This is Office Ruth and Office Charlie.

Every office has them. They’re the people who are highly productive.. but you don’t know exactly what they do day to day – nailing reports? Playing chess under the desk? Sleeping in the toilet? The answer is all of the above. You see, Office Ruth and Office Charlie have to employ tactics to get them through corporate life. Like when Ruth throws her colleague’s dirty cups and plates in the bin, when they leave them in the kitchen. Or when Charlie icily stares down colleagues who call Wednesday ‘Hump day’..

What is your problem?
Office Ruth: I don’t like people sitting with their mouth open, or eating from a paper bag while they walk, or whistling and these petty things consume me.
Office Charlie: I don’t have a problem per se, but everybody else does.

How are you cupcake on the outside yet so bitter within?
Office Ruth: So I can pass as a normal person and keep employment.
Office Charlie: There are too many leaners, not enough lifters. Its easy to act professional. But I prefer to work in a cone of Bose-noise cancelled silence 98% of the time.

Is the inner storm justified?
Office Ruth: Every ounce of rage and fist of fury is rightly deserved and well directed. There are gross people in offices and they make me mad – like people who leave old tea bags in the sink or clang their spoon loudly in their cereal bowl.
Office Charlie: I once wore pyjama pants to work all day because I hated everyone and they didn’t deserve to see me in my suit.

Who has been the most annoying office-person you’ve met?
Office Ruth: I was going to say Wet-Pants-Lady but no.. it is The Hack. Her desk was disgusting. She had a snot mountain of old tissues, used coffee cups, and food crumbs all over her desk. She was a dirty little tip-rat.
Office Charlie: Sputnik. He would come up to our floor, use the toilets then walk around looking mad. We didn’t know who he was or what he did, but he once put a wet piece of paper in our team’s bin. He was a mystery we could never unravel. We would play the Sputnik spotting game and email each other when we saw him orbit once every few weeks.

Kewlest thing you have done in an office?
Office Ruth: I buried a ham sandwich in the pot plants near my boss’s desk on my last day. The smell of rotting meat was hanging around for weeks.
Office Charlie: I kept a post-it note in my desk draw of all the men in the workplace who wouldn’t wash their hands in the bathroom. It helped me to determine which plates to eat from at the staff morning teas.

Favourite office trick?
Office Ruth: Leaving my bag and jacket at my desk while popping out for a blow-dry. And I once put a cupcake in the air vents for a year until it was rock-hard. No reason.
Office Charlie: Taping down that little lever on telephones, so the person can never answer it.

Have you ever turned on each other?
Office Ruth: On Charlie’s leaving day, I put 5 staplers and 1,000 bulldog clips in his bag, as a going away present. He didn’t notice until he got home because his bag was full of all the files he was swiping. But, no. I would never turn on Charlie.
Office Charlie: And I could never turn on her – there is nothing to be gained by having Office Ruth on the ‘other side’.

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