Wednesday 30 January 2013

11 signs that your colleague is a vampire

Sketch of a vampire by Ceskino,
By Lucianne Poole

In keeping with my vampire book, The Shadow Service (a tale of vampires working in Canada's federal government), I'm providing a public service (you're welcome) by sharing these signs that you may be working with a vampire:


  1. Over-enthusiasm about office skating parties or other events in which bloodshed may be likely.
  2. Unusual habits such as hanging upside down in storage closets.
  3. General dislike of Middle Eastern food and any other cuisine containing copious amounts of garlic.
  4. Compulsive use of breath mints to hide bad breath.
  5. Preference for archaic swear words, possibly in dead languages eg. "Thou knave!" or "God's wounds!"
  6. Empty blood packs in the kitchen garbage.
  7. High number of absentee staff (i.e. they're too weak or too dead from having their blood sucked).
  8. Multiple invitations for a "bite to eat".
  9. Glazed expression and salivation at close proximity when you wake up from your post-lunch nap.
  10. Use of telepathic communication instead of email (this also explains your mysterious headaches).
  11. Long incisors, which may or may not be hidden by expensive dental work.
Disclaimer: If your suspected colleague only meets one of the above criteria, it's unlikely he/she is undead. However, if your colleague meets all the above criteria, that's a different story (good luck).

Why do you suspect your co-worker of being a vampire? Feel free to share suspicious traits.

5 comments:

  1. Top reason vampires join the civil service: great dental plan...

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  2. Thanks for the comment! Great idea for a future blog post - perhaps you'd like to guest blog it?

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  3. Some of these sound familiar. Other signs...

    Sends emails at 2 am.

    Calls for pre-dawn staff meetings.

    Uses biting metaphors: let's break the tasks into bite-sized bits, let's nibble at this problem for a while, let me get my teeth into this one.

    Demonstrates fervent passion for your working group's involvement in the Red Cross blood drive.

    Avoids meetings at the new Office for Religious Freedom (which is just a cover for fighting the Undead).

    Listless and unproductive during the day, but recovers their energy around 4 pm.

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  4. And constantly makes reference to their Batberry.

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  5. Nice ones! I particularly like the "biting" metaphors.

    ReplyDelete