There's a bloke at work, Simon, who came in the other morning after a 
drought of froth over the weekend, due to his mother losing her marbles and 
reverting to speaking in her native tongue, German, which he does not speak.

He is a nice enough fellow, who never runs anyone down or talks about anyone 
other than Greek philosophers, Turkish warlords, Romans, Chinese mandarins. 
His demeanor is he suffers from verbal diarrhoea due to the excessive 
digestion of the Encyclopaedia Britannica .  He spews it out at any given, 
direct or indirect, opportunity from, it seems, any orifice of his, bar his 
ears and nose.

He opened with a machine gun volley of irrelevant facts, starting with; 
there was only a 2% difference between chimpanzees and us.  Then on to the 
technicalities of a long forgotten Formula 1 decision, regarding the fuel 
involved and the heat or lack of it.  Followed by the Turkish reaction to 
the Kurds heard on the radio the other day.

He usually opens with a headlining statement or general knowledge quiz, 
type, question, for example: do you know how many Turks get killed each 
year?  Needless to say such questions stop his colleagues dead in their 
tracks and leave me either laughing or in a state of despair.

There are occasions where I speak politely to him and ask him to get on with 
some work and there are many occasions where I sit and take the mickey, 
usually by repeating the final word or phrase of the each sentence, that he 
shovels out of his mouth.  His benignant response is always "what's that?" 
I rarely repeat what I have said for fear of causing offence, as by now 
people in the room are creasing themselves with laughter as to how I'm 
handling the situation.

During this morning's monologue, a colleague came over to me and whispered 
his congratulations on how sangfroid I was with my vocal colleague's 
incessant claptrap.  Or was a hint that I should be doing something about 
him, and his facts that no one has the knowledge to dispute, and the time he 
is taken, not only for himself but also for the listener.

There are times when I hear Simon and see him wondering from table to table 
in our open plan room displaying his prowess as a walking font of all 
knowledge and irrelevant facts and think to myself this place is rapidly 
going the same way as his mother - doolally.

I'm now home for a rest, peace and quiet.

Bobby

"Bobby Bewl"  wrote in message 
news:po-dncaDYO97AXXXnZ2dnUVZ8uSdnZ2d@bt.com...
> There's a bloke at work, Simon, who came in the other morning after a 
> drought of froth over the weekend, due to his mother losing her marbles 
> and reverting to speaking in her native tongue, German, which he does not 
> speak.
>
> He is a nice enough fellow, who never runs anyone down or talks about 
> anyone other than Greek philosophers, Turkish warlords, Romans, Chinese 
> mandarins. His demeanor is he suffers from verbal diarrhoea due to the 
> excessive digestion of the Encyclopaedia Britannica .  He spews it out at 
> any given, direct or indirect, opportunity from, it seems, any orifice of 
> his, bar his ears and nose.
>
> He opened with a machine gun volley of irrelevant facts, starting with; 
> there was only a 2% difference between chimpanzees and us.  Then on to the 
> technicalities of a long forgotten Formula 1 decision, regarding the fuel 
> involved and the heat or lack of it.  Followed by the Turkish reaction to 
> the Kurds heard on the radio the other day.
>
> He usually opens with a headlining statement or general knowledge quiz, 
> type, question, for example: do you know how many Turks get killed each 
> year?  Needless to say such questions stop his colleagues dead in their 
> tracks and leave me either laughing or in a state of despair.
>
> There are occasions where I speak politely to him and ask him to get on 
> with some work and there are many occasions where I sit and take the 
> mickey, usually by repeating the final word or phrase of the each 
> sentence, that he shovels out of his mouth.  His benignant response is 
> always "what's that?" I rarely repeat what I have said for fear of causing 
> offence, as by now people in the room are creasing themselves with 
> laughter as to how I'm handling the situation.
>
> During this morning's monologue, a colleague came over to me and whispered 
> his congratulations on how sangfroid I was with my vocal colleague's 
> incessant claptrap.  Or was a hint that I should be doing something about 
> him, and his facts that no one has the knowledge to dispute, and the time 
> he is taken, not only for himself but also for the listener.
>
> There are times when I hear Simon and see him wondering from table to 
> table in our open plan room displaying his prowess as a walking font of 
> all knowledge and irrelevant facts and think to myself this place is 
> rapidly going the same way as his mother - doolally.
>
> I'm now home for a rest, peace and quiet.
>
>

We have more in common than either of us realised!

However, I hope Simon is not his real name. And I trust he does not 
subscribe to this newsgroup because if he does, and he recognises you,  your 
employment as a manager is about to cease forthwith!

"Not Today"  wrote in message >
> We have more in common than either of us realised!
>
> However, I hope Simon is not his real name. And I trust he does not 
> subscribe to this newsgroup because if he does, and he recognises you, 
> your employment as a manager is about to cease forthwith!
>
"The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed 
to protect the innocent."  Whilst I may not have the savoir-faire as some 
would expect, I am certainly not gauche.  "Simon" is a nom de guerre.  I did 
replace his name with "XXXXX" and emailed 3 colleagues with a version of 
that essay.  They knew immediately who I was writing about.

Similarly, last Tuesday I was at a meeting with our enterprising Chief 
Executive, Director of Operations and Area Manager, where the Chief 
Executive showed sympathy with those hundreds that he proposes to make 
rundunant: he wanted people compensated under the existing arrangement and 
not the cost cutting one starting in January.  I boldly announced that our 
office has a "font of all knowledge" and he said, those that had taken 
"partial retirement" were better off under the new arrangements than under 
the existing arrangements.

The stunned Chief replied, "I wish I could meet him".

"No you wouldn't"  I retorted,  "He (Simon) suffers from verbal diarrhoea".

Oh yes, my working days are numbered!

Bobby