We all have one in our office. That person who is never in their cube, doesn’t respond to IM’s or takes a week to ten days to reply to emails. You usually catch sight of them out of the corner of your eye as they rush down the hall laptop in hand heading toward an “urgent meeting.” Or you lock eyes with them through closing elevators doors. If you do FINALLY get a face to face with them, they don’t have time to talk because they need to “put out a fire” somewhere. As they dash away from you clutching their trusty laptop piled on top of some suspicious looking folders, they ask you to send them an email, IM or text to discuss the issue. This my friends are what’s known as the “office ghost.”
When I was working technical support for a well-known camera company (which shall remain nameless) we had two variations of the “office ghost.” In most cases we had your standard apparition but then we had one which I would classify as an “office poltergeist.” This was an “office ghost’ whom we rarely saw but when they did make their presence known by creating as much havoc (and more work for us) as possible before disappearing again.
On the technical line we were often called to work a B-shift from 11am to 7pm to cover the west coast. Usually, it would be two or three of us there to cover the phones and it was pretty manageable most of the time. But one evening the flood gates opened and it seemed as if everyone west of the Mississippi was calling with some issue or another. This particular shift the “office poltergeist” was working with us. They apparently were there to catch on some paperwork and to lend a hand if we absolutely needed them. Well, WE DID! So, we reluctantly asked them to please hop on and take some calls to help reduce the forty-five people waiting in the queue. Of course, they were happy to assist (they always are) as soon as they were done with some paperwork. We swear their “paperwork” was basically the sound of them shuffling paper on their desk while surfing the web. Eventually they got on the phones and their idea of “helping out” was to tell the client we were very busy and asking them to call back later. In some cases, this is after the person had been on hold for more than twenty minutes. Needless to say, we asked them to log off the phones. Soon after logging off their line the “office poltergeist” vanished.
Regardless what variety “office ghost” you have roaming your halls they all have something in common. The only people who seem to see them with any consistency is management. They seem to appear at every meeting, employee event, team builder what have you and always within a couple of feet of whatever manager needs to see them. As always, they make the presences known management by dropping some sort of gagging bit of manure on why they LOVE working there or they’ll toss out a “Go team!” then scarf down whatever free food is provided and PUFF they’re gone. The management never asks where they’ve gone. They just assume they’ve gone off to attend to some “emergency” which they themselves don’t want to deal with. But those of us who deal with specter on a daily basis no better.
The only way to truly exercise the “office ghost” is to hope they move to a different department or better yet they go haunt another company. Until that time comes, we learn to coexist with them wishing that one day when they disappear in a puff of annoying smoke when ask to do some work, they stay gone.
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