Observations, here and there...The Blabberers

We all have met people who give a essay type answer to an objective question. Yes, these are the people who love to talk and when they start, they will stop only when you get a fictional phone call or someone calls you and only you hear it. Whether they make sense or not is immaterial. But when they start talking, you are subjected to mental molestation.

 

Simple questions get answered in the most elaborate of ways possible. If you ask him, "Hello Sir, how are you?". He will answer, "Not great man, just pulling along. I have this shoulder problem. Because of this, I am not able to do this (he will raise hands) and this (raise legs) and so on. And the innocence in you will sidetrack your mind and you will ask, "Oh sir, how did it happen?". And this is where, another twelve minutes lesson on human anatomy and physiotherapy begins and it will end only if you say Bye. 

This is how it works.

If you ask him "How was the weekend?",Weekend wasn't great man, I had lots of work to do. First I had the electrician coming over, then there was the painter and then my wife wanted to go somewhere (wide boring grin)and then we went to a mall and I went to that stupid restaurant. I found no parking place. There's so much traffic these days. I had to take another route. This is where you make another mistake and ask, "Which route?". He feels energized as if he's had a glass of lemon flavored Glucon D and he will start - "Now, you are at Banjara Hills. There are three ways of going to Secunderabad. Once is via Erramanzil and Lakdikapul............." He will name about 23 localities and 12 landmark and will  mentally drive you to his home. You should NEVER ask him a route. 
 

If you ask, "Sir, Where did you work prior to this company?" He will respond, "I was with seven companies. First one was in 1998 September, no August, no September actually. 9th September to be precise. I got confused because I had got another offer in August.You know how I got my first job? It's a funny experience. Actually, I wanted to go to my native place in a bus. I had just locked the door and suddenly remembered that I forgot the money inside. So, I opened it again. When I came out, I saw the postman with an envelope in his hand. I think his name was Venkatesh. He knew us well. Those days, Postal department had a lot of importance. There's a famous song also, Daakiya Daak Laya, Daakiya Daak laya,which movie remember? Anyway, we'll Google it later... Ok, now this postman came with an envelope and handed it over to me. It was a call letter for an interview. Then, I saw that the date was today! So, I quickly unlocked my door and went inside...". After 3 minutes, he's still talking to the postman, After 10 minutes, he started for the interview, After 33 minutes, interview going on. Interview description, another 25 minutes of description. If you are a fresher, he will consume half your working day describing his career and say, it was a  nice introduction. 

You should never ask, "What's your opinion on the post-recession trend in the industry". He will say, "Actually, in 1999 when the first bubble burst, India was in a nascent stage of development in the IT sector. That was the time when I was working with XYZ. Those were the days when we had computer mice with balls. Monitors were not flat screen and only the branch manager had a color monitor. The rest would have those monochrome monitors. But I fought with the management and said, Balls, bloody I will not work on a black and white monitor, If you want me to continue, I need a color one. Then, my Vice-president sent an email from Bombay and approved it. I got it that evening itself. We used to have floppy disks and those were bloody unreliable. Once what happened, I was going to a presentation wearing a Zodiac tie my brother-in-law had got from London. He was there for an year. He hated that place. Now, he runs his own company. You must have heard about ZYZ, pretty popular guy. I told him, you should have stayed there..He didn't listen. Anyway, he's happy now. His son got selected in MIT last year and he will become a scientist. He's from IIT though. It's easy when you're from IIT. He did his Mechanical Engineering. Now he's specializing in Applied Fluid Dynamics. I heard he's getting married to some Firang girl. This fellow doesn't even eat egg, I don't know how they will live together. Cross-cultural marriages are these days becoming common......"

And thus, another chapter begins....

There's only one way to handle them - stay away!

- Deepak Karamungikar