The Commander and Farty McFarterson - A Love That Lasts

A certain coworker of mine that we will call The Commander has a special kind of relationship with a certain coworker that you know as Farty McFarterson.  This relationship can best be described like this:  The Commander ABHORS Farty, like in the worst way possible.

Exhibit 1 - Recently, we underwent a departmental move.  Teams were reorganized spatially in order to maximize efficiency, teamwork and communication.  Bossman, stupidly, assigned Commander and Farty cubicles in which their faces would be gazing upon each other's all day long.  This initiated an hysterical fit from The Commander.  Long story short, her seat was moved away from Farty.  Farty, none the wiser.

Exhibit 2 - Two years ago Farty made the mistake of boasting about an exceptionally successful day on his part.  Not realizing that the Commander had an exceptionally awful day, he joked and laughed and teased and taunted to the point that we all knew the invisible line separating harmless teasing from overwhelming harrassment had long been crossed sending The Commander into full blown attack mode. 

"One more F-CKING WORD and I swear to God I will throw my shoe at your head!"

Us on-lookers knew the severity of those words.. and the honesty of them.  We backed away slowly towards the cubicle partitions which we then hid behind until safety was attainable. 

But, Farty, in his ignorant glory, kept laughing and antagonizing.

Bossman was behind The Commander signalling Farty to shut up, but he misinterpreted the hand gestures for "Encore!" or "Bravo!" because he just kept going and cackling to himself.

Within moments The Commander had been pulled into a conference room with the Bossman.  Several minutes later she emerged.

"Farty, I'm sorry for saying I was going to throw my shoe at your head, but you should have shut up."

We all knew that was the most sincere apology The Commander could offer and were quite impressed.  We emerged from our safe havens and mindlessly went back to work.

I, myself, have a special relationship with Farty.  He has an ungodly attachment to Bossman.  (i.e. Dwight Schrute).  Since I am Bossman's assistant, Farty believes I know EVERYTHING that goes through Bossman's sick, twisted and mostly empty cranium.  On a daily basis Farty asks me 3-4 times if I've heard if he's getting fired.  We now have what I call the "stop sign".  If I put my hand up in his face with no words spoken, it means I don't want to hear it, keep moving.  It's amazing how well it works.  He's like a really well trained Jack Russell Terrier.  I'm sure it would be even more successful if I tossed a treat his way with every obedient gesture.