Dealing with the rantings of your crazy boss or overzealous receptionist is one thing, but what do you do when your office’s resident passive-aggressive note-leaver doesn’t even work there? Casey in San Diego (a.k.a. RunBarbara) says that’s the situation she’s found herself in at her job.

The offender, Sandra, “has met me a total of twice, both times for less than a minute,” Casey says. Yet for some reason, when Sandra (the aunt of the owner) stops by the office once a week to water the plants and drop off supplies, “she leaves these strange notes EVERYWHERE — and she almost always directs questions about said notes to me,” Casey says. “I often have no idea she posts these notes until someone asks me about the odd directions in them.”

Below, a small sampling of Sandra’s delightfully bizarrre directives. (Just click on the photos to enlarge.)

I’d like to think this note was posted immediately following the “potluck”…

related: The return of Thx Sandra!

“I work for a pretty awesome non-profit, where people are amazingly laidback, accepting and non-OCD,” says our anonymous submitter in San Francisco — so this note came as something of a surprise.

Adds our submitter: “I have to admit, seeing the newspaper on top of the toilet tank the previous week had kinda gotten on my nerves too.”

related: oh dear

The word “newsflash,” like the phrase “no offense,” is an early indicator that what follows is probably going to be something pretty bitchy. Unless, of course, you’re watching TV news, in which case the word “newsflash” more likely heralds the announcement of a hard-hitting segment about the household product in your kitchen that could be killing your children. Either way: proceed with caution.

Exhibit a) from roommate to roommate, Chicago

Exhibit b) from mother to daughter, Irving, Texas

Exhibit c) the pointed use of song lyrics in a Facebook status update

Exhibit d) stating the obvious

related: No offense! (just kidding) No worries! (just kidding)

Sure, it’d be easier and quicker to just clean it up. But the modern passive-aggressive (like Katey in Berkeley’s ex-roommate) can’t pass up the opportunity to make a point.

A common variation on the Van der Rohe approach, as documented below by Sam in Dallas, is the so-called “Reverse Magritte.”

Meanwhile, post-modern passive-aggressives (like this New York office-worker below) can’t resist throwing some irony into the mix, intentional or not.

More recently, passive-aggressives have begun to show the influence of the burgeoning neo-pop movement. Our anonymous submitter in Houston, for example, designed the original stamp below for use in his work. “I am an engineer and we have to mark up technical drawings for manufacture,” he explains, in his artist’s statement. “It gets used at least twice a day.”

The bleeding-edge of passive-aggressive note-writing, however, lies on the west coast, where Rebecca in San Francisco says that in the past, “We’ve had an ongoing series of notes left in the office kitchen — usually of the ‘your mother doesn’t work here’ or ‘there is no such thing as the coffee fairy’ variety.” The Koons-inspired piece currently on display in the office breakroom, however, makes its point with no words at all.

related: Why-fi

Our anonymous submitter spotted these notes in the shared kitchen of a “professional building” — one our submitter says is full of shrinks. Perhaps one of them could deduce whether “i.e. me” fits the DSM’s criteria for a diagnosis…or whether she’s just having a little trouble with her Latin.

related: eau dear
extra credit: “food odors at work” [chowhound.com]

While paying his old office a weekend visit, Jimsu from Katy, Texas didn’t catch the original note (or, perhaps, conversation) that precipitated this huffy screed from the mailman…

…but he did spot the follow-up from the office smartass.

related: This is why your postal worker is disgruntled

What’s employee morale like inside Yahoo’s Sunnyvale headquarters, amid all the chatter about coming layoffs, the possible Microsoft takeover, and everything else? well, according to one anonymous Yahoo! employee, in the toilet would be one place to look.

Says our Yahoo! tipster: “First they took away our right to stand on the toilets. Then they took away our right to surf on the john. But now — they’ve gone too far.”

related: Yahoo! — Servicing over a half-billion people…each and every day

Homero in Portland had just finished heating up his lunch in the office microwave when he returned to his desk to find this “helpful” note — attached to an ad from the local alt-weekly — waiting on his chair. Though it’s unsigned, he says he’s pretty sure he knows which coworker left it for him. “She’s kind of socially stunted, but seems to think that a) she’s very funny and b) we’re BFF,” Homero says. “Um…no.”

related: WoW, indeed