My overly excitable coworkers

In my previous workplace, I had the reputation of being the woman that can read a 100-page report in 5 minutes, a reference book in 6 minutes, and an article in 30 seconds. Obviously, that is ridiculous, but the more that I insisted that I am not so fast, the more my coworkers insisted that I am indeed so fast!

We compromised and reached an agreement that I was the fastest and most accurate reader in the team but not in the whole universe. However, later that week, an emergency situation occurred. It needed to be fixed A.S.A.P., because it was costing the company a million dollars per minute (a slight exaggeration).

Unfortunately, nobody knew the cause of the problem. Everyone in the team was stumped. They lined up four large whiteboards on wheels and plastered them with documents, charts, and tables full of data. The team stood there, staring at all the information and discussing it for hours, but nobody could explain or identify the origin of the problem.

I returned to the HQ later that day. I really needed to pee. I had already been holding it in well past the red line. I was in pain. I walked (or rather hobbled) as quickly as possible towards the women's room. This took me past the line-up of the four whiteboards. While I strode past them, I looked at all the pages that were stuck there.

Suddenly I froze. I put my finger on a number in a table and declared, “That's wrong.”

The team members gathered around me and looked at the detail that I had pointed out. Someone started saying, “That's normal. We have plenty of --”

I interrupted and used my other hand to point to a number on another print-out. With my two hands pointing at two things, I said, “This should never exceed that.”

“Oh shit!! You're right! How did you find that so fast?!”

“I need to pee.”

“What? That's not an answer.”

“I need to pee!!”

“But --”

“Pee time! No exceptions!”

“Just tell us how --”

“Move it!! Out of the way or I'll pee on your face!”

“You can't do that!”

“I can and I will! Now get back to work this instant, or I'll make the whole lot of you drink my piss!! I'm carrying enough for all of you!”

So, that was the end of our two-day-old agreement that I am not the fastest reader in the universe. From that day onwards, no matter how hard I slapped them, I could not slap their extreme exaggerations out of their heads. I explained that I just got lucky with the whiteboards, and I cannot always identify an origin so quickly, but they insisted that I was just being humble. They were determined to believe that I have superpowers. Exasperated sigh.

Also, the guys seemed to enjoy being slapped by me. So, I did it more often. Pretty soon, whenever they imagined that they were on the verge of being slapped by me, they began to quiver with excitement.

I tried to reach a new compromise with them. I said that the pain of my bladder nearly exploding had temporarily heightened my perception, but only for a few minutes. They insisted that it was far longer than a few minutes. They claimed that I have at least 20 hours of heightened perception per week. I said that they are like a bunch of little girls who still believe in horoscopes and Santa Claus. It did not work. Nothing could change their opinion about my superpowers.

In reality, I can read very fast, just not impossibly fast, and I was not born with this ability, rather I obtained it via thousands of hours of practice. I also have special techniques for speeding it up. I was not actually trying to learn to read very fast, rather I am terribly impatient, so I need to quickly finish reading something before I get angry, especially if it is something that is easy to rip up.

Every so often, I encounter some people that want me to be their great leader, but I have little interest in being their leader, because my brain is not the type of brain that is preprogrammed with primitive tribal behavior. I am much more interested in discussing powerful strategies that people can use to become independent, self-sufficient, successful, and above all, free.

One time, I was joking around with a colleague, and I joked that I have decided to become the president of the USA. My colleague laughed along with me. Later that day, I repeated the same joke with a different coworker, but he took it seriously!!

He said that it was an excellent plan, and that he would definitely vote for me. He seriously thought that I was trying to become the president of the USA! I was astonished.

In a polite manner, I explained that I was only joking. He seemed to be disappointed. He replied, “Oh, okay.”

Then I proceeded to explain that I do not enjoy leadership, and I believe that leadership is overall more harmful than beneficial to human society. I said that I do not wish to be a political leader or any other type of leader, especially considering the fact that leaders inevitably end up losing respect for their followers. Leaders eventually view their own followers with contempt.

He became emotional. He insisted that I must be a leader. I shook my head and said firmly, “No way.”

He was very offended by my refusal to embrace my “talent” for leadership. He permanently broke off all communication with me, other than the bare minimum required by the workplace.

This indicates that he was very much a beta male by choice. He desperately wished to find the mythical great alpha (of either gender) to worship, follow, and obey, despite the fact that great alphas with superpowers do not exist in real life. Every beta inevitably ends up bitterly disappointed in every alpha that they choose to worship. Then they switch to a new alpha and repeat the same cycle with the same result.

Clever people break the cycle.