My third day on the job, I learned that my nearest coworker -- in age, in seniority, and in physical proximity -- has highly sensitive hearing.
I say this as a person with highly sensitive hearing. Did the passenger-side door tweeter on your car stereo just short out? Is your input overloading your amp and distorting the bass? Can no single person in this auditorium clap ON the beat? Did that motherfucker just start playing a soprano sax?
I'm usually the first one you'll hear from in these matters.
But within three days I knew I'd met my match. "I hate to ask," came the voice from 25 feet away, in another room. "But can you not click your pen while you're thinking?"
Truth is, I can't, so I had to switch to the kind of pen you turn instead of click. Now I turn it while thinking, which is silent enough, and more masturbatory. Which is cool. I have all kinds of other "thinking" tics -- crumpling paper, kicking my desk, tapping on my keyboard, cursing under and over my breath -- but to her credit she backed off after the first one was silenced.
This was during Christmas. The town we're in is -- well -- let's just say it's the sort of town that will broadcast Christmas songs all day long from strategically placed loudspeakers throughout the central business district. Windows shut against the cold, winter winds blowing, sleet battering the windowpanes, and said coworker still needed an iPod to maintain sanity.
So. Sensitive hearing: the foundation has been laid.
TO BE CONTINUED
Posted by FLOG at March 24, 2007 12:15 AM | TrackBackI spent the better part of last year sitting next to a gentleman who made a habit of kicking the wall that seperated our two cubicles. When I confronted him on this he replied, "Er, uh, that's just what I do. I can't help it."
I say poop on the lot of you desk kicking no-gooders!
Posted by: Brandon at March 26, 2007 8:51 PMI do recall your "silver ears" finding parties for us to crash in the West University neighborhood, lo these many years ago. Me, I can't hear a durn thing. Couldn't even hear the food delivery guy at the door last night (in case you were wondering).
Posted by: WWB at April 15, 2007 10:26 AMI was just going to ask.
Posted by: FLOG at April 15, 2007 2:16 PM