They say if you travel with a friend, at the end of the trip, you’re likely to have become enemies by then.
This is largely due to two persons spending an extended period of time together and finding increasing discomfort with each other’s peculiarities and idiosyncrasies
I recently made two trips with a colleague – one to Hanoi and one to Bangalore – the trips didn’t make us enemies but boy, was I glad when they were over.
I remember the question in the good book: “…why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3-5) so I seek not to condemn knowing how imperfect I myself am.
But I really had enough of piggish behavior!
Pigs are often used in human research, everything from obesity to skin disorders, because their size and bodily functions are similar to humans but I suspect some people I deal with have more porcine DNA than human DNA.
Bloody swine!
I asked myself why I was so relieved when the trips were over and here are the reasons:
My colleague – let’s call him A – has a most annoying habit of say “Huh?!” every time someone says something to him.
He is never punctual.
He also has a bad case of halitosis and body odor.
He seems to have rather poor hygiene too – his finger nails are long, dirty and uncut and he doesn’t shave.
He has horrendous table manners.
What I found even more grating is that he is extremely loud – and I mean loud – and argumentative and very often an embarrassment in meetings – he would fall asleep, snore, or he’ll irritate by drumming the table, tapping loudly on the pages of his book, belching aloud, etc.
He also said many things to our Vietnamese and Indian colleagues that were insensitive and rude.
Having to put up with someone like this on a daily basis for the duration of two business trips, many questions popped up in my mind but the topmost question in my mind was why did our company hire a boor like him?
What is wrong with our recruitment process?
Maybe our recruiter only lookd at academic credentials, maybe our recruiter was impressed by this loud, overly animated and expressive idiot and mistook that for intelligence and confidence?
God has mercy on me if more of such retards are hired.
I’m sure our recruiters will age and mellow and become wiser – they are all in their 20’s.
I hope my colleague A will age and mellow and become wiser too – he too is in his 20’s.
I seriously hope so because I was in my 20’s I wasn’t like that.