A few minutes after strolling into the happiest cube on Earth this morning, two people in a cube adjacent to me began a conversation about a completely unremarkable topic. What was absolutely amazing was the continual interruption of one of them by the other with an overpowering stream of "Uh-huh", "OK", "Yeah" and "Right". The machine gun like, interruptor blast from this guy was relentless. So what else was there for me to do while draining my morning cup a joe, scanning Domino server logs (yeech) and being forced to listen to this??? Start doing a little of my own logging, of course. According to my stats, he managed to spit out
49 utterances of "Right"
85 utterances of "Uh-huh"
24 utterances of "Yeah"
24 utterances of "OK!"
Which, averaged out over the 10 minute collection period, breaks down to
4.9 Rights per/minute
8.5 Uh-huhs per/minute
2.4 Yeahs per/minute
2.4 OKs per/minute
and that adds up to 18.2 interruptions per/minute. Almost 1 interruption every 3 seconds.
That's almost as impressive as the guy at my last job who used to chew each bite of his Grape-Nuts cereal 15 to 20 times before swallowing.
Yes, I am completely insane.
Good job. I know from experience that it's hard to log those sorts of things as they happen.
Posted by: justin | March 17, 2006 at 05:25 AM
What's utterly surprising about your data is the conspicuous absence of the interruption "like." I wonder how many of those 2.4 Yeahs/minute were prefaced with "like?" This is the "interruption" I can't help but log on a daily basis.
Posted by: andy | March 18, 2006 at 01:04 AM
Believe it or not, I didn't hear the word "like" once. Which is an astounding omission considering our locale.
Posted by: jj | March 18, 2006 at 10:19 AM
Thankfully my work neighbors have few of these quirks, maybe because it's an older work force...although the gentlelady who sits across from me can't go three minutes without using her "the sky is falling" face.
Posted by: Kilian | March 22, 2006 at 09:03 AM
what? you were listening to my morning cube-aerobics workout from your own cube?
Posted by: tom | March 28, 2006 at 07:56 PM
I work with a young woman who prefaces nearly every utterance with the word "omigosh!" This is usually followed by some story of Job-like personal tragedy, or some mishap at WalMart, or, more often than one would imagine possible, a combination of both themes. She actually throws her hands to her cheeks when she says it. Draw your own conclusions. Oh, hi, jj.
Posted by: brian | April 18, 2006 at 10:10 PM