I unwittingly walked into a tense scenario at work on Thursday. Not, as those who are familiar with my office might guess, because of a tiff between employees and management—but because there was a crazy-psycho man screaming at people.

I somehow avoided all the yelling, despite arriving, photocopying UPCs for a rebate, dropping that off in my car, and then returning inside… apparently words were exchanged both before I arrived, and when I was dropping stuff off in the car. I didn’t even see the guy when he left. Brent <– totally oblivious.

Then he came back. It was at this point that I was run over by the clue train: I saw coworkers peeking around a corner at the entrance to the office—and other coworkers watching those coworkers from a safe location behind the corner. When asked what was going on, the only response I got was that he’s back! (Brent: Who, Michael Myers?) Further interrogation of other people finally got me fully on-board with what was happening.

Usually the crazies get shunted to the office manager, who’s quite skillful at calming people down. Not this one—he got passed onto The Boss proper, while everyone else hid. After the guy left for the second (and final) time, The Boss commented, jokingly, on how everybody ditched him.

Doi. Nobody wants to die. And people especially don’t want to die because they work in a billing office.