Word: bollix

bollix

\ BOL-iks \  , verb;

1. To do (something) badly; bungle (often followed by up): His interference bollixed up the whole deal.

noun:

1. A confused bungle.

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               “That god damned idiot!”  Larry shouted as he looked over the print out in front of him.  Everyone else in the office groaned.  None of them needed to know who he was talking about.

                “What did he do this time?  And how badly did he screw us over?”  Kelly asked, holding her head in her hand.

                “He got the numbers wrong.  Well, not wrong exactly.  He used the correct figures; he just added them up wrong.”  Larry said, taking a close look at the list of numbers

                “My god, has that man never heard of a calculator?  I mean really, how does he screw up basic addition?”  Mike said, maybe a bit too loudly for the small space.

                “I still say he does it on purpose.  I mean really.  Nobody can be that stupid, right?” Asked Sheila.

                “You’d be real surprised what kind of idiots are out there.”  Mike commented.

                “Well, on the upside, at least it’s a simple fix this time.”  Kelly said.  She was right.  All they had to do was find the error and fix it before their boss found out. 

                “Want to bet?  He’s probably already submitted this to the higher ups, just to spite us.”  Larry said, crumpling the paper and slumping down in the large office chair.  Recently their little office pod had gotten a new member.  While this should have been a good thing, as it aimed to spread the work out further between five people instead of four.  Unfortunately for the rest of them, he had exactly two real skills: pushing his mistakes onto others, and sucking up to the boss. 

                This meant that his being there had actually increased the workload of the others, since they not only had their own things to do, but they also had to correct his numerous mistakes.  Not only this, but he always managed to make these errors look like they belonged to others, either by good timing, taking on just the right tasks, or some other machination.  And since he was on such good terms with the boss, no matter how much the others explained what was going on, they were the ones who always bore the brunt of the errors.  It did not make for an ideal working environment. 

                “You know,” said Sheila, “I say we just let this one go.  Seriously, this was his project.  If we don’t bother correcting it, then he has to take the blame.  We never touched this one, so we’re not accountable for his inability to do basic math.” 

                “That’s true.”  Larry said, “We have nothing to fear this time.”  He unfurled the offending paper, and placed it squarely on the new guy’s desk, and returned to his own.  As each of them returned to their work, they couldn’t help smirking and snickering to themselves.  This was it.  It was time to finally put him in his place.  He had no way out now.

                Just then, their boss, Mr. Dreaks, barged in on them, obviously angry and waving around a copy of the list of numbers.  Every single one of them looked at each other, very glad that they wouldn’t be the cause of his rage this time.

                “You idiots want to tell me what this is about?”  He shouted at them.  Not quite the response they had been expecting, but not unheard of for him.

                “I think that’s the report Tony was working on.  What’s wrong, did he make a mistake?”  Kelly asked

                “Oh, there’s a mistake alright.”

                “Is there a problem boss?”  It was the new guy, Tony, speaking.  He had just come out from around the corner, a smug grin on his face.

                “There sure is. These morons want to pass their mistakes off on you again.”  Each of them looked at each other, suddenly very afraid.

                “Wait, we didn’t have anything to do with that.”  Mike said, “It was Tony’s job to count everything up.”

                “Yes, it was.  But, he already told me how you four told him not to worry about it, and that you would do it for him.”

                “But, we never did that.”  Sheila said

                “Really?”  Asked Tony, “Cause I remember you all telling me that you were too worried about me making some kind of mistake, so you took it away from me.”

                “Hmph, they would do that, the ungrateful idiots.”  Mr. Dreaks said, calming down greatly once Tony showed up.  They had said something along those lines many times in the past, but had stopped quite awhile ago, since it just gave Tony more leverage to set them up. 

                “We did nothing of the sort.”  Said Larry.  “We all want to stay focused on our own work, so we don’t have time to worry about him.” 

                “Then why was the report printed on your paper, Larry?”  Mr. Dreaks said.  He showed them the paper he was currently holding.  It was indeed very different from the normal paper.  Larry had a problem using the company provided paper.  He thought it was too cheap and flimsy.  So he brought in his own, much higher quality paper from home.  Everyone in the pod used it, and work had been handed in from all five of them with the high quality material. 

                “What does that prove?  We all use it.  Larry even started putting it in the group printer.”  Said Kelly.

                “Is there any in there now?”  Tony asked.

                “You know there isn’t. You used the last sheet in there when you printed that report up.”  Larry said.  He did tend to keep track of how many sheets he let the others use, and currently the only paper the other four had available was the cheaper company provided paper. 

                “Well, there’s no way to prove that is there?”  Tony asked smugly.  "All we know for sure is that right now, Larry is the only one with this particular kind of paper."

                “Alright, enough of this.”  Mr. Dreaks said, “I don’t care which one of you fixes this, just correct it and get it to me.  Before Lunch.”  He turned and stormed off.

                Tony slipped into his chair and leaned back, placing his arms in back of his head, clearly basking in his victory.

                “How in the world do you do that?”  Sheila asked.

                “Do what?”  Tony said looking at her.

                “Pass your mistakes off like that.”

                “Mistakes?  I don’t make mistakes.  You guys make them for me.”

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 Yeah, we all know this guy, don't we?  I'm pretty sure that just about every office has someone like this.  And if yours doesn't, then it might just be you.  Either that, or you are a very lucky person indeed.