My Collared Colleague

So, I work with this guy named Murphy. What a guy. What can I say? He has all of the characteristics of a coworker who should drive you crazy, but somehow he doesn’t. First off, his mom, Maria, got him the job here; no interview to stress over, no resume required, no background check. He was a shoe-in. He just bounced in here one day and acted as if he had been working here for years. I’d never seen such a show before. On his very first day, while making his rounds to introduce himself, he hugged everyone. Who does that?

He even hugged the HR lady. Now that takes tennis balls. He hugged as many people as he could while unapologetically making his path to his private office. And that’s another thing. Murphy has an office.

I’ve been working here for three years and even I don’t have an office. Most of us don’t and somehow none of us are bitter about it. The truth is, we know how important he is and maybe him hugging us is his way of apologizing for it. It always makes us feel better anyway. He has a special way of making us feel just as important as he is.

Another thing about Murphy is that he’s an absolute mama’s boy. That first morning, after he hugged me, I said hello and told him my name, but when I asked him what his name was he just looked at me smiling with his teeth. He actually let his mom answer for him. “Murphy,” she said. Biggest mama’s boy ever, I thought. It’s one thing that she got him the job here, but another thing for him to sulk every time she leaves his office.

Yes, this is an adult I’m talking about. He drops everything he is working on and sits with a melancholy expression on his face until one of two things happen; either she comes back or he falls asleep. Quite honesty, I don’t think Murphy gets much work done around here. I catch him sleeping at least three times a day.

He keeps his door closed slightly and I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure he made a little bed in the corner of his office.

One day I asked his mom about it she told me that on some nights, while home, he gets restless and insists on taking midnight walks. A couple of times he ran off and she had to chase him and remind him that they had work in the morning. I think it all stems from her spoiling him. She pets him on the head when she sees him...

...gives him snacks...

...and lets him ride in the back seat of the car as if she’s a chauffeur and he’s a celebrity. Wait, what am I talking about? He is a celebrity. Everyone likes Murphy. He’s a social butterfly in a soft, brown suit. We all wear jeans and t-shirts to work and he wears a suit. He wears a necklace with his name engraved on it too; only celebrities wear those.

He even has his phone number engraved on the back of it as a solution to the amount of women who hound him. They can’t walk by his office without saying "hi" to him. Guys too. He’s magnetic. And in the time that I’ve known him, I have never once heard a bad word spoken about him. Well, except for the running joke that we have about him that his nose is so brown, it's black. But, aside from that, I’ve never heard so much admiration aimed at someone. He’s cute. He’s smart. He’s funny. He’s charming. He brightens everyone’s day. He buries his nose in his work. He never complains. He has a sweet, blue raincoat with yellow duckies on it.

It should be enough to make the rest of us feel incompetent, but the fact is that these adulations are true and not just exaggerations designed to inflate Murphy’s ego. And there it is, another compliment. Murphy has no ego. Surely everyone has some sort of an ego, right? No. Not Murphy. No ego. Murphy is egoless and his delightful personality draws people to him the moment he walks through the door. I’ve never seen someone so happy to be at work. Sometimes he’s so happy he does a little shuffle dance with his feet and wiggles his butt. I mean, the guy has an ear-to-ear smile on Monday mornings without drinking a drop of coffee. That’s not normal. But even so, even with all of these coworker characteristics that should drive me up a wall, I can’t help but to like the guy. He makes me feel as if life can be good and that 8 hours at work can be a walk in the park.