a current colleague, adored by the public for his over the top manners and eccentricity, and hated by anyone who has to work with him. he's 50-something, but looks like he's going to keel over any second, sweats profusely and looks like a deranged sea lion. when i started working there he was the colleague that before i met him, everyone would just describe as '...interesting'. '...interesting' = 'a fucking nightmare', but holy shit he is my personal favourite lolcow.
minor cowish things - he'd run around the pub belting random songs at the top of his voice, to the point where some of the regular drinkers would scream at him to shut the fuck up. if he found out it was someone's birthday, colleagues and random customers, he'd belt out happy birthday to them and it never failed to be hilarious but also utterly embarassing to the person who's birthday it was. often when he realised that he was utterly shit at his job he'd have chimpouts in staff areas and start banging his head on the wall or punching the walls whilst shouting 'JAMES YOU FUCKING IDIOT, FUCKING GET IT TOGETHER MAN'. a sight to behold.
he started working there before i did, and here's a few of my favourite stories as told to me by colleagues. one saturday night a fight kicks off between a pregnant worker, her family and her babydad's family, which results in the pregnant worker being decked. the fight goes outside and then next minute james is dragging the pregnant worker's mother in through the door in a headlock, shouting I'VE GOT HER, I'VE GOT HER, to the bemusement of everyone in the room except the managers who were fucking horrified because you know, we're not allowed to just randomly headlock customers. another time he was scrubbing the gantry and managed to pull the whole thing down on top of him. no one is even sure how long he was underneath it for, one of them just walked in and saw him squealing like a pig under a pile of metal, napkins and menus. said gantry was involved in another of his disasters when he pulled a plate out of the lift so fast that the rammekin of bbq sauce slid off, pinged off the floor and splattered him head-to-toe (and to ceiling, the bbq sauce was there for a good 2 years before anyone decided to scrub it off) in sauce. more pig squealing because he got it in his eye and couldn't see. he also wore bright white shirts, so that was something he sperged off about for like an hour whilst people were still trying to work.
now onto events i've personally witnessed. one sunday afternoon, the food is coming up in the lifts but no one is taking it out, i've got app orders and like 10 people at the bar and i'm wondering where the FUCK my colleagues are. turns out, james had thrown himself down the two steps to get outside in the beer garden and was lying there not moving, and my manager and various members of the general public had to try and sort him out. he was saying he couldn't move, but when my friend arrived for her shift and said she was going to call an ambulance he shot right the fuck up and was suddenly ready to work again. witness reports say that he didn't fall atall, or trip or anything, he just launched himself at the ground and started whining like a hog.
one time he asked one of my colleagues for a hug and she just said 'no james' and for the next week he was wandering about constantly wittering and worried that she was going to go to court and have him done for sexual harassment.
it's a quiet afternoon after lunch, and i'm just wandering around looking for stuff to tidy up. out of the corner of my eye, i see all of the seat covers of this long sectional sofa lying all over the floor, and i turn to see james leaning on the seat frame and staring into the ground underneath the seat. i ask him what on earth he is doing, and he replies 'well darling i saw some muck on the floor so i decided to look in the chairs to see how good a job the cleaners have been doing, and clearly...' and at that moment, his hand slipped off the wooden beam and he fell headfirst into the seat. he's a big man, about 90% stomach, so his balloon belly was crushed against the wooden beam as he screamed 'DARLING, DARLING, HELP! HELP!!!!' i'm trying my best not to fucking laugh because with his screaming he'd managed to attract every single customer in the main area to gawk at him. pulling him up was a chore given his sheer weight, and he was clearly shook. i poured a pint of coke for him and when the manager asked where i was going with it i just responded 'yeah, james has fallen through a chair' and the manager didn't bat an eyelid because this is pretty much standard behaviour for james.
everytime he works, he makes extra work for everyone else. he uses this bus trolley all the time, but never brings it to the bar to empty it out, and just throws random filth in it, then leaves it to be cleaned at the end of the night. me and my colleagues decide we can't be bothered with that, so we find the trolley, take it outside and hide it in the cageyard. cue a james breakdown. he's walking all over the pub looking despondent looking for the trolley. he even looks in the cageyard, would've seen the trolley, but left it there and carried on walking around to garner attention. he ended up asking both the managers on shift and so we had to tell him where the trolley was, he was saying he couldn't do his job without it (despite the fact we'd only had the trolley for a year, he'd worked there for 4). that same night as i'm walking into the bar area i see him finally unloading the trolley, but he just deliberately drops a stella glass on the floor. like fully, picks it up out of the trolley, and just lets go. i explode, as i'm doing my lap i shout 'you best clear that up, you do it on purpose!' and queue a fucking chimpout. i go in the lift room and tell my colleague then when i go back out there again he's there, and screamed 'YOU, LET'S GO AND TELL A MANAGER WHAT YOU FUCKING SAID, FOLLOW ME' i walk in the direction towards the bar and my colleagues look horrified. apparently he walked through the bar area uttering 'i'm going to get her, i'm going to get her'. he just ended up stood outside for 30 mins whilst the manager who hadn't even started his shift yet tried to calm him down.
during this lockdown my friend got a cleaning job at the local co-op, who james likes to terrorise. it's a tiny corner shop, but he'll spend 1-2 hours in there harassing the staff, and it got so bad that they had to put him on a 15 minute time limit everytime he came into the store. he's been know to try and hug staff without their consent, and once chased a staff member down an aisle for a hug. one day he goes in, and the cashier is ringing his shopping up but none of it's coming up right on the register, so she goes and gets a manager. it turns out james was going around the shop, taking reduced stickers off reduced items and sticking them on the things he wanted to buy. the manager told him he could be done for shoplifting, and that was it. chimp out activated. he was there shouting and screaming and crying that he was going to go to prison, and eventually he had to be walked home by the manager because he wouldn't leave or stop chimping.
lastly, probably one of my favourites. james and my very openly gay colleague were in the staff room, and james asked him for a quickie. when my colleague recoiled and turned him down, james responsed 'oh okay, you're the third gay man i've asked today' and fucked off out the staff room. colleague is still offended that for this mordibly obese, whiskery, sweaty sped, he was only his third choice.
