If you're a fan of The Office you know who Toby is. You also know that Michael has a nearly irrational dislike for Toby for really no reason other than the fact that he's Toby and does things in a Toby-like manner. Focus: Who is your workplace Toby? Do they know you dislike them and how do you deal with them?
Since Chater (and maybe some others) don't watch The Office (shame!) here's my summation of Toby. Toby is a quiet, mild mannered guy who is a human version of Droopy Dog. He does his job and doesn't stir the pot at all. He's a stickler for the rules and can be accused of ruining fun because of his bland personality. When Toby isn't in an episode you don't really miss him because he really brings nothing to the table. My "Toby" is Steve. He's an applications engineer here that is fine at his job but nitpicks little detail bullshit before half of the equipment is even defined. He's never been in the field, never seen any of our equipment actually run but feels that he knows what the customers want and makes changes on his own that I always undo. He's a nice enough guy but I've never liked him and disliked him from the moment I shook his hand on his first day. He's never done anything for me to dislike him as much as I do but I can't help it. If we were uncivilized cave people I would kill "Steves" on sight. No question about it. The only way I can deal with him is to close my eyes, tuck my chin to my chest and meditate while he talks. Then I answer with as few words as possible, willing him out of my presence the entire time.
As its just me and my boss in the same office, I don't really have to deal with anyone like that too much (but my boss is a wanker, but that's another story) However, in our extended office there is Matt. Now Matt is awkward, dull, and boring, and every time he approaches you, all you can do is close your eyes and pray he walks past. God forbid you get stuck talking to him, I'd rather swallow rusty razors.
I work as a field tech for a national electronics company. We're not huge, but not small either. We are the 2nd largest company in our industry. Mine is "Bill". Bill is a short, balding, smarmy little shit. He's our salesman. Like most salesman that I've met, he's somewhere in the evolutionary ladder between toe jam and bathtub mold. From the limp dick handshake, to his social ineptitude, to his ability to talk down to everyone he meets. He consistantly over sells our companies abilities, therefore leaving me, the field tech to either make nice or jump out of my ass to cover his. Did a demo for a company recently, worth $175K nationally. This is an existing customer that we small amounts of work for already. This particular location had never met Bill. After the demo was complete, we were almost escorted out of the facility because Bill made a comment about the ass of a female that worked there, and she over heard it. Not only will we not get that money, but we will lose all existing business with this particular client. This contract would have netted me 2 weeks in AZ in March annually, on the company dime, in Tempe and Chandler. He was not reprimanded, nor will anything bad happen to the "Top salesman" in the company. I hate Bill.
His name is Calvin, and he is rapidly becoming the very bane of my existence. Because the others I work with are much like me and I get along with them, Calvin is the epitome uptight Asian, an utterly socially retarded turbo-nerd. Aside from being incredibly smug and obnoxious, he talks with an ultra-fake "strip bar D.J." voice that's as empty as his soul. He is a card-carrying member of the "Had A Sheltered Childhood Club" and at 25 years old I have no doubt that he has never had sex (pillowcases don't count). If anyone is telling a funny drinking story, ol' Calvin has to chime in with 20 or so district attourney-style questions, usually asking exactly what has just been said. I am a tolerant person, and twice I have had to ask him to back away from me because this lazy scumbag burrows under your skin like a tick. This guy makes me want to blow my brains out, but not before taking him with me to cure the world. I wouldn't trust him to sit the right way on a toilet seat.
On any given day , any one of them can be Toby , some are Toby more days than others , fucking Toby's.
My Toby is a guy that just started working at our company. He sits next to me. He acts exactly like Andy from the Office. He's a sycophant of the worst kind and cracks jokes that would make a Sunday school teacher roll her eyes in embarrassment. He constantly tries to finish your sentence for you. And when you keep on talking, he talks louder. He's like a megaphone of annoyance. He's got a pretentious beard that you might see on a smug professor. He grows it because he thinks it will hide the fact that his chin is located somewhere near his Adam's apple. He has the cadence and speech pattern of someone who has spent way too much time watching Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. That stupid Southern California surfer drawl makes me want to jam a pen in my ear. I've never met a man who's so naturally repelled me before. Quite honestly, I hope I never do again.
My office had a lady Toby, thank god for the recession because she was the first to go. First of all, she was either on stress leave, medical leave or was home with a migrane. On the days she was actually in the office you cringed if you heard her footsteps (which were followed closely by a discernable sighing) you prayed she didn't stop by, if she did you were in for half an hour of uncomfortable conversation. Whether it be about her health, the health of her dying family members or how stressed out she was you were in for a the most cringe-worthy conversation ever. She is so awkward and uncomfortable I can't even explain it. When I first started in the office she made me give her a hug, stare into her eyes and "believe in the power of a hug." WHAT THE FUCK! I didn't know how to handle it so I humored her while everybody around us laughed their asses off. She looked into my eyes and raped my soul. Years later I'm still scarred, I'm so glad that bitch is gone...
We used to have a guy in my platoon named Jordy. I'm pretty sure his mother downed a fifth of Grey Goose when she was pregnant with him. He was tall, lanky, and had a really small head like the character at the end of Beetle Juice. When I first got to my platoon he was senior to all of us, because we were boots, and we didn't know him. Soon enough though that we found out, even though he was a veteran of Iraq, that Jordy was a complete fucking idiot. His wife was over 300lb. and when she would hug his skinny ass in the parking lot after work she would engulf him. Jordy and his wife had to go to couples counseling for spouse abuse, but it was the other way around. She would beat him. She once beat his ass in the parking lot in front of all of us. On my first deployment in Kuwait he claimed that rocks were living things. That same deployment at a liberty port in Australia he decided it would be ok to go out in public wearing strangler jeans, a white long sleeve Under Armor shirt, with a plain white polo overtop of it. That night, waiting for the last bus back to the ship, he brought a fat snaggle-tooth bitch with him so he could make-out with her in front of us. He only picked up Corporal because they forgot to Non-Rec him one month. In my second deployment to Afghanistan he called in over the radio to the Sergeant of the Guard that he saw a bunch of pigeons fly away when he walked up, and that those pigeons could be spotting for the Taliban. This got around quick, and we constantly fucked with him about the "Taliban Pigeons".
I am a legal secretary. You can imagine all the "Tobys" I have in my office. However, I'll focus on one whose name is Jane. Jane is your quintessential "one-upper". Any story you tell about being sick or being injured, Jane herself has had something/done something worse, or one of her kid's has. In every sob story she tells, she has to work in that her son almost died while she was giving birth to him...18 years ago. She twisted her ankle hand delivering invitations around her neighborhood last Summer, and she apparently still ices her ankle and occasionally walks with a limp. She is constantly discussing her hemorrhoids with the other secretaries. Jane is a miserable person who finds a down side to everything. "Good morning Jane! Great spring weather we're having, don't you think?" "Oh uggh oh man ughh...my allergies...I can barely breathe...ugghhh." She also sounds like a man when she talks and uses "ain't", "freakin" and "fucking" in daily conversations with attorneys. Luckily, Jane thinks I'm too young to understand all her problems, so she never talks to me, but at lunch, at least one person always has a "Jane story".