"Good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, GOOD! MORNING!" chimes Goong as he arrives, as he does every morning.
I say nothing, this demented fool really annoys me.
Jason, who sits next to me, doesn’t reply either. But, then again, Jason never says much. Just how I like them, a man of few words, is our Jase.
"What's good about it?" asks old Norm, unexpectedly. I’m taken back a bit with Norm’s seeming cheek. He just happens to be passing through on his mail round. Good for him, I think. (Perhaps, it not only me who is in the I Hate Goong Club?)
"Oh, everything," replies Goong like a demented Play School presenter. “You name it…it’s GREAT!”
"That's what you say," says Norm in his matter of a fact 70-years-on-this-planet way about him. I may have once thought we were running a sheltered workshop having some old bloke around the place, maybe when I first started, but old Norm brings a world weary honesty to the smart corporate types. And he’s as sharp as a tack.
“Life is grreat,” chimes Goong. (Emphasising the great, so it could easily be followed by a mate, woof, or is that showing my predilection for advertising jingles? Ha ha. It makes no never mind. You get my point.)
Norm sneers as he powers through the office.
When Goong and Mia, the fat, short Greek chick who runs around the office rather than walks, get talking, they talk so much unbelievable crap I want to cut my ear drums out of the sides of my head with razor blades.
Goong on the phone not long after he gets in.
"Hello, hello, hello and hello again."
"Oh fan…tastic, except for… one thing. I think you know what it is. You know, you know, you know, you know, YOU KNOW." (If he’d yodelled I wouldn’t have been surprised)
"Someone hasn't done the right thing. It's not you, of course, it’s not you, of course not, it wouldn’t be you. No. Not you. But have you managed to find them, track them down the culprit and tortured them sufficiently." A peel of laughter. “I approve of torture… in… this… case.” More loud laughter. (Two girlfriends on the phone sharing gossip)
"Oh goody. Tell me the details, tell me the details, tell me the details. Tell me, tell me, tell me, TELL ME!"
“I still give you permission to torture them. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes, I do. YES, I DO! Do, do, do.”
There are very few people I’d like to suddenly see grasp their head with both hands and fall to the floor in the midst of a fatal cerebral haemorrhage, but I tell you, if Goong ever does, the snowflakes in my office may well be disgusted with my enthusiastic clapping.
Fortunately, there are periods of time when this demented parrot is quiet, I do have to add, otherwise I just couldn’t work there. I kid you not. I’d be out of there.
9.15am. Quite a good shit. Like clockwork mid-morning, and then some sometimes. I am sure it is healthy.
TMI? You know what, I don’t care about the people who may have said yes, just then. If you can’t deal with real life, if you need the stinky bits deleted, then you are just not real, are probably a Christian who goes in for fantasy and I feel sorry for you.
It is quiet. A place of peace and solitude. I keep writing my journal on my phone, as I sit on the can, no use wasting time. Usually, there is a stillness that is quite bracing and I get a lot written that I wouldn’t otherwise.
But, then somebody comes in and takes up residence in the far cubicle. Then they are dropping shit depth chargers noisily into the water, like a faecal carpet bombing, disturbing my peace. I am ready to go, I think, but then I can hear they are finishing up too, going as quickly as they came, and I didn’t want to put a face, er arse, to my companion’s noisy, turd campaign, as there are few guys within the office with who I’d like to make that association. Declan, maybe, Eamon, he’s adorable, possibly, but there are a few that would scar me if I did. Dear god it might be Goong and nothing on this earth wants me to associate his sad, old, saggy arse with anything, quite frankly.
And then his cubicle door went click and he was going, so I could just wait a few moments and avoid the whole eye contact thing. You know, you always feel like apologising for the stink, just in case, “I don’t know what the fuck went on in there?” Nervous laugh. But you don’t and it is just awkward. Looking down, moving sideways around one another.
He was out the first door, but he seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time at the sinks, so I decided not to be a baby and head out there anyway. I tip toed to the door and peaked through the portal window, and there was Goong leaning over the basin emptying his nostril under the running tap water. Euw! I tip toed back to my cubicle and locked the door and waited a bit longer.
It had to be, Goong, the prissy over-talker, who has to fill every silence with nonsensical jibber jabber. He is like a slightly effeminate Martian, skinny and lanky, with a feminine frame. 50 kilos at the most. His arms and legs are just slightly too long, and he has an enormous head, way out of proportion to the rest of him. That would be 20 kilos of him. Despite being a 60 year old Asian man, he has those bulbous feline Martian eyes, which I’m sure morph into something more pleasing to a human eye whenever anyone looks at him directly, but as soon as we all look away, they revert back to those bulbous alien eyes. His lips are repulsive too, kind of stretched, like some old Hollywood diva might end up after ill-advised surgery, well, there is certainly an essence of that.
The incessant talk is one thing, but the never ending positivity sprayed across the office continually like a super soaker water cannon is really not normal. It is an illness, tears of the clown. Really, no one, no one genuine, is the walking embodiment of the American Association of Positive Affirmations, the apple pie, hospitality, thousand island and ranch, etiquette service. “You have a nice day now, ya hear.” It is just creepy. I’m sure, if need be, he could say “Have a nice day,” in Klingon.
I bumped into him in the office again around by the printers.
"Hello, hello, hello and hello again," he sings at me.
I treat him with such derision, he is just too exasperating for words, so I feel I have to at least try be nice to him if ever we find ourselves in a “one on one” situation. Through gritted teeth I asked. "Hi, how are you?" Trying to sound light and breeze and for it not to come out as a snarl.
"Oh faaaann… tas…tic,” I can’t tell you the emphasis he puts on fantastic, it is gut wrenching. “It is such a nice Monday. A lovely Monday."
I’m never sure if he is trying to be deliberately provocative with the Monday comment, or if the sugar and spice act is real.
I try to be nice to him, but his responses to me so often just leave me open-mouthed and rendered mute.
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