Brilliant, just brilliant

Politics makes strange bedfellows, they say; and this Presidential election is certainly an example of that.

But corporations make for even stranger (or more strained) office-fellows;and my current situation is, alas, quite the exemplar.

Ordinarily every employee has his/her own office; but the division's been hiring at such a clip that they’re having to double up.

Three weeks ago a guy who was hired to be ad manager in my department came in and was assigned to share my office. He turned out to be the World’s Greatest Expert (all topics), which he lost no time in explaining to me. And everyone else within earshot.

I’m afraid I didn’t show proper awe—when he announced the last company he graced with his brilliance, I looked blank, as I’d never heard of it. Not surprisingly, he was supremely disinterested in my background (except as a possible backdrop for his brilliance).

Within a couple of days he was already horning in on my project—giving me the benefit of his brilliance—while coming up to speed on what was in front of him. You may imagine how that went down. I don’t take it personally—he spreads his brilliance like the flu virus around the organization. But it pisses me off nonetheless.

But also within a couple of days he’d started bringing in his desk décor… No, not pix of the wife and kid, or the cherry 67 Mustang lovingly restored. No, nothing so…pedestrian. One after another, he schlepped the beloved artifacts of his life: a cheap copper-painted porcelain bust of Pericles, a framed Net-download picture of Lycurgus, and another bust—I’m guessing Leonidas.

(I know the pix are lousy; but they're just here to show I'm not making this stuff up.)

Yes, WGE’s great love is ancient Sparta. (Well, leaving aside the anomaly of Pericles.) He fancies himself quite the authority, and can prove it by cutting and pasting passages from Herodotus into one of his blogs. (No formatting, no commentary or analysis; just one long run-on paragraph.)

One day as he was leaving (typically before 1600, since he has this 90-minute commute to Tacoma) he announced he’d continue bringing in the Greeks. I commented, “Well, I guess we’ll have a phalanx, then, won’t we?”

“Phalanx? You know what a PHALANX is?”

(Well, yeah—doesn’t everyone?)

That rather took some of the wind out of his trireme, but he decided he could recover from not being the only expert on ancient Greek warfare in the room by assuring me (in the manner of a dealer telling a junkie he’s got access to some REALLY good shit…) he’d bring in these fake ancient Spartan coins he minted!

Oh, be still my heart.

Damn me if the little pisher (yes, he’s no taller than I) didn’t haul his little plastic coins out of his overcompensatingly-large backpack a couple of mornings later with a flourish. He started ‘splaining to me in great detail what each element was, but when he got to the, “Here’s the epitaph…” And I cut in, “Go tell the Spartans that we lie here obeying their laws,”  his poor trireme stalled again.

In another attempt at recovering the sole-authority position, WGE smarmed, “You must have studied Greece, then?” Well, no, not studied (outside of my ancient Greece humanities class in college); but I have indeed read Herodotus, and dipped into some of the others.
“Oh, have you read [some name I’ve never heard of]?”

No; but rather a lot of Michael Grant.

“I don’t know Michael Grant.”

Really? I don’t know that much about ancient Greece, but even I know Grant’s one of the big guns on the topic. Out of Cambridge. Written trireme-loads worth of books. Evidently WGE’s breadth of expertise is…somewhat circumscribed.

But something that he’s not short of (besides self-regard) is scarfing up freebies. Turns out the WGE is also the WBF (World’s Biggest Freeloader). Within a couple of days in situ he’d already glommed onto a division jacket (which I think he wears 24x7), a pedometer (which he doesn’t use—it’s enough to HAVE it), & some other departmental goodies.

He also discovered the company store—bought some highly-discounted software, which I know about because he left it in the company bag on the floor of the office (along with other bags he’s strewn about the place). At the end of the day he took the software and left the bag. On the floor. It’s still there, days later.

“Free” is one of his favorite words. Within days of arriving he’d taken the light rail into Seattle from Tacoma, and then two company shuttles to get to work. The rides (all with wi-fi) took him 30 minutes longer than his 90-minute commute from Tacoma; “but it’s FREEEEEEE”. Clearly if he’d had to pay for any part of this, he’d stay in his car.

Today I overheard (hey—not like I was trying; he dials all calls on speakerand only picks up when the call connects) a call, presumably to his wife, announcing that next Friday he’ll bring in his four-year-old to partake of the company-sponsored Trick or Treat event. Because it’s FREEEEE. And “he can go around & collect snacks.”

I wonder if he’s thought about what it’ll cost him to drive Redmond-Tacoma-Redmond to give his kid this FREEEE jolly?

(And, no, he can’t take the “little guy” (I suppose “little” is relative) on the public transport/shuttle because he’d have to pay the kid’s fare on the former and only company employees are allowed on the shuttles.)

Aside from the Greek citadel and the rubbish heap surrounding it, he’s a lousy office mate because he views every conversation I have is an opportunity to join in and share his brilliance. This extends to conference calls. He turns around with this helpfully smarmy used-car-salesman look on his face and just jumps in.

When the admins were setting up WGE’s desk, they assured me that the arrangement would be temporary, although they couldn’t give me a definition of “temporary” in the circumstances. So I arranged for him to be swapped with another new hire, who seems to have somewhat better developed social skills.

This move takes place tomorrow, not a moment too soon for me. (Today I discovered he’d erased a diagram I had on the whiteboard, mapping out conditional logic on a survey I’ve designed. He replaced it with squares representing his project. (Originally code-named “Athens”, but rechristened “Rome” because apparently Athens was already working.) When I pointed out what he’d done I got a deeply insincere, “Sorry.”)

So he’ll be packing up the Greeks and the freebies and moving down the hall. I’m sure I’ll still be subjected to his brilliance, both directly and through intermediaries. But at least I won’t have to live with his compensation maneuvers in my personal space. Or his lunch leftovers.

And he might make it through the month without a brilliant, sharp, modern Swiss Army knife jammed between his third and fourth ribs.