TL/DR? Some people are difficult, on purpose. 

Once upon a time many jobs ago, I had a co-worker who was a daily
drama queen (DDQ). For him, every problem was a MAJOR problem, and he
was always eager to talk about it, to anyone, to everyone. We worked in
an ‘open office’, so there was no escaping.

Neighbors wronged him, and we heard about it. Family disrespected
him, and we heard about it. His dishwasher stopped working, and we heard
about it. “And why am I working here?” DDQ sometimes said. “I can code
like a king, I should be making three times as much working for Google
or Apple.”

Yeah, he was a programmer, he claimed, stuck working a basic office
job alongside us dummies. But he wasn’t very good at what we did, and he
made more and dumber mistakes than anyone else, and he struggled with
anything beyond the basics of Windows, so I suspected he was full of
feces about writing excellent code.

Mostly, though, what we all disliked about him was that he brought
every annoyance from his personal life into the office. DDQ’s life was
ever-so-full of drama, most of which he manufactured himself. Part of me
wanted to feel sorry for him, but most of me just wanted him to shut
up. A couple of times I said it: “Please shut up.” He never even tried
shutting up.

Comes one particular Saturday, and the whole office was working
overtime, so DDQ had a sixth day to screw things up, and tell everyone
what was going wrong in his life that week. On this day the details were
different, though, and the drama deeper. He described a strange
psychotic incident the previous night, and said he was having suicidal
thoughts, and that he desperately needed to see a psychiatrist
(“desperately” was his word, not mine), but he wasn’t sure whether it
would be covered under our medical plan.

Well, I didn’t like the guy at all, but I didn’t wish him dead, and
you have to pay attention when someone talks about suicide, so I made a
sincere effort. I listened to his story, more than I’d usually listened
in the past. I gave him a hug, though he wasn’t a huggy sort of fellow. I
asked if he had enough weed to make it through the weekend. I gave it
the old college try, man, and I’d never even gone to college.

Some of my co-workers tried, too. We spent more of that morning
giving him words of encouragement than doing our work. DDQ wasn’t having
any of our encouragement, though.

I looked through our employee benefits website, and found what I
thought was jackpot information: DDQ was right, psychiatric care wasn’t
covered, but we had a weird company benefit — a toll-free hotline for
mental health. Any employee could call an 800 number, tell them you
worked for Acme Amalgamated, and they’d transfer you to an actual
shrink’s office, where they’d give you up to ninety minutes of talk and
listen time on the phone, on the spot, at no charge, and then refer you
to a local professional if that seemed warranted.

A free mental health phone call is better than nothing, so I told DDQ
about this, emailed him the link, but he was opposed to the idea. It’s
company-connected, he said, so everything I tell them will be reported
to HR. Reading the webpage, I replied, “It says it’s confidential. It
says they don’t even tell the company that you called, let alone what you called about.” Nope, he wouldn’t do it.

A little later I remembered some discount counseling that I’d
received from a charity many years ago, and it had been helpful for me,
so I mentioned that to DDQ. Nope, he wouldn’t settle for a counselor; he
wanted a genuine psychiatrist. Accept no substitutes. But he couldn’t
afford a psychiatrist, so what could he do? What could he do?

I searched the net for affordable psychiatrists in our area, and told
him about several listings at less than $50 p/session. One by one DDQ
dismissed these suggestions, ‘cuz he’d heard bad things about that
neighborhood, or he wouldn’t feel comfortable talking to a psychiatrist
with an ethnic-sounding name.

“Are you religious?”, I asked him. “Maybe your priest, your pastor,
your rabbi or imam or whatever might help?” He answered loudly, so our
very, very Christian co-worker could hear clearly, that “Religion is for
weak minds.” To myself, not out loud, I said, Well, who’s suicide for?

Finally, I did something I rarely do. I gave him my phone number, and
told him he could call if he wanted someone to talk to. I don’t think
it was obvious how much I hoped he wouldn’t call. I was probably
supposed to ask for his telephone number, and call to check on
him every few hours all weekend, but I didn’t, and I didn’t. Maybe I was
supposed to take him to lunch, sleep on his couch, I don’t know.
Remember, this schmuck wasn’t a friend. I didn’t like him. At all.

But when our work ended that Saturday, I told him to think about the
options we’d talked about, and handed him a printout from the toll-free
help-line, and patted him loudly and literally on the back. Then I said
good night and as I drove home, I heard myself whistling.

I didn’t think about DDQ for the rest of the weekend, except
ever-so-briefly every time the phone rang. It didn’t ring often, and he
never called, and on Monday morning DDQ was back at his desk, as healthy
and as annoying as ever. Maybe more so. I asked if he was doing better,
and he said, and this is an exact quote ‘cuz I’ll never forget: “Ah, I was just fucking with you. The whole psychotic episode? I made it up to make a Saturday shift more fun.”

He said it with a smirk that really sold the idea, and to be honest, I
didn’t know then and don’t know now whether he was serious. DDQ always
exaggerated his drama, complaining about everything in his life, but
making it up entirely? I’m not sure. He’d been totally believable on
Saturday, talking about his psychotic episode, but that smirk on Monday
as he said “I was just fucking with you” — that smirk was like it was
under oath, too.

So did I mock him? Insult him? Did I slug him? No, I did not. I just
stared at him, and then said something along the lines of, “Well, if you
ever do need someone to talk to,” but damn it was hard to say that.
Slugging him was my preferred option, and maybe if we hadn’t been at
work. Maybe if I saw him on the sidewalk …

Should I add some sanctimonious disclaimer, that suicide is a serious
problem, not to be ignored or made light of? That goes without saying,
and that’s what I did, so no, I’m not going to tack on any such
scolding.

I’ll add an epilogue, though: DDQ continued to annoy all of us in the
office, often talking about the endless cascade of problems in his
life, despite nobody ever asking, and despite being asked to stop,
several times, by several co-workers, and at least twice by our boss.

One day his car was vandalized while it was parked on the company
lot, and no, I had nothing to do with it. But I enjoyed hearing about
it. Yup. Not like any of us had a choice, so far as hearing about it,
but DDQ told us all about it the next day, and for weeks.

Eventually, DDQ was fired. Nobody ever officially said why, but take
your pick — he was bad at his job, so even disregarding what an ass he
was, there were valid grounds for firing him.

I Googled him this morning, and his LinkedIn page says he’s working
at a local high-tech firm. That’s the kind of job he sometimes said he
wanted, so it sounds like a better situation for him. And yet, I’m
confident that he’s no good at it, that his co-workers don’t like him,
and that he’ll be fired there, too. itsdougholland.com ← PREVIOUS          NEXT →