I knew I made a mistake when I mentioned that my office plants at work weren’t looking too healthy. It was at the company water cooler while I was making small talk when Greg, my coworker, overheard me say that I might’ve been over-watering my succulents. I realized too late that his workspace was just two cubicles over until I saw him sauntering over with all the air of an arrogant gardener. Which is what he was, a gardener – or, to be accurate, horticulturist – but that didn’t make what he butted in with any less pretentious.
“Uh oh, looks like you found something else you couldn’t keep alive in this office, huh?” He was referring to when I jammed the printer a week earlier – a playful jab, if he didn’t say it in the most condescending tone possible. Jesus, Greg, you make it sound like my child died because of negligence and not literal grass in a pot. You jammed the printer a week before I did, even!
As soon as he made this comment I left to go back to my cubicle. But he followed me there while alternating between insults about my lack of a green thumb and the tirade he launched into about taking care of a greenhouse, inexplicably filled with plant puns. Great, exactly what I wanted! It wasn’t even bad information (and they were good plant puns, too), but why did he have to be so weirdly self-aggrandizing about it? What the hell do you mean you choose not to use the office’s sprinkler system to water your poinsettias?
I finally told Greg to get to the point, if he had any advice for restoring my house plants.
“Just add fertilizer, dimwit,” he said. The confidence! Fertilizer? Manure, Greg? Did you just tell me to add manure to the ceramic pots of my house plants? To my small-ass succulents?
This has become a recurring thing now. He invites himself over to my workspace and just finds ways to talk about horticulture while insulting my ability to take care of plants. He barely even offers any advice! If he does, it’s like the manure comment earlier. I don’t care if you learned horticulture through “trowel and error,” Greg. I want you to make like a tree and leave my cubicle before I report you for plant-based harassment.
Written by Peter Muzawla, Staff Writer