There is no privacy in the cube farm. Late this afternoon one of the secretaries brought a salesman back to talk to me about one of our copier machines. I was occupied with a tedious task yet bestowed with this honor because I've succeeded in getting the copier running after a Deep Space Nine paper jam or retrieving the burnt scrap of paper in an inaccessible recess. My cube neighbor Stu was listening to the salesman who I'll call Randy because that's his name, Randy. He had his back to Stu as he gave his sales pitch.
Stu was like a sprinter at the starting line waiting for the gun to go off. Stu has fifty stories that analogously relate to when he worked at The Mining Company. Stu is not his real name. I derived it from STFU.
If he got the chance he would launch into a five minute dissertation on the copiers they used at the mining company and who repaired them and when they malfunctioned and the common cause of the breakdown and the brand they used when he started there and what they switched to next. The salesman would stand there dumbfounded wondering what the fuck just happened. God give me a gamma ray burst now. Who the hell is this guy and when is he going to shut up.
But today the Chatty Cathy was left at the starting line as I politely kept the encounter with Randy short and sweet. I hope he didn't mind. He may never know what I saved him from with a subtle cold shoulder and polite distance. And I could finish my game of Tetris before I packed up to go home.