Know-it-All

There is a guy I work with, V, who thinks he knows everything about everything. He's always very quick to offer his unsolicited advice about any topic that comes up.

Last year when Jim and I had to get our water heater replaced, this guy called me stupid for paying someone to do it. He said I would have been much smarter to ask him for advice (since he's apparently replaced not just one...but TWO water heaters and is, therefore, apparently even more of an expert than the professional that we paid). He started going though all the "simple" steps of pipe cutting and welding that I'd have to make, all the while with this cocky grin on his face like he's God's gift to home maintenance.

A few weeks ago, the kid who sits next to me was texting, and V started asking him questions about his cell phone plan. And it seems that S is really stupid too...signing up for the plan he did. V's plan was SO much cheaper and had SUCH better phone clarity and MANY more features. To my knowledge, V doesn't have a 2nd job at Verizon, but the way he talks, you'd sure think he does.

And another guy on our team bought a new car a few months ago. And sure enough, V started listing all the problems that had been reported with that particular car model. Why didn't C know better than to ask V what kind of car he drove? Because of course V's car has never had ANY recalls, it has the BEST fuel efficiency of ANY car EVER available, it has the MOST standard features, he got a MUCH cheaper deal on his car than C had gotten. V was laughing to himself all afternoon about how stupid C had been to buy a car without consulting with him first.

So today, V asked me a work-related question. I answered. Then he started going on and on and on about how much better his previous company was about providing detailed check lists which would have prevented him from having to ask questions. V NEVER made ANY errors because of those check lists. So he made a bunch of copies before coming to work here. He thinks he still has some copies at home and would be happy to bring me one so that I could be (almost) as good at my job as V is.

And while he was droning on about it, I was thinking about that Seinfeld episode where George drags Jerry and Elaine to a party so he can spend time with a woman that he's interested in. Jerry and Elaine fear that they will get trapped in boring conversations with strangers, so they come up with a signal...if one of them starts patting their head, it's a sign for the other friend to come bail them out of the situation. And I was wondering if any of my other coworkers would notice if I started patting my head during this V conversation, and if any of my coworkers who did notice my head patting would be familiar with that Seinfeld episode to recognize the signal I was sending.

So I mentioned it to S already, and should probably pass the message on to a few of my other friends around the office, before it's too late and I get sucked into switching cell phone carriers.