Dan
I do a little bit of work in a warehouse sometimes, and last time I went there after an absence of a few months, I got the full story on this lad named Dan who'd worked with them temporarily.

Dan was a bit special. Not thick in the normal sense, but the guy wasn't all there. He was lanky, about 20, had a vacant smile and was about as fun to talk to as the cardboard boxes that we pack stuff into. Every day he would turn up looking and acting a bit dopey, and he'd have that kind of glazed-over vacant look like he was in some other world.

He was tolerable at first, but then he started acting like a fucking nuisance. One time he spilt a small box of little plastic fittings. No problem, little mess that takes 30 seconds to clean up and dump back in the box. Not for Dan, though. No, he proceeded to sob and cry. He lamented that nobody liked him and that he can't do anything right. The guys were were nice to him the first couple of times, as he was obviously a bit naive. They tolerated his behaviour for a while, but it became a daily occurence. Crying was a natural reaction to being told to do something, making a mistake or just being in a bad mood. He nearly cried one time when someone (jokingly) asked him to count the thousands of pieces of packing foam in a box. Gullible fool believed it too; he then proceeded to open the box and look all teary-eyed. When they started laughing at him for his gullibility he started screaming and crying and telling them he was going to "beat them up" (he was tough as a wet toilet roll).

He'd always talk about his mother as one of his main conversation topics and show up from his lunchbreak acting especially dopey, we reckoned it must have been some kind of meds he was taking. He'd always deny taking any drugs of any kind.

Of course, he was just temporary and soon had to leave, and they really needed him for that temporary period. He wasn't bad-natured per se, but they were pleased to see the back of him. He was quite clearly autistic in a rather profound manner, so much so that he was just intolerable to work with, especially when he just hides around the pallets crying while everyone else is picking up the slack, and trying to get things sorted before deadlines.
(I have a face also had a sig on, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 14:43, Reply)