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.

You simply must see my new lingerie

Not long ago, I wanted to catch up with a good friend of mine, and we pondered the question of where we wanted to catch up, and we quickly decided that we wanted to catch up in front of the chipmunks again, because they are so unbearably cute that we could die watching them. We could also die not watching them. I would die on the spot right here, right now if I knew that I would never ever see them again for the rest of my life. They are that cute. Mind-blowingly cute. Like stare at them for three seconds and you want babies.

So, there we were, sitting side-by-side on a bench facing the chipmunks (striped squirrels). They have a wheel that rotates. It is like a hamster wheel but much larger and made of an open wireframe-like wood-and-metal structure instead of having a solid inner surface for the animal to run on. If the chipmunk and the wheel were scaled up so that the chipmunk is approximately the same size as you, then the wheel would be as large as a Ferris wheel in an amusement park.

These chipmunks loved that rotating wheel more than anything else. They constantly played with it and made it rotate so very fast that the frame-like structure blurred into what looked like a half-transparent solid object. They are at their funniest when three chipmunks are playing with the wheel simultaneously, either inside the wheel or clinging to dear life on the outside of the wheel until the centrifugal force flings them into the air and they land far away, always on their feet and always unharmed.

They are at their second-funniest when two chipmunks are playing with the wheel simultaneously. And when only one chipmunk is playing with the wheel, it is still very cute, and I want to adopt it and take it home with me. Watching these heartrendingly cute, constantly-active chipmunks and their death-defying high-speed acrobatic stunts is a million times better than watching fish in a fishtank.

I find it extremely difficult to take my eyes off them, but I did for a moment, and I noticed a sign with approximately one page of information in the form of a table, and another one next to it. I had never noticed them before. One provided facts about Chinese chipmunks (or striped squirrels from Asia) and the other provided facts about Siberian chipmunks.

I glanced at the one for Chinese chipmunks and immediately remarked, “Wow, the sign says Chinese chipmunks have a life expectancy of up to 10 years. That is impressively long for such a tiny animal that is constantly running around at high speed.”

This friend of mine is also very fast at reading. This causes a bit of rivalry between us. She glanced at the second sign (the one for Siberian chipmunks) and remarked immediately, “Yes, 10 years is impressive, especially considering that the Siberian chipmunks only live for one year.”

I glanced at the sign for Siberian chipmunks and immediately said, “No, that is the approximate age when the female chipmunks begin reproducing.”

She glanced at the information again and exclaimed, “Shit! I hate you! No, no, that's not true. I enjoy being friends with you. I just flipped out for a moment, because the information is not even written in your native language.”

I replied, “Well, I may be able to read 0.5% faster than you, but so far today, more men have looked at you than me.”

She smiled happily. “Piffle. You're just saying that to make me feel better. I bet more men have looked at you today.”

I shook my head in disagreement. “No way. I'm the very slightly smarter one, and you're the beautiful one.”

She smiled again. “More piffle. You're beautiful-er than me.”

“Piffle! You're clearly the beautiful-er of the two of us.”

“I have no doubt in my mind that you are the beautiful-er one.”

“Well, I have no doubt in my mind that you are the beautiful-er one.”

“You're so beautiful.”

“No, you're beautiful.”

“You.”

“No, you.”

She laughed and said, “I love you.”

I laughed and said, “I love you too.”

And then we had sex even despite the fact that we are both 100% heterosexual, and we let her boyfriend watch us and eventually join in. Or at least, that is what you are welcome to imagine happened next if you are a male reader, because it is no skin off my shoulder if you fantasize about extremely unlikely things, so feel free. 🤣

If you want to know what really happened next: A man nearby had overheard us. I felt him staring at us. I turned to him and asked, “Would you like to watch us getting it on?”

My friend giggled. The man opened his mouth to reply, but he was lost for words. He looked like he was stuck in a loop, repeatedly trying-and-failing to decide whether I was pranking him or offering the show for real, because I had made my tone of voice and facial expression highly ambiguous.

My friend said, “Joyce, you simply must see my new lingerie. I'm wearing it under my clothing right now.”

I replied, “No way. Not until you've seen my new lingerie first.”

“No, me first.”

“No, I simply must go first.”

“No, I must.”

The man huffed with annoyance, turned around, and walked away. No doubt he was actually annoyed at himself for believing the unbelievable offer for longer than one second. 🤣