Mayday, Captain
Holy shit.
Some guy just stepped into my office. That in itself is obviously something that happens several times a day, seeing how the office door is always open. The only remarkable thing about him was, that he looked like your average friendly grandpa and I'm more used to students coming by. But when he started talking I realized that I knew him. And the 'ohshitohshitohshitohshit' alarm started ringing.
See, this particular senior citizen comes with a quirk. He talks. A lot. Seriously. A lot. And not just the polite chitchat of someone who is maybe a bit lonely and glad he's found someone willing to listen. Oh noooo, he starts by asking if one of my colleagues is in. He wants to see her about a project and I tell him that I don't know, no prob. Then there is this tiny little pause and completely out of nowhere he tells me that he's 75 years old. This is the exact moment the memories come back to me and the alarms go off. Because I've been there, done that and got the T-shirt as proof.
He doesn't follow this pronouncement with any explanation as to why he felt the need I should know this. Nope, he switches gears completely and tells me where he used to work and that he once upon a time got in trouble with the GDR officials for being a member of the wrong party. Again no background, no context. And no reaction required. He just keeps on going. At this point I look at him and try very hard to make a bland, polite face to hide the fact that I'm currently panicking and thinking of possible ways to get out of this.
After all, our last encounter took almost an hour and made me feel like I had been roofied just by trying to make sense of what he was saying. And it ended only, when I fled to the lab, because I had some extremely important things to do there.
And then suddenly inspiration struck and I remembered that another colleague working on the same project was definitely in today. I even managed to get a word in edgewise to tell him that. And after only five more minutes of talk about carbon monoxide, some old dissertations the university wanted to throw away and some multi million lawsuit he went away.
So now I'm hiding in my office, door closed, in case he decides to come back. And I probably should call poor Micha to apologize, that I sicked that guy on him, although it will be a lie, because I'm not the least bit sorry.
Some guy just stepped into my office. That in itself is obviously something that happens several times a day, seeing how the office door is always open. The only remarkable thing about him was, that he looked like your average friendly grandpa and I'm more used to students coming by. But when he started talking I realized that I knew him. And the 'ohshitohshitohshitohshit' alarm started ringing.
See, this particular senior citizen comes with a quirk. He talks. A lot. Seriously. A lot. And not just the polite chitchat of someone who is maybe a bit lonely and glad he's found someone willing to listen. Oh noooo, he starts by asking if one of my colleagues is in. He wants to see her about a project and I tell him that I don't know, no prob. Then there is this tiny little pause and completely out of nowhere he tells me that he's 75 years old. This is the exact moment the memories come back to me and the alarms go off. Because I've been there, done that and got the T-shirt as proof.
He doesn't follow this pronouncement with any explanation as to why he felt the need I should know this. Nope, he switches gears completely and tells me where he used to work and that he once upon a time got in trouble with the GDR officials for being a member of the wrong party. Again no background, no context. And no reaction required. He just keeps on going. At this point I look at him and try very hard to make a bland, polite face to hide the fact that I'm currently panicking and thinking of possible ways to get out of this.
After all, our last encounter took almost an hour and made me feel like I had been roofied just by trying to make sense of what he was saying. And it ended only, when I fled to the lab, because I had some extremely important things to do there.
And then suddenly inspiration struck and I remembered that another colleague working on the same project was definitely in today. I even managed to get a word in edgewise to tell him that. And after only five more minutes of talk about carbon monoxide, some old dissertations the university wanted to throw away and some multi million lawsuit he went away.
So now I'm hiding in my office, door closed, in case he decides to come back. And I probably should call poor Micha to apologize, that I sicked that guy on him, although it will be a lie, because I'm not the least bit sorry.