28th March, 2002.

"I can't find this information in the file!"

"Have you looked anywhere else for it?"

"I guess I'll have to, won't I?"

Pause.

"Can you tell I'm not running on all cylinders today?"

Which is, quite frankly, terrifying. If she thinks she's not performing to her usual standards, what am I going to be afflicted with today?

---

Snap quiz time again:

Someone delegates a task to you, asking you to take care of it and let the client know the outcome. Do you:

1. Do as requested; or
2. Find the information, deliver it to me verbally and then ask me to pass it back to the client when I'm very obviously in the middle of trying to do something else?
3.  

---

The Cow-orker Conspiracy Factory gains further momentum today when a few badly-chosen words by an individual elsewhere in our division provoke a storm of criticism of the division as a whole. After weighing up all the issues in the debate, the Cow-orker reaches the conclusion that this was all foreseen by our division's director, who had carefully chosen this time to be absent rather than be around where he could have prevented the situation arising. The glaring hole in this theory, of course, is motive - why would our supreme leader abandon us to a brutal PR pasting when a simple message or two from him could have defused the entire situation? But like all good conspiracies, this one, too, is proof against reason.

"He must have known this would happen!" she repeats.

Yes, and JFK deliberately chose that day to go for a drive without his bullet-proof helmet...

---

While a furious debate rages on an e-mail discussion list, the Cow-orker observes: "It's an interesting distinction, isn't it? If you spam this list with something that doesn't belong there, people just get so upset, but this is something people are concerned about and no-one is complaining about the volume of posts! You have to laugh at the mindset..."

Naturally the Cow-orker's own thoughts on the issue (which has heavy implications for the autonomy of other divisions within our organisation) are as conciliatory as you might expect, as she burns with a crusader's zeal to go out amongst the godless heathens, lay waste to their internal IT infrastructure with fire and sword and inform they're all idiots and that THIS IS HOW IT'S GOING TO BE, BY GOD!

Luckily our manager had the foresight to pre-emptively muzzle her as soon as this even looked like becoming an issue. Surprisingly, she obeys.

---

27th March, 2002.

Cow-orker discovers that I was on a management training course this week, but rather than ask me directly goes to our manager to check up: Why is he doing this? Did he tell you why he was going?

The Cow-orker Conspiracy Factory begins gearing up for production, when the simple answer is that I opted for Management Training because Animal Handling wasn't on offer.

26th March, 2002.

Memo to Cow-orker:

When I assign a task to you with the words "I don't know where we get this from or what it is, can you look into it for me?", a normal person would realise the futility of asking me these very things;

I don't need to know (nor am I interested in knowing) about the number of people you saw almost get run down on the way into work. I'm similarly disinterested in hearing your loud cries of moral indignation on this matter;

Contrary to your expectations, no, I'm *not* surprised that there are people who can talk with such ferocity that they become oblivious to their surroundings;

Yes, the air-conditioning is stuffy in here today. No, I don't need you to tell give me a room-by-room analysis of how stuffy it is relative to everyone else's air-conditioning. No, really. I mean it. Don't make me put this letter opener somewhere I'm not going to be able to get it back from in a hurry if I need it;

When I sit in front of the computer tapping my fingers on the keyboard to make letters appear on the screen? That's called "being occupied". I know it might sound like a looped Morse code message saying "come and tell me about everything you've done in the last 24 hours", but it isn't. You'd be surprised how many people make that mistake;

I may look as though I'm uninterested in what you have to say and am letting my mind wander on to happier things, but that's only because I find it hard to maintain my expression of polite interest while slipping into unconsciousness. By no means should you take this as a hint to stop your relentless assault on my senses.

---

"This order is ambiguous. Which of these two contradictory quantities should I supply them with?"

"Have you rung them to clarify what they want?"

"Sigh! It's never easy, is it?"

---

"Does this product need an activation code?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because they didn't build it to need one."

"Why?" 

No idea. Would you like me to call that nice Mr Gates and ask him personally for you?

---

25th March, 2002.

"Look at the $2.00 hair band my mother bought me! Isn't it so cool?"
I am but one victim of many...

---

Of *course* I know that - it was in the email I just sent you that you've come around to my desk to tell me about! Don't try to tell me I sent you the wrong information when the "right" information you're reading back to me is what I sent you in the first place!

---

22nd March, 2002.

"Do you have any idea how hard it's going to be to ask someone for a copy of that?"

Not as hard as it's going to be to argue with someone about what it says when they have a copy in front of them and you don't. Stupid, stupid person.

21st March, 2002.

SECURITY ALERT

Attention security, we have a proprietary information breach in Sector 12. Suspect is in the process of describing to outside sources how they plan to single-handedly raise our organisation's public image to unprecedented heights.

Enviornmental catastrophe imminent if methane emissions are not curbed immediately. Use of lethal force has been approved. 

---

20th March, 2002.

I think the Cow-orker must suffer from Tourette's Syndrome, as I can't think of many other reasons as to why she thinks people need to know what parts of the building she used to use to express breast milk when she came back from maternity leave the last time.

I think I need to declare war on someone so I can claim rights under the Geneva Convention and escape this cruel and unusual punishment.

---

A secondary Cow-orker, which had seemed to be in remission, just spent ten minutes telling me what was wrong with this country.

Too many Asians taking everyone's jobs, too many mothers in the workforce who should be staying at home minding the kids or (if they have school-age kids) should only be working while the kids are at school, too many greedy wives in the workforce who don't need the money because their husbands already earn enough for their family...

It's been suggested that I try pointing the primary and secondary Cow-orkers at one another in the hope that they cancel each other out, but I'm too afraid we'd get some kind of self-sustaining Cow-orker reaction that would doom us all.

Cow-orker China Syndrome. Scary.

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