6 Different Types Of People You Come Across At Work From The Confinement Of Your Cubicle

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Office workplaces are actually interesting places. People usually associate their workplace as a forbidding fortress, bursting at the seams with stress, long winded conference calls on speakerphones and a place that makes Count Dracula’s castle seem like a dream destination. Actually though, workplaces, apart from being just the places to do your work in, are great observation posts to just view life and the unique personalities that co-exist in a mini-pressure cooker environment.

1. Over-Industrious Workhorse

He is to be found very early at work. The lights go on with his arrival and he leaves well after lights-off. By the time you roll-in, he has been glued to his workstation for three hours or so already, sweat beaded brow, loosened tie and all. Everyone comes to him with additional stuff and he is never able to say no. This type is the go-to guy or gal and their whole universe seems to be in the office. He is an extension of his desk, the perfect personification of nose-to-the-grindstone. Holidays usually bring a furrow of puzzlement to his brow.

2. Sighing Sam

Is on the opposite end of the spectrum. He is a sighing soprano — a master of the art. Forty hours of weekly practice has made him perfect at it. You can hear the soft tones emanating from him whenever he looks at his laptop screen, or talks to someone who stops by his desk, rising to a crescendo of fierce, high-pitched sighs when an email from the boss pops up in his inbox, heralding more work. From the quality of the office stationery to the quality and creakiness of the chair in his cubicle, complaints droop sighingly from his lips in a never-ending stream that would put a weeping willow to shame.

3. Reigning Queen Of The Grapevine

Is the walking-talking Wikipedia of office gossip. From Jim’s super secret quarterly bonus, to a blow-by-blow account of Terry’s spat with his boss, to the life history of the new girl in Accounting, she seems to know it all. Nothing is ever a surprise to her and she soaks up trivia about co-workers like a giant sponge. She is the life of office parties — the one who holds court about the latest and the spiciest of going-ons.

4. The Cubicle Chatterbox

Does justice to her name. She is always on the phone. Out of eight hours, five or so are spent on phone chatter. This could sometimes be a work related call but mostly this is catch up time for her to reacquaint herself with the developments that have taken place in the lives of her 500 friends and relatives, since she last spoke to them an hour ago.

5. The Supreme Commander

Is, as the name suggests, usually one of the Big-Fish. He strides with authority from his office to where the masses sit huddled in their cubicles, eyes glued to their screens. They spring up to attention at his approach, all antennas up. He cracks a joke and everyone laughs nervously or too loudly. He usually wears a futuristic looking wireless headset making him seem more like a commander of a Star Trek spaceship than that of a corporate dinghy. All the while mumbling confidentially into his earpiece, he beckons imperiously with one finger at the cubicle dwellers and all of them rush to his office doors, since no one is sure whom he actually wanted to see. His faithful henchman is the Infinite Schmoozer.

6. The Infinite Schmoozer

A very fluid personality. He can change color instantly, based on the wishes of the Supreme Commander. None of the ideas, opinions or viewpoints are his own but usually based upon what the Supreme Commander wants them to be. He is an integral part of the internal circle of the Supreme Commander. He is greatly feared among the cubicle dwellers who talk about him in hushed whispers among themselves, abruptly stopping when he appears in their midst. His career goal is to never fall from the Grace of the Supreme Commander.

Added to the above, the Workplace Worrier, Perpetual Pleaser and Too Nice Nancy continue playing their roles in this mix, making the workplace an interesting and sometimes amusing place to be.

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