Grack Caldswell

I used to be in charge of an inventory control department of a mid sized electronics manufacturer. Everything that came in the door had to be logged in, inspected, counted and sent to the proper place, whether it be the warehouse, parts room, or to the executives on one of the upper floors.

To cover our asses, everything was written up in a log book and the packages were opened, inspected, then sent up with one of my guys on a cart to be delivered. Not a big deal.

Our V.P. of sales was a guy by the name of Garrick Coldwell. The guy was an asshole. He was arrogant, even featured, and really full of himself. He would scream at his secretary and make her cry, made ridiculous demands of everyone he considered lower than him and even had the audacity to demand one time, that I wash his car.

He was married to a kind and gracious British lady. He treated her like shit and always made a point to demean her at company functions. Any dealings with Garrick were always filled with his pompous, snide and condescending remarks.

Lets suffice it to say I hated this asshole completely and unequivocally.

Writing up packages in the log book was Mary's job. She had the best handwriting and didn't mind tedious tasks. She was a 6o something Hispanic lady who was very quiet despite all the ruckus caused by department full of rowdy twenty year olds. I had a lot of respect for her.

One day while filling out the log book, she misspelled Garrick's name. She wrote "Garrett" instead. The poor kid who delivered the package got his ass chewed out and Garrick demanded to know who spelled his name wrong. He came down, started yelling at Mary and made her cry. I got in his face and told him that he come to me with his problems and not to mess with my employees.

He stormed out of the room and slammed the door.

From that day on it was personal.

Every day we made up a new name for Garrick and wrote it in the log book. Grick, Gardick,Grarrik etc... We always sent up the new kid with the packages so he could get yelled at. Garrick was so vain and egotistical that the slightest misspelling of his name would send him into a screaming tirade. Usually his histrionics just made him look like more of an asshole to his colleagues.

We became more brazen, and after a while, we settled on continuously calling him Grack Caldswell. One day, It finally became too much, he grabbed the log book away from my employee and stormed into the conference room where a meeting of the directors and other V.Ps was taking place. He started screaming and ranting to my boss about how we can't seem to spell his name.

Apparently, he didn't get the response he wanted from his peers. He walked out of the conference room red faced and with tears in his eyes. I was at the copy machine nearby watching him from the corner of my eye.

Garrick Walked up to me and said..."Ok you've made your point. I'm sorry. Could you please, please, start writing my name correctly?" I was taken aback by this sudden change in attitude so I agreed to stop the shenanigans.

I never found out what was said to him in the conference room that day, but it must have been bad enough to make him tuck his sack between his legs and stop acting like a raging asshole. The damage was done however, and he ended up leaving the company about six weeks later.

I can only imagine it was my department's antics that drove him over the edge.