So, I've finally been at work long enough for Weird Things to begin to happen to me again. Seems that just goes with the territory.
Now, a brief backgrounder: The company I work for has been selling its product in Canada for years now, only through a distributor. This past December, they took over the whole operation and are now directly selling their own stuff to the Canadian market. The parent company is in New Jersey*. This means that the Canadian operations are tiny. There are only maybe 20 Canadian employees total, and only three of us in the Toronto head office where I work (I have my own office, it's cool and shit, blah blah whothefuckcares). I'm basically the entire inventory dept, the entire customer service dept, and the entire orders dept for the country.
So, the two other folks in the office with me are the Financial Controller, a family-mom type, friendly and good to work with... and the national Sales Manager, who I have silently dubbed 'Captain Creepy'.
Up until yesterday, Captain Creepy and I had an odd, but neutral relationship. I don't report to him (my boss and the entire chain of command I reply to are in New Jersey) thank god, and he has a totally different set of responsibilities, so there wasn't much to talk about. He doesn't say hi when he comes in, nor does he when he leaves for the day (but that's not that strange in and of itself). He's on the phone almost all the time, and usually closes his door/sits with his back to the hall/otherwise avoid contact with anyone in the office complex.
The oddest thing so far had been the crooked fake grin permanently graven into his face. You know, the kind of grin that nobody but a sociopath thinks is sincere. I mean, the Joker's smile has more warmth in it. It's like some kind of twisted poker face was violently imposed on him by an industrial accident. Certainly it has no bearing on his actual emotional or mental state, which is nearly unreadable and fairly unsettling. Every conversation with this guy was the living definition of awkward. Like talking to a man with an IQ of 78 who was trying to condescend so as to pass for the social worker minding the retards and not vice versa. Like a paedophilic uncle who you're safe from because he's not attracted to you personally. It was bad, but as I had little contact with him (and he is often away for trips to local markets), it wasn't that bad. Mostly it was slightly depressing because, hey, when your office population is so small, that usually results in a tight-knight group.
And then things got WIERDER.
As mentioned, Captain Creepy goes on trips often. The previous week, SEVERAL PEOPLE had mentioned he'd be away in Montreal this week. This was for work, not personal. Well over a dozen people knew where he was going - and I might well have even been expected to know where he was.
So yesterday he came into the office quite late. I assumed he'd gone for Montreal that morning. When he came in I though "Hey, maybe his flight was cancelled, that would suck" (there had been a snowstorm that morning), so I asked him if his flight had been cancelled etc. Just a friendly inquiry. He just blanked. His face would have been a mass of confusion if it wasn't for that artificial smile glued on. He deadpanned 'no' (all with that crooked smile) and then just sat there boring a hole into my forehead with his eyes for 30 seconds. I mumbled something about "oh good then" and wandered back to my office. Later I talked to one of the other employees to mentioned he would be there on Wednesday. Ha! Silly me! That was why! I had the wrong day! No wonder he was confused! Aha ha ha, what a faux pas.
That evening, on my way out of the office, I pause in front of his office door to wish him a good trip tomorrow and I got the following venomed reply (frozen bizarro grin still firmly affixed):
"You know Matt, I don't tell anybody where I'm going - not even my wife. When you ask me where I'm going, you sound like my Mother. You don't want to be my Mother."
Yes, exactly that. Word for word.
So with an idiot's cheerful grin I reply "Okay! You got it! See you!" and leave as fast as I can without running. I swear I was expecting him to pull a knife out his drawer and start fingering it. Certainly I suspect this man's mother is buried under a porch somewhere... but her voice carries on, if you get my drift.
Now, I'm not too worried. He's a spindly, late-middle-aged guy. And on the work side of things, he has made ZERO friends in my department. My manager hates him and my Director hates him because he keeps flaking out or dodging work. But still... CAPTAIN CREEPY.
*Which is actually a child of the Granddaddy company in France... that's right, I work for a Canadian subsidiary of an American subsidiary of a French company.
