“Dirkdirkdirkdirkdirk!”

As usual, I heard him before I saw him. OCD Joe. And he had his mad on.

“I need to talk to you about Janet.”

I leaned back, lacing my fingers behind my head. “Janet’s not in our division any more, Joe…”

“I know that, but I was at lunch earlier and she was going out of her way to get to me and the more I think about it, it’s really got me pissed off, you know?”

The last time someone really pissed Joe off, they had sat at the table next to his in the breakroom.

“What did she do?”

“She came in and washed her hands, and then she dried them. Very precisely.”

I tilted my head, arching an eyebrow. “Not following, Joe…”

“She dried each finger individually — like this.” Joe began miming Janet’s thorough drying of her pinkie finger, followed by her ring finger, naughty finger, index finger, and thumb. “Then she did the other hand the same way. It took her almost 2 minutes to finish.”

Completely baffled, I tried a different approach. “Why do you think she did that, Joe?”

“Because she’s trying to get to me. She’s never dried her hands like that before!” He punctuated his point with a finger jab my way. “She did it because the garbage can was by my table. She was trying to get on my turf.”

Turf. Sweet Jesus, I expected the Jets and the Sharks to enter in a flurry of finger snaps and jazz hands any second.

“Plus — PLUS! — she’s been staring at me at lunch. Not saying anything…just staring.”

Obviously, OCD Joe was having a spectacularly bad day. I’ve been down this road and pretty much nothing helps. “Maybe you could sit on the other side of your table, with your back to her, Joe…”

OCD Joe pondered this for a few moments. “I could…no! — because then I would be giving in to her! Besides, I don’t want anybody looking at my back, you know? I think what this boils down to is she’s creating a hostile work environment, you know? And I don’t want to have to file papers, but I think I could get her fired if I wanted to press this issue. Maybe you should tell her that, Dirk. Maybe let her know that she’s putting herself in the unemployment line by doing this stuff, you know?”

Oh great. There’s nothing I love more than talking to one crazy to calm down another.

“I’ll see what I can do, Joe. In the meantime, I want you to take the high road — ignore her, don’t say anything, don’t let her see that she is getting to you, nothing. Once she sees that, she’ll give up.”

“You’re saying stay cool?” OCD Joe nodded his head, a sly grin crossing his face for a moment before being replaced with a furrowed brow and frown. “But — BUT! — what if she like escalates things? I think she could totally lose her job if I go to Randy…”

Since Randy is forever one step away from giving OCD Joe the heave-ho, I realized I had no choice but to talk to Janet. “Joe, tell you what: I’m going to talk to Janet and get her to stop the ‘weird’ shit, but only if you promise to leave her alone in return and let this drop. Deal?”

OCD Joe considered this for a moment. “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah…I can do that. Hostile work environment can be subjective I’ve heard… So you’re saying I should just keep a low profile and keep notes about what she’s been doing until I have enough to take her down…”

Holy mother of God. “Sure, Joe. Keep notes, but do not do anything to aggravate Janet. Am I clear?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” I returned to the eval I was working on when I heard OCD Joe clear his throat. Taking a deep breath, I turned around. “Something else, Joe?”

“You said you’d talk to her, Dirk.”

Squeezing my eyes tightly shut and mentally counting to ten, I nodded. “You’re right — I did. Let me go take care of that right now…”

It’s days like this that make opting to take the pay cut almost worth it.