Talking over Jack and Coke

Before we get underway this morning, I have no idea about what Friday's post was about. None. We'll call it "a by-product of resuming formal education, and the associated late-night work session." Or maybe "silly." That's right, I'm getting edumacated once again. I spent this last weekend in Queenstown, MD, for the George Washington AMBA Program Residency. This will be my learning fix for the next two years of my life, save memorizing the entire dialogue to some Sorkin screenplay. **Tangent Alert** I think it's essential as a movie fan to know all the lines to at least one whole movie, reel to reel, production logo to fade out. And since there's few who can match him in straight dialogue, it's gonna have to be a Sorkin flick. Or maybe all of Sports Night. Hrmm... **End Transmission.**

Anyways, 8 hours a week trying to outdo, outlearn, outquip my cohort of 36 aspiring business professionals. And it all started this weekend, where I got my fill of seminars and classes on personality type (INTP), office dynamics (Don't steal staplers), and management technique (Don't hit employees with said staplers). But the most important reason for this weekend away was to meet everyone else, since we're all going through this together.

The key to starting up a conversation with a new colleague is simple. Find something you have in common with the person, and go from there. As a result, I met a guy who was in the Speakeasys at W&M, a guy who played for Bronx Science against us in PADA all those years ago, and a girl who spent a summer in Prague. But for this other guy I met, named Roi, I have a much weirder connection:

Roi: "Oh, you're from S.Jersey? I have some property in Burlington Twp that I'm trying to sell. Do you know anyone there?"
Me: "Well, yeah, one guy..."

Officially? No, I do not know anyone from Burlington Township. Yet I have more conversations with this person than anyone else save Katie, Spud, and the fam. Who is this masked acquaintence? I like to call him "Jack."

Actually, he likes to call me. About 12 times every month for the past year and a half. You see, "Jack" is a guy who I believe is in his 80s, and every month or so, he calls his son, whose name is Jack, to check in. The problem here? His son has never, ever picked up MY cell phone. Mainly because I'm not him. And no matter what I say to this guy (who I call by his son's name), he keeps calling. Quite often 8 times in 10 minutes. I've calmly explained to him at least 80 times that he has the wrong number...and less calmly another 10 or so. He tells me what he's trying to dial. And it's not me. More on that in a sec.

What's weird is it's not just this guy with no short term memory. Other people call me looking for Jack from the same phone number, and when they do, it's even more entertaining. I know waaaaaay too much about this family because of lengthy messages left on my voice mail (Jack couldn't come up with 'Brevity is the soul of voice mail. That's brilliance, of which Jack just isn't capable of. If he were he'd get Dad a cell phone.) But it'll continue until they realize to take me off of their speed dial, add a 1 before my number, therefore calling outside of the 609 area code, and speak to their long lost son instead.

I bet Roi was expecting a simple "No."