Sunday Scaries: Jack, the colleague that you may not believe existed - Part 1

Maybe everyone has worked with someone like this but this one guy I worked with years ago, single handedly gave me enough stories to deserve multiple chapters if I were to ever write a book.

I’ve never posted about him as (to me at least) the entertainment he brought to me, felt like he was worthy of more. So I’m thinking of writing each story as a newsletter miniseries.

He deserves a podcast though, like a true crime one but the only crimes he committed were stealing the hearts of many young ladies and compulsive lying.

We’re going to call him Jack.

Jack had just arrived in Australia when he started working with us, he was referred by a big boss in the UK so no one had really interviewed him.

Jack was mid 20’s, about 6ft tall, quite good looking and the combination of cockyness and his British accent meant he was a bit of a “player” when it came to the ladies.

At first we all thought he had potential. Working in recruitment, I thought that if he could use that confidence in his Sales he could go well. He loved a bit of banter, had the gift of the gab you’d say.

I’m not sure exactly how long it took for the first red flags to show but it didn’t feel like long, maybe a month.

The first sign was how often he was late. Now I was fairly junior at the time so he didn’t report to me but the Seniors we worked for did not like it when you were late.

Jack lived in Surry Hills and our office was in Surry Hills, so there were no good transport excuses. It was alarms, phone battery dying, room mates stealing chargers.

But my favourite common excuse he used was “my housemate locked me in my house”.

I remember the first time I heard him say this, thinking to myself what sort of fire safety breaching deadlock of death did this house have set up. I know a share house can have a lease holder or even a more dominant voice, but this guy seemed to be in control of when people came and left.

But hey, could be true and now that he’s been late for work he’ll speak to his housemate and they’ll figure out a system or a spare key.

By the third time I heard this excuse, I couldn’t help myself.

“How the hell do you get locked inside your own house? Locked out I get but locked in?”

In this situations he didn’t panic, he always spoke calmly but the elaborate lock system he explained still had flaws.

“Every window in the house is locked? There’s no back door?”. It wasn’t that at the time I thought he was lying, it’s more than I couldn’t let it go because I was so confused by the setup of this guys house.

He would change topic, make a little joke and then we’d never get a proper answer so we’d move on.

But one of the first times I remember thinking “I think this guy is a compulsive liar”, was a few months in.

He’d asked our boss if he could leave early one day to check out a new rental property.

She was super, super clear with the terms of her approving this request.

“You can leave at 4:30, but I want you in at 8:30 tomorrow”. Yes boss, no problem boss, thank you boss he said.

The next morning, I’m in at 8am and my boss is there. I knew my boss well at this point and one of the big signals that she was in a bad mood was when she wasn’t talking but typing really hard. She would bash the shit out of those keys when something was up and I knew you were best to lay low, get on with work and eventually she would tell you what was pissing her off and go back to normal.

She wasn’t angry when I got there but as we got to 8:30, 8:35, 8:45 those poor keys were really copping it. If the harder you hit the key meant the font increased in size, she was typing in 126 point by 9am. By 9:15 she was typesetting a billboard in Times Square.

Then Jack runs in with his signature out of breath style. If you’re going to be late, make sure it looks like you sprinted to get there was his philosophy.

“Sorry boss, I fell down Devonshire Street”.

The silence from my boss was deafening. The tensions was unbearable. But I couldn’t help myself, my internal dialogue was fighting between “DO NOT SAY ANYTHING YOU WILL LIGHT A MATCH IN A GAS CHAMBER” and “YOU HAVE TO ASK DO IT OR YOU WILL REGRET IT”.

And like is often the case, the Devil won that day my friends.

“Did you fall all the way down Devonshire street through the tunnel at Central and end up in Ultimo?”

He gave me the daggers. My boss ignored me. Internally, I was pissing myself at my own joke.

This was just the start of our journey with Jack, there is so much more to tell you.