He is also permanently surrounded by a beige swirl of cheap coffee aroma and butt-pinched cigarette smoke. You can understand how he acquired the cruel nickname of Stinky.
A few years ago he went through a messy marriage break up. His clothes became unwashed and unironed, the face more haggard, the smell increased and the number of calls we fielded from the ex-wife rocketed. Sympathy was at an all time high, but much like the US after 9/11 it was squandered dramatically. (But without the hundreds of thousands of deaths).
He would fall asleep in training sessions that he was running. His half moon reading glasses twitching as he slumbered. He would take personal calls from mates during presentations by the CEO. Worse of all he still manages to ‘David Brent’ his way through conversations.
A few examples:-
During a rare attempt to improve my diet by eating lots of fruit, I rashly laughed at the 800th comment on this by saying ‘It makes me wonder how you all see me.’ My boss stopped walking past, turned to me and declared ‘They see you as a slob’. Then walked off without a backwards glance.
Or, how about when my boss said he hated travelling on Indian Airways because they were always unreliable. He then stopped the meeting to apologise to the only (Dunstable born) Asian member of the team for his comment.
My particular favourite moment was him relaying to Constance, his (black) co-worker about how his wife had left him for another man. ‘Constance, she basically left me for a black guy.’ My boss paused as he sucked down some more coffee. ‘And what makes it worse Constance, is that she is supposed to be a Christian.’
He regularly invites himself to our nights out, usually with the words ‘I’ve got a hotel room, so f*** it lets get tanked.’ The look of horror on two 20 year old girls’ faces when he invitingly waved his hotel keys in their face at the end of an evening haunts me like a bad curry.
Against all the litany of silly anecdotes it wouldn’t really matter if he was good at his job, but he isn’t. My own petty revenge was to sign him up for Halitosis website email updates. The thought that this was the best I could come up with is still depressing.
And he hasn’t improved. If anything, he is getting worse.
