how to not make a good first impression at work

Marc's comment on my last post got me thinking about the old days when he and I worked together. It was our first job out of college, an abrupt awakening to the real world, and those of us that started together formed a bond that comes from working many, many long hours together. ah, not so good times.

Somehow, my thoughts strayed to this one particular coworker, Toby. (His name wasn't really Toby, but he kind of looked like he should have been a Toby.) Once we finished our first year at the firm, a new crop of bright-eyed newly graduated employees came in. As people who had been molded and hammered down into the image of the firm for the past year, we were each assigned a new person to share an office with. You know, so we could keep an eye on them and make sure they were also on their way to fitting the mold.
I was lucky enough to be assigned Toby.

Toby's problem was that he couldn't stop talking. And I had work to do, people. It wasn't like at the lab, where I could spend hours at a time finding ways to amuse myself. Here, I would be trying to keep my nose to the grindstone (you know, literally not look up, because the work was never ending and in speedy demand)and Toby would sit across me me and drone on and on and on. About nothing. I mean, really nothing. And he wasn't content to just talk to himself, he wanted a response from me. I really can't convey to you how frustrating this was - I couldn't convey it to my coworkers at the time, either. I mean, sure, they understood Toby wasn't exactly a social smoothy, and they got that he talked a lot. But did they get the kinds of things he talked about and the length of time he talked about them? No. And that is why I had to do what I did. I would call Marc, two offices down, on the speaker phone. He would answer silently on the speaker phone. And then all three of us (Marc had an office mate, too) would listen to Toby talk. And then finally, at last, they understood.
Here's an example:
"Hey Jennifer. What if one day you woke up and your thumb was on the other side of your hand??!!! What if that happened, Jennifer? What if you woke up and your thumb was on the other side of your hand?! Wouldn't that be weird? If your thumb was on the other side of your hand? Hey Jennifer! Jenn! Look! Look - I'm showing what it would be like if your thumb was on the other side of your hand! How would you write?? Wouldn't that be weird? Wouldn't it? Hey Jenn, wouldn't it? Jenn? Jenn?"
and so on for the next 45 minutes. I do not exaggerate.

Now, this all happened a bit after Toby technically started, because for about the first month or so, they sent him out traveling. So the poor kid had started his job, but knew none of us at the office. But he was brought back in town for our annual firm retreat, and that's where the fun begins. When we all really got to know Toby.

Maybe Toby was nervous. That would be understandable. And maybe that's why he chose to get really really drunk at the lake with his new coworkers - who were meeting him for the first time. And then he told the same joke over and over again - which was really only calling us all by our email addresses, since that was how he knew us. Ok, new drunk man, we get it. Ok. And then he drank more, and got ridiculous, and I think I kind of remember him running out the door.

Well, later on that night, my friend Kathy was ready to go to sleep. But Kathy was sleeping in "the party house" - meaning the house where all the food and drinks were kept (we were all in a bunch of big nice houses on a lake in the mountains - that part was nice), so it was not as quiet as she would have liked for it to have been. So Kathy went on a mission to clear out that house and get herself to bed. And it was almost easy... It seemed that everyone was gone - yes, there were a few skinny-dippers out back, but as long as they stayed out, she was ok. One little peek into her bathroom and then she would be going to bed. But instead of the peace she was looking for, all Kathy found in that bathroom was Toby, pants down, passed out, on toilet. After having used the toilet, because man, that room stank.

But Kathy knew how to take charge of a situation (she was the office manager for a reason) and immediately began to yell, as louldly as possible, "JON CHARETTE! JON CHARETTE!!" Then, running to the back door, flinging it open, and screaming again, "JON CHARETTE!!!!"
(I changed Toby's nake to protect his identiy, but Jon Charette's is real, because I have nothing bad to say about Jon Charette. And if he should google himself and find this, then, hi Jon! What are you up to these days? Remember when I interviewed you at Georgetown and I called you Jean Sharé? All those people before you with the difficult names in your international business program - it was their fault.)
Poor, poor Jon was our intern, and the nicest guy ever. Kathy took advantage of her authority (yes, Kathy, you know you did!" and ordered
our intern to take away a strange, stinking, pants-less man. And Jon did. Because again, he was that nice.
I don't think Kathy cared where he put Toby, as long as he was out of her house. Yes, in fact, I think I remember her yelling something about "out of my house!" now that I think about it...
I'm sure he made it to some shelter, though. Our intern wouldn't have left him exposed outside. After all, I picked out our intern, so he must have been good, right?

And that was how Toby introduced himself to his new office.
I think he lasted less than a year. Farewell, Toby. I really really hope that none of us ever have to go through that again.