The Situation

Full Disclosure - I have never seen the new Reality TV show 'Jersey Shore', the saga of the misadventures of a collection of Italian-American young adults, but the other morning on a cable news show (when they were able to take a break from the Tiger Woods drama), ran a story about how some Italian-American groups and advertisers are up in arms about the show.

These Italian-American groups don't like how the show seems to play to traditional stereotypes, and some advertisers have canceled ads on the show, feeling like the content is inappropriate and don't want their brands associated with such an unsavory and offensive show.

I don't really care about any of that.

What is interesting to me, is that from the 'news' story (on MSNBC), we learned that one of the show's participants calls himself 'The Situation'.

A classic, classic nickname, made all the more timeless since is it is a kind of intangible concept, not a boring nickname that is simply a play on a real name, 'T-Bone', or somehow descriptive of an aspect of a physical trait, 'Shorty'.

No, 'The Situation' is pretty cool, makes you think (I mean besides about how much of an idiot the guy likely is). 

And since there is almost nothing more fun in the workplace than giving out nicknames to our 'friends', I figured I would try and come up with some 'Situation-like' monikers for some of your favorite co-workers.

So here goes:

The Equilibrium - The guy that never can take a side on an issue.  Sees the benefits and drawbacks in every approach.  Never will come out for or against anyone.  Happy to simply go along with the consensus while being sure never to actually help form the consensus.

The Standoff - The one that once takes a position, will dig himself a World War I style trench and hunker down until the bitter end. You will have to practically mustard gas this guy to get him to budge. After a long time in the bunker when the stress is high and hallucinations start to set in, The Standoff might climb out and wade back into the field, where hopefully you can put him out of his misery.

The Malaise - You know this guy.  No matter how exciting the news, how interesting the project, or how crazy the office holiday party gets, The Malaise can't seem to get jazzed up.  Likes to wear old, Mr. Rogers style cardigan sweaters and walk very, very slowly.  Will be the first one to notice when the network is down, or the copier is out of paper. 

The Operation - This guys turns everything, no matter how simple, into a ridiculous drawn-out series of e-mails, discussions, meetings, unnecessary documentation and the like.  Nothing can be solved quicky, and certainly without soliciting input from all members of the team, from management, and possibly the custodial staff.  No decision can be rushed, getting everyone's input is good.  Now, how long should the weekly status meetings be, 30, 45, or 60 minutes?  Let's have a meeting to discuss this.

Last Call - This is the annoying guy that makes sure he is the very last one to leave the office every day, and makes sure the boss and everyone else knows it.  Walks over to the vending machines at about 5:30pm every day and loudly proclaims 'I wish we had Red Bull, I could use a Red Bull about now'.  When you leave at 5:00 likes to stop you in you tracks and ask, 'What's this, half a day?'.  He then retires to his cube and proceeds to put on headphones and play World or Warcraft until 8 o'clock. 

Who are some of your favorite workplace 'Situations'?

Hit me up in the comments.