The 8 People That Make Up Every Office in America

No matter what industry you work in or how high up you are on the corporate ladder, your colleagues most likely fall into one of the following 8 types of people. These classifications have been established using scientific methods in offices, elevators, and around water coolers across America. If you don’t work hand in hand with any people that comprise the below categories, please pass along my resume to your Human Resources department.

Mr. Glory Days

We are all familiar with that dude in our office who claims he was an All-State athlete but has the body of Patton Oswalt and is too old to understand that we can verify all his tall tales of gridiron glory with a simple Google search. Oh really, Bill, you were team captain? It says here on this nifty little device called the Internets that you were a senior on JV. When you say you’ve scored 30 points in a game, you were talking about NBA Jam, right? Because unless you took your wife’s last name, which actually wouldn’t be surprising, your name is nowhere to be found on the roster.

But actually calling the poor bastard out on his bluff would just be cruel because you both know that these fabricated stories of athletic achievement are all he’s got. And I can see where he’s coming from because we all make our own memories. I’ve convinced myself that I was a vertical threat of a wide receiver in high school and momentarily forget that I wore jersey number 76 and coach thought my name was Miles for the first 8 games of the season. Probably because my game most resembled Miles Austin’s. Just coach being coach.

The Cat Lady

Her name is almost certainly Linda or Karen. She has no human children but refers to her cats as her “babies” and she reeks of kitty litter. Her relationship with her cats borders on sexual, which is reinforced by the fact that she’s never had a husband or a prom date or a human-assisted orgasm. She talks about her cats constantly and randomly busts out into this playful, high pitched voice that normal people do when trying to make a newborn giggle. It’s fucking frightening. Even her lunch smells like cat food. What makes it more annoying is that she sucks at her job because she has no idea how to communicate with anything that isn’t a furry sack of shit that just hides under a radiator all day.

But at the end of the day, Linda is harmless and that picture she emailed to the entire department of her kittens dressed up as Santa’s elves was fucking adorable.

Mr. College

Do you even party, bro? If you need to ask that question after this dude calls you a pussy for not blacking out on a Tuesday night, you obviously don’t know Mr. College. This guy went to a party school and he needs you to know it. Seventy-five percent of his stories start out “Me and my frats buddies…” and he constantly shows you pictures of girls he hooked up with 3 years ago. They are all wearing too much makeup and would be hot if they didn’t have one deal breaker like a huge nose or a snaggle tooth. He played lacrosse in college because he wasn’t good enough to play baseball and keeps a Nalgene bottle covered in Red Bull stickers on his desk at all times. He does the bare minimum work-wise, which you both have in common, and you appreciate him because he hasn’t let the corporate world ruin his zest for life. Unlike Mr. Shop Talk.

Mr. Shop Talk

Most likely a chubby, balding guy whose level of interest in the company far exceeds his level of pay. You’d think he’d be the CEO by now but no one will promote him because he’s too fucking obnoxious. A printer jam fucks up this guy’s world. Every time he corners me at the bar after work I put in for overtime pay because I feel like I’m in a Monday morning meeting. And when I claw myself away from him, he goes home and complains to his wife about things at the office that I forgot about right after they occurred. This has caused her to grow distant and she’s most likely banging a dude in her yoga class. I’ve found the best way to deal with this type of co-worker is to say something really inappropriate in the middle of his rambling. “I have children tied up in my basement” usually shocks this dude momentarily and allows for a seamless exit before he picks up right where he left off to anyone or anything in the vicinity. Relentless.

The Weatherman

This fuckin’ guy. Probably the last person you want to get stuck in an elevator with. The dude has absolutely nothing to talk about other than this morning’s dew point. He’s like a nerdy talking action figure that when you push the button only three phrases come out. But instead of saying cool shit like “I’m Buzz Lightyear, To Infinity and Beyond!” he says “I’m Frank, and it’s really coming down out there.” I once got stuck talking to him in the office kitchen after the biggest snowstorm of the year and the snow had melted by the time he let me off the hook. I would suggest that this dude become a weatherman but no one in their right mind would put this square in front of a camera. Ratings would plummet, just like next week’s temperatures. AMIRIGHT, Frank? You insufferable piece of shit.

The Closet Rager

We all know that Average Joe guy who comes into the office and quietly gets all of his work done. A solid employee who went to a state college but maintained a 3.3 GPA and seems to have his shit together. You think he’s kind of a buttoned-up square until you run into him at a bar and he’s blacked out asking you to bump lines of coke off the bathroom urinal. Then after a couple sniffs of the nose candy he starts aggressively sounding off on everyone in the office. He tells you his fantasies about strangling Linda’s cats and telling the Weatherman to stick a thermometer up his ass. Then the next morning when you go to the Closet Rager’s desk to recap the wildest night you’ve had since you’ve been in a relationship, he treats you like you never saw him throw up into his beer glass. Like bro, I just fell asleep on the toilet how the fuck are you fresh faced right now? You mysterious son of a bitch.

The Overdresser

Can someone tell this dude that his interview is over? He’s most likely some tight-assed recent college grad thinking he’s making a name for himself by looking like a Men’s Warehouse mannequin, but everyone else who’s not a virgin to the working world and has given up on fantasies like Hope and Happiness is like ‘dude, do less’. I have like three collared shirts that don’t have rips in the elbows and am wearing basketball shorts under my wrinkled khakis because I’m completely out of clean underwear, quit being a fucking hero. I’ve had the exhausting experience of training an Overdresser. The poor guy had hopes of a Wall Street-type atmosphere until I started scrolling through Reddit for taking hours and taking unannounced 45 minute shits. Now the guy doesn’t bother shaving or tucking in his shirt. They all fall into line sooner or later.

The Snitch

We all have one Benedict Arnold in the office. The person who sees everyone else as a threat to his/her career advancement and has no qualms about stepping on your head to get a better suck at the power teat. The same girl in college that honored the “don’t look in the textbook” policy during take home tests then ratted out the class when she didn’t get as high a grade as she expected. She’s only your friend when she fucked up at work and wants to build a coalition to support her self-serving ass. Sorry sweetheart, but you’re on your own on this one. I’m going to play Switzerland and sit back and watch your ass get shelled. This is in retaliation for when I called in sick to see Interstellar in IMAX 3D and you leaked it to upper management because you had to send out one client email on my behalf. Karma’s a Snitch, Judas.

Matt Keohan Avatar
Matt’s love of writing was born during a sixth grade assembly when it was announced that his essay titled “Why Drugs Are Bad” had taken first prize in D.A.R.E.’s grade-wide contest. The anti-drug people gave him a $50 savings bond for his brave contribution to crime-fighting, and upon the bond’s maturity 10 years later, he used it to buy his very first bag of marijuana.