Bad News

Ok, so yesterday I had a meeting. It was at 11 o'clock. I'm typically late for meetings (because they suck), but I'm also fairly inconsistant (because I don't want "the Man" to get a bead on me), so I arrived early to this meeting.

As I stood outside the meeting room all of the other meeting attendants showed up. I had never noticed it before, but as I looked at my group I realized there were some fairly stereotypical architypes in the group. There was the Excentric Retiree, back on contract. There was the distinguished, no nonsense black female assistant to the assistant commissioner. There was the oriental IT guy who speaks with a heavy accent. There was the slightly overweight, laid-back white male coffee drinker. There was the youngish, over worked-but driven subject matter expert. And there was me.

So I stood there looking around the group before our meeting and I thought to myself: these probably aren't architypes at all. I've just been working with these guys for so long that it's hard for me to imagine the job without them.

Then the other meeting ended and out came its attendees. First came an excentric retiree, back on contract. Then came a distinguished, no nonsense, black female assistant to the assistant commissioner. Then the oriental IT guy. He actually waved to our IT guy. Then came a slightly overweight white guy with a cup of coffee in his hand. Then a youngish lady, who looked incredibly harried and determined.

I couldn't believe it! Every person in our group had a mirror in the other group. They weren't identical, but their character was represented. Then one of the members of my meeting started to go into the meeting room, but he stopped and backed up to make room for the last person from the last meeting to exit. "It must be my mirror," I thought. It had to be. The universe was about to reveal my true character to me. I held my breath. Then out came...

a troll.

Now I don't believe in trolls, but if ever a troll existed this was him. He stood about 5'7". He was easily 50 pounds over weight. He was slightly hunched over and copious amounts of hair were sprouting from the back of his shirt collar. His nose was huge and hooked and his forehead was shaped like a brick. The top of his head was mostly bald, but he still wore his hair longish and unkempt. His walk was more of a bow-legged waddle, and when he exited the room he belched and dropped all of his papers, which were already in complete disarray. "Awe, f***," he said, rather less than eloquently. Then as he bent over to pick up the papers he farted audibly. He immediately stood up and look almost embarrassed. Then he pointed to the 'no nonsense black female assistant to the assistant commissioner' and said, "It was her!" And burst into a gross laughter that was a cross between Har Har Har and Raw Raw Raw. I think he bumped everyone from our meeting on his way by, except me, saying "Excuse me," only to me, and the smell of him lingered in the meeting room until long after our meeting had dispersed.

Suffice it to say that the meeting was a total wash for me. I kept wondering if everyone else had noticed the similarites between all of the character architypes, and whether they had associated troll-man with me, as I had done. And what if there really was a connection? What if the universe was trying to tell me something? Surely not, right?

Surely not.