She's the head Children's Librarian in my mid sized public library - on the same level as me in a different department. She was hired about two years ago and several coworkers have approached me to complain about issues with her - my boss, who hired her, seems pretty oblivious to her incompetence. The things she does that make me crazy are as follows:
1) She got the job in part because of her puppet shows for children, which would be fine - if they were any good. The skits she writes are like the worst of Waiting for Guffman, featuring shrill, annoying voices. Her greatest creation is Kitten, a dirty white stuffed animal whose character consists mainly of orgasmic sounding meowing noises. She dressed as Kitten for Halloween, complete with white fur ears and shitty, running face makeup. Worst of all, she talks about her puppets as if they are real people. Who hold conversations with her. And have thoughts and feelings. Like "Kitten's favorite color is pink!" And "Kitten gets jealous if I play with the others more." And she does it with zero irony, ALL THE TIME. I get quirky, but this is fucking ridiculous.
2) She's chronically ill or injured. When she was first hired she suffered mysterious pains that were apparently caused by undiagnosed scoliosis, and required a fancy $300 ergonomic chair she requested I purchase especially for her from MY staff's supply budget. During this illness she also had to do weird stretching exercises in the staff room, which were awkward as fuck to walk in on. Since then she's had shingles on her face (and came to work with them!), rashes all over her body from "the hikes in the woods she likes to take," constant colds, broken blood vessels in her eyes, and a black eye from running into a mirror in her bedroom at night. She wears a Velcro wrist guard for her carpal tunnel, which she is constantly taking off and readjusting. She also likes to talk about past and present sicknesses at length, to anyone she can. I have heard her story about the black eye five times, same wording each time. And she will come to work sick, even though she shouldn't, as if to prove to everyone how dedicated she is and how hard she works. Ugh.
3) This might sound harsh, but there are several little things about her that for me compound to result in feelings of intense hatred. First, appearance: She's at least fifty years old, but has said more than once that she "has always looked way younger." Despite this, she wears tons of makeup and blue cream eye shadow, which accentuates what wrinkles she does have. She's tall and painfully thin, with a hunched-shoulders-and-limp-wrist posture. She wears acid wash mom jeans with orthopedic sneakers to work, and her outfits look like they're from the '90s. Her hair style, similarly, is straight out of the 1980s, wavy and feathered. Her handwriting looks like a child's - absolutely illegible. I'm pretty sure she's dyslexic. She is terrible with directions - she got lost in the library building every day when she first came here, but she also gets lost driving around town, in the schools she visits, wherever she goes. She's always cold, so she keeps her office door closed and a space heater noisily running when she's in there. She sucks at figuring out desk schedules (a big part of our jobs) and so is always asking for extra desk coverage from my staff. She's confused about how to do purchase orders in the City finance system and asks for help on the simplest things. Same with other technology - she freaks out over the smallest computer glitch and can't figure out how to search our online catalog, which was redesigned almost four months ago. She talks all the time about the small town library in which she used to work, where she had to do everything herself, and the other staff there hated her and didn't take her seriously - GO FIGURE. She brags constantly in supervisory meetings about how she's "turned her team around" and all the amazing ways she's helped them, even though I've heard from all members of her team that they despise her. The one person on my team she gets along well with has an office right next to mine (false walls, no soundproofing). This woman goes in and talks to her daily about the other jobs she should be applying for - like she's trying to poach my teammate to work for another library. She will get my attention by calling my name and saying "Excuse me!" Repeatedly all the way from the top of the stairs, about ten feet from my office door.
The only comfort I get is that I seldom need anything from her, so never seek her out. I think at this point my chilly demeanor has scared her away, so she doesn't approach me much anymore. I wish she'd commit a fireable offense, but she is determined to retire here, and it's hard to get fired from a government job. Thank god I have options and will probably only work here another few years.