There goes the neighborhood

The walls in my office are paper thin. I can hear every last word uttered by the guy next door. He's a cantankerous one, to put it mildly. He drops the F-bomb as though it's one of only a handful of words available for use in the English language.

He orders people around. He says numerous things that could land him in a juicy sexual harassment lawsuit, and sings badly. Often loudly.

Because he works in the office suite next door, not in my office proper, I didn't know what he looked like, or even what line of work he was in, for some time.

I'd just hear him go off, and think to myself, wtf? Who is this guy?

I've always thought that the office next door was kind-of shady. It seems to always be in flux. Different insurance brokers, and CPAs, and who knows who else move in and out of the various offices over there. The only constant  is the administrative assistant, who's barely there now, working as she does a total of 15 hours a week.

My newest neighbor, the one in question, moved in a few months ago, maybe the beginning of September? At first I found him only offensive. But then I got curious. Who is he barking at? And what the hell are they selling?

The operation involved some type of outside sales. I thought it was some dicey pyramid scheme, or some personal version of the junk email that offers future riches if you part with only a few of your dollars today, or some other greedy, get-rich-quick racket.

But it is not.

As my emails from President Obama and his posse increased, so did the pace and fury next door. The guy's cursing intensified, the cell phone calls he had to finish outside because they were so heated were more common, and he now sometimes crooned over some type of PA system. (Joy!)

I also began to see the "sales" people; they were right young. And often Latino. And they all seemed to come in around 2:30 pm everyday, and after a short pep talk from crazy guy, walk back by my window, to their cars, and drive off into the world. To knock on doors.

Yep. It's the campaign headquarters for some ballot measure. Some democratic ballot measure. Which makes the whole operation a whole lot easier for me to stomach. If he were a cranky, chauvinistic republican I would not find his sarcastic hysteric antics amusing.

I still don't know what campaign it is. Is it the headquarters for Prop J? Prop 21? Prop 26? I really don't know. But I have a week and a half more to figure it out. I'm fairly certain it's not Prop 19, the marijuana legalization initiative, because I've heard absolutely no Marley, or Tosh, or Cypress Hill through these walls.

It may be loud over there, and he does sing off key, but he's by far the most entertaining neighbor I've had since working in this office. I wonder if I'll miss him on November 3rd...