Once, I passed next to him in the street, so close I could touch him and said “Hi” loudly enough; however, he did not even hear me. He just continued walking straight, staring at an indefinite point somewhere ahead of him. He has a weird, almost scary, habit of being able to sit for one hour, gazing somewhere in front of him, not moving, for one hour. Sometimes, he enters the office, murmurs something for himself, such as “Yes…right”, then proceeds to stare somewhere at the ceiling or walls, with a wondering expression, while the little toothed wheels in his head are processing a piece of information with the greatest exertion. He literally ponders on some random issues and when he is not sure about the answer, he asks me.
If the way you dress reveals who you are, then his style screams he’s an idiot! At 30°C, when I want to strip my skin off and sit in a freezer, he comes to the office in a long-sleeved shirt, buttoned up all the way to his double-chin, a woolen vest, a tie and a blazer. Like an Oxford boy, or something. The vest is the most ridiculous piece of cloth I’ve ever seen in my life. It is navy blue and buttons up on his stomach – something that my grandfather cast away as passé. Sometimes, he comes to work in the same cloths for a week, but the vest in inevitable. And, he always complains he is cold. He lives just around the corner, not as if he lives on the North Pole or Siberia!
He started working here in May, as a “senior assistant”, that is, a secretary. I don’t know what he had expected of the job, but I realize now that he hates it, as he comes here every day as if he was going to be executed. I also realize why he, of all other candidates, was chosen – because he was the only guy. One of the tasks required by the senior assistant is to carry Ambassador’s bag upstairs, to unpack it, to pack it when it is time to leave and to bring it downstairs. As the employers knew that any girl would complain about this job, they intentionally chose him. Unfortunately, the working environment here is not really favourable and there are rumours and gossips every day. From the day one, the other Serbian stuff, especially the driver #2, Miki, started treating Bosko like dirt, ordering him around, transferring the tasks he himself should do on him, telling him lies about the Myanmar staff, intimidating him. No wonder Bosko comes to work as if the Embassy were a graveyard. In the beginning, I was sorry for him and once, I even told him not to believe everything he is told. I don’t know if he had taken my piece of advice, but he still looks as if he was going to shit his pants every time he sees the Ambassador (who IS scary, but not to that extent!). Anyway, in the first days, it was my task to explain Bosko what his job included. And, I immediately realized something was wrong with him. On the first day he looked as if he had not slept all night long – even worse as if he had been drinking and was not totally hungover. How can one allow himself to come to the first day at a new job like that? I explained a few tasks, for example, that he should register ANY letter that arrives, expect from ads and leaflets. Then, I told him that he should note any reception that the Ambassador is going to, in a calendar and that he should remind him a day before that. I also showed him how to transfer the line on the telephone. I clearly remember the empty look on his face, as if I had been talking in some gibberish language. He asked me to repeat it. So I did. Several times. For the entire week he would come to my desk and say:” Maya, please, pardon me (who the fuck says “pardon me” nowadays any more!?!?!?!), but do I have to register this letter?”. The first several times, I smiled and said he should. “Yes, you should register ANY letter, except from advertisements. When he approached, with the same question for the 10th time, I retorted angrily - “Bosko, have I not told you to register ANY letter that comes?” “Yes” “Bosko, is that a letter?” “Yes, it is”, “Then why are you asking me such questions??”- to which he said “I perfectly understand you, no need to shout!”…. I don’t even want to mention how many times I explained how to prepare the documents for VAT exemption, which is, believe me, just copy/past task. In the end, Miki, the driver, sat with him and step-by-step told him, for the 100th time, how it is done. Thankfully, he stopped asking me stuff and at one point, I did not have any problems with him. However, then the found out I spoke Greek, which totally fascinated him (“You speak Greek?!?! Oh, isn’t it fascinating, isn’t it marvelous!!?”), and which made him believe I was a wikipedia for any question that has to deal with Greece – not just the language, but anything concerning the country, such as, according to which Greek military official was their national drink, Metaxa, named.(Do you know?) Although every time, my reply was “Bosko, google.com – it has all the answers to all the questions in the world! Go, ask him!!”, he asks me stuff even now. I am flattered the guy thinks I’m an eternal, inexhaustible source of all the knowledge in the world, but doesn’t he realize the pointlessness of his questions.
Moreover, for some reason, unknown to me, he started calling me “Boss”, although I was not his superior and he knew that. This bothered me greatly, but I decided not to tell him anything, because it could inspire him to call me like that on purpose. However, at one point, I just flipped and politely, quietly, with a smile, asked him, if he could be so kind as not to call me “Boss’ because my name is Maya and that is how everybody calls me. He started at me, blinked, and then, said:” Oh, please, pardon me, pardon me, but I did not have any bad intentions”. I said I knew he did not have them, but that I just preferred being called by my lovely, proper name. He apologized 5 more times, promised not to call me like that any more and going away to his desk, turned around and said:” I mean, I call my best friend “Boss”… And, my mum… my mum calls me “President”. If a look could kill, I would have killed him.
I think the rest also realize Bosko was not quite sane, when the episode, which I like calling “sharpener” happened. The Ambassador asked Bosko to sharpen his pencils. Bosko obediently fulfilled his order, and, like a dog playing fetch, happily presented the pencils to the Ambassador but the poor Ambassador, suffering of obsessive-compulsive behaviour almost had a stoke when he saw his pencils, being reduced to the size of a cigarette butt, sharpened in a weird, clumsy way. What happened? The guy actually took a KNIFE from the kitchen and used it to sharpen the pencils. Which would not have been so retarded, had there not been a HUGE, MASSIVE, AUTOMATIC pencil-sharpener at the desk, next to his!!! Even if he had not spotted it (!?!), wouldn’t the most natural thing to do be to ASK someone for a pencil sharpener!!!? Anyway, he was an object of sneering at the Embassy for days.
Nevertheless, none of these situations ever made me seriously believe that something was gravely wrong with him. I simply reached a conclusion he was a bit daft. And then one day, while I was busy translating, he came to my desk, sat on a small stool next to it and asked:” Maya, since I know you know a lot of people, do you happen to know anyone who would adopt some American Stafford Terrier puppies? My uncle’s dog gave birth and we don’t know what to do with the puppies”. I told him all my friends who love dogs or cats already had a pet and suggested publishing a small ad, explaining those were very expensive and sought dogs and that he wouldn’t have troubles selling them, not least, give them away. He said something about placing an ad to a police station, since policemen were keen on this breed and then, with a serious expression on his face, said:” You know… If it had been my way, I would have had all the dogs strangled..eased their pain… this way, they will only suffer”. Anyone who knows how much I adore animals, especially dogs, can guess my reaction. I was listening to him, typing something when I paused, looked at him in horror, disbelief and shock and since we were at the office, just coldly told him:” Please, Bosko, do not mention that to me, because I am a great animal lover”. (Had we been outside, I would have thrown a series of the worst curses in Serbian language straight to his face!). The biggest of all ironies and non-senses was his reply:” Oh, but, don’t get me wrong, I’m a member of the Society for protection of animals… I would just do a HUMANE thing, before they suffer”. Not even now do I know how I managed not to jump on him and kill him with scissors! At that point, I started treating the guy as a mentally “challenged” person and stopped feeling sorry for him.
Recently, we’ve called a truce, I mean, he simply did not ask me anything and I did not growl. A blissful and peaceful situation. And then, the today’s incident happened, which was the last straw that broke the camel’s back! And which made me wash the dirty laundry about him publicly. I simply HAD to share this with the world. So, I walk in the office, with a smile on my face, which has to do with the yesterday’s Serbia’s triumph over Spain at Basketball Championship in Istanbul. The first thing I asked my MYANMAR colleague was if he had seen the game and he told he had and that Novak Djokovic also had a fantastic victory. Then, I enter the kitchen, to run into Bosko, and after saying “Good morning”, I ask:” Bosko, did you watch the game last night?”. (delay, delay, delay). Bosko:” Which game…You mean with Slovenia?” (a football game we lost badly two days ago!). Maya:” No, no, the game we Spain, we won, last night, you know, right?”. Bosko:” Frankly, I drank some beer last night” (There, an indefinite and totally out-of-the-context reply, totally typical of him..). Maya:” Bosko, you could watch the game AND drink beer…what planet do you live on, everybody has heard of the game!!!”. Bosko: (irritated) “I don’t give a damn to watch the game, they don’t watch me when I play”. Then he stormed out of the kitchen. I still stood there, quite shocked, but I decided not to pay attention to some retarded, fat idiot! So, I went to my desk and then he approached as asked:” Hey, Maya, are you going to the gay parade?”. For a single second, I HOPED he would come out and admit he is gay, which I would take with a great enthusiasm. I said:” Uuum.. I don’t know, why are you asking?”. Bosko:” Well, if you are interested in going, you can join me, I’m going with some mates and that guy, Pavle Something is coming, too”. ( Pavle Something is a guy, who is notorious for being an anarchist and a member or pro-nationalistic movement, the guy I would gladly see 5 feet under!). I probably looked puzzled, so he went on:” You know, we’re going to beat up the faggots!!”…. Strongly restraining myself, I could not believe what he was asking me, so I just said:” Bosko, please, don’t get me wrong, but this is simply below my level. I don’t go round the city, beating people up. You’re humiliating me, by only suggesting something like that”. Then, he just said something I chose not to listen and went away.
Please, please, tell me that I’m right, that they guy’s crazy, but really, 100% insane! If I were a guy, I might understand his last question. There are a lot of homophobic men here and what tells Bosko I was not one of them? But, I’m a girl! Who comes to work dressed like a lady every day, who reads books all the times, hangs out with nice people. Do I LOOK like someone who’s going to join a group of homophobic rascals and go to the gay pride in order to beat someone up!?!?! I did notice, and he admitted that, that he was fond of the entire SSSR idea, he reads books on communism all the time, but I had no idea he was a fucking brain-fucked anarchist!!!
From this day on, I am going to avoid any kind of communication with this… this fat hippopotamus with an amoeba brain (though, I think hippos are really cute) and if he ever asks me an imbecile question ever again, I am politely and calmly going to ask him not to talk to me at all, unless it concerns work. If the disobeys my request, I’ll definitely stick this document to the Embassy’s front door!!!
