The Story of a Fierce Bad Agent
Monday, February 1, 2010
Super-sad, super-true: there are Bad Agents out there, the sort who sign you and never call you again, run off with money you shouldn't have paid them, or are just kind of dumb. Blech. But what's the worst that could happen to you, should you encounter such a person? Your career ruined? Blah, blah, blah, always about YOU, Author-friends! Well, quit your whining! You know what's worse than SIGNING with a Bad Agent? WORKING IN AN OFFICE WITH ONE. We weren't going to tell you about the Back-Office Horror, Cretinous van Poopypants,* we weren't we weren't, despite C van P's many nefarious doings, but C van P is currently working on the Film Deal for his Star Author, Sonorous McTwaddle,** and spending a lot of time shouting things into the phone like, "It's Spielberg or no one, you son of a bitch!", distracting us from our noble work of circulating your queries around the office and laughing at them finding gems amid the slush, AND WE CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE. So here, for your edification: The Dark Secrets of Cretinous van Poopypants, Bad Agent.
1. Cretinous van Poopypants EATS THE ASSISTANTS' SNACKS out of the Kitchen Area EVEN WHEN THE ASSISTANTS CAREFULLY LABEL THE SNACKS WITH THEIR NAMES IN BLACK SHARPIE.
2. Cretinous van Poopypants goes through assistants like assistants go through whiskies. Last month's assistant was a gentle soul called "Winston" who would look at the ground when C van P yelled at him (which was ten to fifteen times an hour) and whisper, "Sorry." One day "Winston" left for lunch and NEVER RETURNED. The current assistant sometimes cries in the bathroom. Even the other AGENTS are afraid of C van P.
3. Cretinous van Poopypants has walked past our desk every day of the last year (barring the weeks C van P spends "at the country home") and said hello to us a sum total of ZERO TIMES yes that's right dear ones NOT ONCE. NOT EVEN A SMILE.
4. Cretinous van Poopypants doesn't tip delivery people even when it's, like, negative fifteen degrees and the streets are covered in ice. One time WE tipped C van P's delivery person out of pity and let us tell you C van P makes A LOT MORE MONEY THAN WE DO IN CASE WE HAVE NOT MADE THAT CLEAR.
5. Sometimes we think about putting tacks on C van P's chair even though we would never ever do such a thing in real life but if we did that would be really satisfying, just saying.
*Not his real name.
**Not his real name.
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We're supposed to tip delivery people?
Ah, crap! I'm Poopypants, Jr.
May Tide Detergent help me mend my ways!
This kind of post scares me. I don't want to work with someone like that. You need to lace your posts with clues so Tom Hanks can decipher who you're talking about and tell us so we can avoid that person.
is tipping delivery people regional? because i've never done it here MN...
ohhh i hope it's regional...
Lunch delivery. Not, like, the UPS person.
Not, like, the FedEx delivery person. Rather, the beleaguered young man on a bicycle who rides hither and yon through the not-quite-bicycle-friendly streets of NYC, essentially risking his life to bring us our meals because it is raining outside and this weather isn't doing our hair any favors and we simply cannot be bothered to fetch lunch ourselves. We tip that guy.
Really?
Whoops.
I've been tipping the Fed Ex person for years.
Nevermind, Tide - I don't need your help! Phew!
Oh, except on Thursdays.
This. Is. Awesome.
Oh lovely. One more thing for me to worry myself silly about.
Kidding.
I think.
I'm pretty sure you can google "Bad things to do to sucky mean agents" to get ideas other than tacks.
Super glue anyone?
Dear Rejectionist,
I just found you. And now I love you.
Sincerely,
me
I’m sending you a package of delicious, laxative laced snacks.
Leave them in the Kitchen Area.
Hopefully Poopypants will soon be...pooping his pants.
People like that eventually screw themselves. It's karma.
But in the meantime, you could send him an anonymous gift basket filled with lovely soaps and shampoos(replaced with Nair).
Being bald humbles people.
There is [at least] one CvP in every office in the world.
A few drops of Visine in their coffee/drink and they really will have the poopypants.
Plus, if it's any consolation, I'm betting his delivered food has some special condiments just for the non-tipping CvP.
I'm going to interject that I'm glad my query is not one of the ones being circulated and laughed at since I have no idea where you work.
But I wish I did. You're hilarious, and I'd insist you get a raise if ever signed.
Fierce bad agent? Did you mean pure evil one?
People's Army of Hell No would
1) spit in the snacks
2) make up a story to tell the next assistant about how he got kicked out of his last job/childhood home/Hell and have them look at him funny/in pity forever after
3) trip him the next time he passes by and then just chirp “Oh, I didn’t notice you”
4) comment on the non-tipping saying “When you’re broke every cent counts, doesn’t it?”
5) and yeah, the tacks are kind of childish, having him accidentally sit on some favorite thing would be much more mature, don’t you think?
Since this is People's Army of Hell Yes, I’ll just show myself out now.
I think I interned for C van P's twin sister. She decided she no longer wanted to represent a book the DAY she was supposed to meet the author for the first time. Instead of having the guts to tell the author face to face, she dispatched an intern (not me) to return the manuscript to the disgruntled writer. Soooo not the way to do business.
How nice it would be if he got a crazy assistant. You know, one of those sneaky, smiling-evil sorts who is bent on his destruction.
And no one in the office would pay attention to his pleas for help, because they'd all be secretly hoping he was right about how much danger he was in.
Why yes, I am a writer.
So he spends a lot of time on the phone? Cell phone or land line, and can you get your hands on it? You know those evil little perfume samples in magazines (or just your least favorite stinky cologne). Rub some on the handset. Lots. When he's on the phone, he won't be able to avoid getting a snot-locker full of it and won't be able to even attempt to wipe it off until he's done screaming at the poor soul on the other end of the line.
I've also--I mean I'VE HEARD--those also work well if left open in the back of their desk drawer and allowed to permeate papers. Although the open bag of chopped onion left in a dark corner under a desk one night (becuase big guys leave early and little guys get to play) also worked. Not so good for the people sitting next to them, of course, except for the opportunity to say "Hey! C von P! Is that YOU making that stink?" Not that *I* would ever do these things.
Le R, I have to say, you are so stinkin' funny.
If I lived within 300 miles of your office I would sneak in and put those tacks on CvP's chair myself just so you could get the enjoyment without doing the childish deed.
I spit out my coffee reading this. I think some went up my nose, too.
Thanks a lot.
Have you considered writing a memoir?
I worked for a C von P agent right out of college. He yelled at me if I didn't prepare his take-out lunch correctly (the tomato had to be on the side of the burger, not right on it...or else!). I walked out, too, one day and never returned. Felt great!!
In the benighted places where we all drive to work because there is no good public transit it is quite a simple thing to put shrimp under someone's hubcaps. It smells horrible and they can never figure out where it is coming from.
Less limiting but only for the truly evil is the piss in the ice tray trick. The teeny ice trays that fit into the mini-fridge will usually slide under a standard office door. Fill with pee, freeze, and slide upside down into the hopefully carpeted interior of C von P's office.
1. Sorry you got pushed to your limit with CvP ... a little. Because if you hadn't, I wouldn't have been able to enjoy this awesome post.
2. I'm duly impressed that you held off this long. CvP sounds awful.
3. Your readers, as a whole, are gleefully vindictive. Thoroughly entertaining. Not that I'm supporting revenge, but theoretically, I'd go with Visine.
I'm gonna be nicer to my fellow commenters.
You folk are dangerous.
Word ver: Palin.
No kidding. I think the Great Assistant in the Sky might be telling us something...
Le R, I, too, am an invisible assistant.
One day Important Execusmith* was walking his/her children around the office, introducing them to all the people therein. Well, almost all. You guessed it, they were intro'd to the three people ahead of me, walked past me, and introduced to the next three people. The children looked behind at me, as if to say, "But wait, parent Execusmith, that was a person back there!"
They didn't realize that I'm not a person. I'm an assistant.
*Totally their his/her name. So there.
Another lovely revenge: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/b278/
Look on the bright side: An Office Nemesis provides relief from the tedium of reading queries from nutters.
I agree with putting a beloved object in his/her chair instead of tacks :). Maybe a snowglobe?
Eating the assistants' snacks and non-tipping to boot?? Unacceptable!
Hah! I had an internship with CvP's micromanaging sister. I should've run for it the first day when she watched me collect the trash from the whole office and then sweetly told me I was doing it wrong.
My dear Le R.,
Clearly, as you are a relative newcomer to the office, you are not aware of my rules of engagement. I will take a moment here to enlighten you:
1. Carefully labeling your snacks with your name in black sharpie has been deemed not sufficient to prove ownership. Therefore, I quite justifiably consume them, when I consider them worthy of consumption.
2. "Winston" proved to be a rather flighty sort, did he not?
3. When the day comes that I notice you, I hereby pledge to raise my eyebrows slightly when passing your desk.
4. It certainly goes without saying that I make more money than you. Heavens.
5. Your childish fantasies are duly noted.
Until such time that I become aware of your existence, I remain your superior,
Cretinous van Poopypants
I think this one is scary, too. I keep thinking, "Man, I hope I'm not submitting to that guy!"
This person obviously demands sabotage.
That is insane. What an ass. You're a dear to tip that delivery person.
Jesus H, Author-friends, you people are DIABOLICAL.
Dear Michael, your points are duly noted. Please keep in mind when the end times come we are in much better shape and will eat you first. Hee hee.
SHRIMPS in the HUBCAP!!!!!!
Oh I used to work with a guy like this. He was particularly vile to his own assistants. When one wore a yellow outfit, he asked her if she was trying to look like a urine-colored buttercup or something. That was her first day. She left at lunchtime and never came back.
Thank heaven my company has always had a sort of No A$$hole Rule, and he was fired as soon as the Powers That Be put together what was going on.
The interesting thing was that very few people at our company need assistants, and this guy really wasn't one of them. He really was just a sadist who liked having a doormat to stomp on.
The shrimp trick works great taped behind a desk drawer or inside a small radio. Start with a fresh shrimp so the ripening is gradual. When you see him in his office, alone, frantically (but trying to be nonchalant) opening and closing drawers, file cabinets, act like nothing is wrong. If he lowers himself to ask someone if they smell anything, deny, deny, deny. One victim I knew had the maintenance people cutting holes in his office wall to find the source. Mwahahahaha.
Love the post!
Ack! Working with C von P's is a pain! The sad part is they're all over the world. It's like an epidemic!
http://aclairedawn.blogspot.com
Peanut butter worked for me. She complained every time I ate a Reece's cup. A quick swab of peanut butter under her chair one time...
She also lined her meds across her desk and would tweeze long hairs from her chin during working hours.
After you put the shrimp in his hubcaps, you could let the air out of ALL of his tires.
Oh my goodness, Cretinous van Poopypants is the most awesome name ever! It needs to be put in the dictionary as the title of every office jerkbutt.
You do realize that you are going to be walking down the busy streets of NYC some day and happen to hear some stranger use this name to describe his/her boss. It's like Seinfeld when everyone started eating candy bars with a knife and fork!
How have I gone all these years and not heard about the fabulous ice cubes of piss on the carpet trick? Clearly, I have not lived enough.
Lucy Woodhull, does that lovely Annoy-a-tron device come with a "Senior Buzz" setting that only people older than me can hear? I'm in the middle of a grudge match with my upstairs neighbor, who is well over twice my age. Please let me know!
Le R., did you also read that "Alphabet of Breakups" book with the shrimp-in-the-curtain-rods revenge story? Loved it. If you're going for the car, you have to get into the blower unit somehow, so that he gets shrimp stench whenever he runs the heat or air.
P.S. I'm a lawyer. Three of my bosses never understood why all my copy and print jobs got top priority in the mail room, and why the clerks and secretaries were actually helpful to me. Gee, maybe it's because I'm NOT AN ASSHOLE and in fact TREAT THESE EMPLOYEES LIKE PEOPLE. Just sayin'.
Hopefully one fine spring day, C v. P will realize in a flash of St. Paul on the road to Damascus revelation that his jackass karma is the reason why all of his Starbucks taste faintly of pee/windex, his office and Poopmobile smell nasty, and he keeps getting weird 3AM calls from hermaphrodites who "saw his ad on craigslist".
I'll bet old C v. P only works three or fours days a week, and takes plenty of long vacations, too...lol
Thermocline: I live to educate. If you are truly inspired and providing your own piss, consume large quantities of asparagus about 8 hours prior to filling the ice tray. Be creative! Have fun!
Revenge should always carry a measure of instruction as well as an artistic flair.
Eating your snacks is UNFORGIVABLE. I hope someone eats C v P someday, which would teach him a lesson or two, wouldn't it!
If I could post anonymously, I would say to write a killer query for a book he'd just die to represent but then of course when you handed it to him, he'd never be able to contact the author. ;)
1. Get him a subscription to the most appalling/depraved publication you can bear to give money to.
2. Address it to his next-door neighbor.
Oh Rejectionist - I've just found you and I love you! This was by far one of the funniest blog posts I've read in a while! I feel your pain. Working in the same office as someone like that is a real pain.
I look forward to reading more of your blog!
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