Nobody Listens to Turtle

Lately at the office I've been finding myself working on projects with people that I don't normally work with. New product release type stuff that's got me hobnobbing with the R&D crowd a lot more than I ever really have before. It's sort of odd, because I've worked at this place for almost three years now and I've come to realize that there's a whole mess of people here that I've never even seen.

On the one hand, this means I've got to go through a whole new round of figuring out where people's offices are, building alliances, discovering who the "difficult" signatures are, and pretending to not notice a whole new group of people staring at my lip ring.

But on the other, it means I'm gonna have a chance to make up a whole new list of nicknames.

I don't know if other people do this as much as I do, but I tend to give pet names to the people I have to deal with on a regular basis. These aren't the kinds of nicknames you share with the people you give them to -- because they're usually based off inside jokes, and many of them aren't very flattering.

But that doesn't mean that they aren't terms of endearment.

For example, I started calling my former downstairs neighbor "Slammy" years ago because of his continual habit of slamming every door between his car and his apartment whenever he left or came back. He'd drive up and SLAM the door on the car, check his mail and SLAM it closed, open his door and then SLAM it shut. You'd come home from work and walk by his door only to be caught off guard by a sudden barrage of racial slurs and obscenities he would randomly shout at his Television loud enough to be heard through the door.

Truth be told, Slammy kinda scared the hell out of me for a while there.

Of course we eventually did meet and shake hands, and he turned out to be a pretty nice guy. He still slammed doors and hated the anchorman, but he was also quick with a wave hello and would even hold the front door open if he saw you carrying lots of things up the steps.

But I never once considered changing the name.

I mean, how could I? It's Slammy -- you know, the scary dude who lived across the hall from the Fighting Stoners, downstairs from Hat Guy and myself.

Now that I think about it, they probably had a name for me that I probably don't want to know about either.

So with all that in mind, here's a quick list in no particular order of the nicknames I've given several my coworkers that they don’t really know about.

• Crazy Ivan
• Bolo Yeung
• Hopalong
• Shreve
• Chemistry Hottie
• Slingboob
• Darth Roy
• Skeletor
• Not Alix
• Jesus Fish
• Ashanti
• The E-Harmonizer

So now that you've seen mine, the question is -- who are yours? Because I know I'm not the only one who does this. It's not like they're gonna see, and I give you my word that I won't tell, so spill it. Present jobs or past, loved ones or enemies -- it doesn't matter. I want to hear them all.

Well, except the ones you have for me.

..Or do I?.

[Listening to:  The Sex Pistols – "God Save the Queen" ]