Oh man lets see:

We have the Avid Cyclist

We have The Young Guy

We have the Big Rightwing Guy with his Big Truck who has been quietly embarrased the last year or so, who tries not to whine out loud about diesel prices

We have a Longhaired Guy who drives the only EV that any of these people has apparently ever seen.

We have The Boss’ kid, except he’s actually a solid employee and a good guy.

We also have the Terrifying Ex-Military lady and her adorable little dog.

Had a coworker that was the weird bigfoot man. Every time he came to the main branch it was a whole lecture about bigfoot. He even gave marketing a recorded speech he did about bigfoot for a local bigfoot convention and demanded they publish it internally. When he retired they put bigfoot on his retirement party cake.

I grade the nursing assistants on a simple three point triangle similar to the body composition slider in the newer elder scrolls games but instead of skinny fat muscular, the corners are nice, hardworking, and intelligent (specifically situational awareness). You need to be AT LEAST one. My favorites have at least two. I can count on one hand the techs / assistants I’ve met in the last three decades who have had either all or none of the above.

One of my colleagues is genuinely clueless/dumb? Sometimes I just wonder what goes on in there. She’ll say yes to everything, but then we realise later that she didn’t listen to a word anyone’s said.

Junior staff who will chew their own limb off than pick up the phone and call someone.

Older coworker who doesn’t know how to do something and is afraid to ask. They’ll say that the task isn’t important, try to push it off onto someone else, and try to push back the timeline. At the last possible minute, usually after blowing their deadlines and getting heat from higher up in the org, that is when they finally admit they don’t know what they’re doing and need help.

People who were ok technical contributors who get promoted to management and fail miserably because they don’t have the management skills to succeed so they burn out as they take on all the high level work which their group should be doing.

• gym teacher manager. Not great at the math and science parts, but believes in his team
• checked out youth. Watches YouTube instead of working.
• checked out elder. He’s so close to retiring. He’s got stories to tell from before HR was all formalized
• checked out middle career guy. He wanted to fix things. Then he fell into the tar pit. Why bother when a ten minute fix is going to take two research spikes, a stakeholder meeting, a team meeting, a feedback meeting, a sprint planning meeting and so on. Fuck it.
• day care HR. Do they work? Who knows. They seem nice, when you can find them.
• quiet union sympathizer. Got a “talking to” about it, so now he just shit talks management in back channels. Joins meetings smoking from his back porch. Knows where some bodies are buried.

I work at a bad place.

I have a co-worker who doesnt listen to the answers of the questions they ask.

My boss is the clean-cut, captain-of-the-football-team all American type. Imagine Homelander but not evil.

We got a guy in the lab who’s your grouchy but friendly dude who’ll go on all day about how the place sucks but knows every piece of equipment inside and out and will drop whatever he’s doing to help you. Short and majestically bearded. I call him Gimli. But not to his face.

New guy is the quintessential live-off-the-land redneck. He always brings in food he caught or hunted himself. Every. Day.

We got the nerd tech who exudes, “I’d rather be at ComiCon.”

Our manager who is pure, undiluted metalhead. Pick a metal band. He can talk about them all day. Kicks everyone’s ass at Name That Riff.

For a while we had the autistic, terminally online Gen Z kid. He lasted about six months.

I tend to mentally assign my coworkers into three categories: Sharks, Soldiers, and Mercenaries.

Sharks are out for themselves and their money and will do whatever they think they can get away with to get more.

Soldiers are just there to put their head down and work. They won’t do anything extra to get ahead, they just want to make their money and go home.

Mercenaries are the least predictable. They work when they feel like it and will generally seize easy money but won’t hustle for it. They don’t plan and they don’t prep more than they must.

These all take different strategies to get along with as coworkers; I’m enough of a Shark myself to be wise to their tricks and set firm boundaries so they cross someone else’s lines instead of mine. You gotta be friendly with the Soldiers because they are the ones who keep the wheels spinning, but keep some distance as well so you don’t upset their work / life balance. Mercenaries you keep on a leash; you distract them when you need something but tug the chain when they’re trying to be sneaky.

I have a coworker whose first response to any issue is throw AI at it. Their personality is AI.

My coworker sits under my desk and licks my feet when he’s been fed.

90% of my teammates are moms and that’s pretty much their entire personality. One is a Disney adult so that’s another good one.

The coworkers at my last job were pretty cool actually.

Team leader: a bit of an enigma. Always wanted to do things her way although she wasn’t power-hungry. Overly critical, but openhearted. Also the youngest of the team.

Second in command: a typical Gen X urban Finn for whom being a social democrat is a way of life. The kind who reads the local paper (yep, actual paper) for community news she can’t get anywhere else. Smiling even less than is usual, but chatty and always ready to talk shit about our customers. Deserved shit, I may add. Never just hating.

The third, who was roughly on my level in the hierarchy was the only one I considered boring, stereo- or maybe archetypical: a woo-woo esoteric mom of maybe 50. Healthy but kinda unhappy? Drinking spirulina+mud smoothies.

i have the i’m going to slam utensils to let you know i’m unhappy coworker.