The Shallot is the Head of the Non-Propaganda Communications Division, a division of the Postal Department that definitely wasn't invented just to shove him somewhere out of the way. Totally.
He is one of the youngest of the Flowers, having Awakened in Headquarters and been nurtured to maturity largely by whoever was closest or had generally drawn the short straw. Those in the PPC who have had the misfortune of meeting him, a group largely confined to his underlings - er, valued staff members in the NPCD and his golf partners, generally come away with an unfavourable view of him. This could be for any number of reasons: his irritating voice, surprisingly nasal for someone without a nose; his atrocious attitude, which combines every grating characteristic of the leader of a team-building exercise with a sense of self-importance that borders on a genuine mental health issue; or his dress sense, which he thinks marks him out as fashion-forward and trend-conscious when in reality he just looks like a weedy little twerp who raided a retirement home for their wardrobe. There are, of course, other reasons, but we'd be here all day.
The Shallot's speech is wheedly and whiny, and peppered with a gender-neutral guuuuuuys approximately every fifteen seconds. He also speaks in fluent Management, to the point where it becomes almost impossible to discern his meaning without feeling like your brain is about to dribble out of your ears. The sad part is that he really wants to help; he's just completely useless and convinced that he knows best despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He is also a fan of herbal tea, and nobody's really been moved to ask whether or not this constitutes cannibalism.