Can You Hear Me?

My officemate, V.M. had one of those slow Fridays, having wrapped up his previous project, and not having a new project. He headed out fairly early. We were planning on going barhopping, and I asked if he wanted to come out. This I should have thought twice about. V.M. seemed somewhat willing, but unwilling to wait at the office, as we had no firm plan. He told me to give him a call when I knew what was going on.

I sort of feel bad for him because he started in the office a couple of weeks before me, but doesn't really have any friends aside from me in the office. I wanted to invite him along so he could maybe get to know some of his coworkers. I've not been "that guy" in a work setting (yet), but I have been "that guy." It sucks, and I don't want to let that happen to someone if it can be avoided.

The thing is, I can't stand V.M.

He's an all right guy. Doesn't even begin to compare to M.A., Z.M., and J.R., my office mates at N.C.I. I'd freely trade him for any one of them, and throw in twenty dollars to sweeten the pot. He just rubs me the wrong way, is all.

When I first moved into the office, for a few weeks, every day, V.M. would goad me into a half-hour argument. I would label it a discussion, but there was no real sharing of ideas. Two things were at play. One, I thought it was my fault, as I hate losing arguments (thank you L-school). I thought it was my fault that I let myself get drawn into these discussions. This is when I first brought headphones and CDs to work.

Two, I realized V.M. wasn't even paying attention to me. If nothing else (and there are a great many other things), M.A., Z.M., and J.R. always paid attention to what I said, no matter how absurd. V.M. wouldn't even pay attention no matter how serious I was. He raised a point about Constitutional Law and federalism, which quickly devolved into an argument.

I studied Con Law for a year. I could tell V.M. had no clue what he was talking about, as I had to explain the basic tenets to him. Yet he persisted in knocking down my arguments with fallacious statements of his own. Several times, I had to pause to compose myself. After the third time, V.M. called me out on the pauses. He told me that my entire argument was wrong, because I had sat so silent, his argument was irrefutable.

I'm not too proud of what next happened. Pretty sure my nostrils were flared at this point. I stared right at V.M. and told him the reason I hadn't refuted his arguments was because he knew nothing about the topic. I informed him point-blank that he should go study Con Law and then return to pick up, as we could sustain "no meaningful discussion" until he had done this. Then, I slipped my headphones on and went back to the user manual.

I'm not sure which one of us needed to be knocked down a couple of pegs, but I single-handedly succeeded in doing it to both of us.

Passing ignorance off as knowledge is one thing, but it wasn't until a few days ago when I realized I can't compete with someone that doesn't even listen to what I say. We were having a debate about taking notes versus transcribing from a cassette tape (yes, this passes for high discussion at L.M.). Out of nowhere, V.M. went off on a tangent about how losing a tape wouldn't be an issue, as they were generally easy to keep track of. I'd just finished talking about how the client liked seeing someone take notes, so I called him out on him. V.M. cocked his head to the side, and said he was just responding to my point.

Wrapped up that conversation right quick. He'd been composing my arguments in his head, then crafting the perfect counterargument in his head. If I thought like a developer, like he did, this would have worked, and amazingly, to this point, it had. For once, however, my poor attention span saved me.

Life generally does not afford us the choice of the people we share work space with. We make do with what we are given. In some situations, the task is as simple as saying hello and shaking hands. In others, you could not cleav the tension with a knife due to how thick it is. We must nonetheless put forth the effort. D.G. insists such situations are tests, and if we fail, they constitute signs from God we must work harder. I tend to agree. I have failed in my workspace relationship with V.M. However, V.M. has similarly failed me.