*** Thanks to topsurf who gave me the idea for the post***

I think I mentioned a couple of times in the past that my coworkers are scared of me. I know some of them downright hate me and probably refer to me as a fucking bitch to like-minded coworkers, not that I give a flying fuck. I’m just not a people person. So sue me.

Anyway, some might wonder how I know  my coworkers are scared of me. I dunno. I get the impression they are. It’s this feeling, ya know?

My group, Unix system admin group, consists of 4 people. Database admins, programmers, QA testers, web admins, or simply put, basically everybody in IT needs us to do something for them daily, cause  we ARE the superusers after all (if you don’t know Unix, the meaning of  Unix superuser is lost, but it really doesn’t matter). So people come to us for help. I use the term “us” loosely because they go to one of the three other members in the group. All the time. Except when forced to do otherwise.

The boss man of my boss man wants at least one of us to be at work 8am to 6pm,  so two of us work 8am to 4pm, I work 10am to 6pm, and the other 9am to 5pm. Do you see the dilemma for those who have to seek our help between 5pm and 6pm? I’m the only one around! Muwahahahaha!

So I sit at my desk going about my business, everybody else in my group gone for the day, and a phone starts to ring merrily, the one belonging to the nicest push-over. The phone goes silent after several rings. A few seconds later, I hear a second phone ring, the one belonging to the second nicest, and an evil grin starts to spread on my face. Another few seconds later, the phone which belongs to the last of the nice guys in my group starts to ring somewhat desperately. My evil grin now emits chuckling sound. After that last phone ceases to ring, there is  silence of uncertainty for  at least a few minutes. I’m intrigued. I’m curious as to what will happen next. I gleefully anticipate and wait. Oh the delight!

Half the times, after that awkward silence, my phone, hesitantly and reluctantly, rings, which kinda disappoints me because the other half the times when they do NOT call me amuse me to no end. You see, the other half of the times except those few occasions when they decide to wait until the next day, two or more people sheepishly present themselves in person by my desk instead of drawing lots to choose who is to call me. Once, six people came by and stood around waiting for somebody to start talking. You can imagine the amount of energy I put into the effort to suppress myself from bursting out with laughter. Oh yeah, it still cracks me up every time I think about it.

Yeah, subtle clues, I know. But that’s where I pick up this vague sense that they are afraid of me.  What do you think?