He wanted everyone to think of him as the devil's incarnate. One could find him sitting someplace with a set of people listening to him with wonder in their eyes as he bragged about his wild escapades, which always involved booze, running into trouble and resolution through brute force. I being who I am avoided him for as long as I could. But then fate brought us together in the form of an on-site project. Fate promoted him from being a distant colleague to someone who was part of my life 24 hours a day (in a completely unromantic way, that is).
The bragging about living on the wild side of life continued. Every evening he suggested visiting some club or the other. Every time, I shook my head vigorously to suggest a vehement no. At home, I spent most of time, locked in my room. The only time we spent together through the day was duing lunch and dinner. The pattern of conversation at these times, remained the same; he would talk and talk and then talk some more and I would respond with a "mmmm hmmmm" or "Oh! is it?" or "Ah". The stories of bravado continued. "I have to tell you about that time when I beat up a TASMAC guy ...", "I caught hold of the auto drivers neck from the back and asked him to slow down..." and "I designed the heavy water storage unit at a nuclear reactor in Japan...", "I ensured that the plane did not take off till I reached ..." and so on.
Over time, the content of the conversations moved into the official zone - about this project or that issue. He continued to brag though - about how he had solved an issue or how the manager patted his back and said he was the best. This version of him was worse than the earlier one. I looked back at the TASMAC narration days longingly and a few times attempted to get him back to that zone. But he brushed it off and went back to "... and this is cool part. I used this variable to move that value here and then called the Fourier transform function that I had created..." To make matters worse, the fellow was terribly competitive. He sulked around the house the two or three times I completed my work earlier than him. He would want to see my work to try and poke holes in it. I wondered if he had an evil twin who disposed him and was now living like him with me (So many hims that it could pass off as a himn).
Six months, into the project, I underwent an annual review. As ever, I was a awarded a boring 90 percentile - a location that seemed right at the top but in reality was miles away from it and was so crowded that one could hardly breathe. There is a saying in the corporate circle that states "He who resides in the 70 percentile can move to 99 but the 90 percentile shall not move an inch, this way or that". So I was a boring and barely effective good performer. At that time, I was young and had not realised this eternal truth. I came home and found my colleague sitting on the bean bag looking glum. As soon as I got into the room, he ranted.
"The bloody fellow gave me a 97. Can you believe it, a 97? How can he do this? You will not believe the reason he gave for this 97. He claims that on-site people don't get more than 90 and that 97 is better than the best. I don't like anything less than one hundred. I had resigned to being a 99 in this damned organization. Now, they pull me down to 97. Soon I will be wallowing around in the 90s. You know, I was always a first ranker in my school and college. No one was better than me and now I am a 97. Three percentile people are considered better than me."
He ranted on for a good 27 minutes. At the start of minute 28, I feigned headache and got into my room. I switched on the computer and sent a mail to my manager requesting him to get me off this on-site project. Managers loved such mails. They could fill this position with another eager young soul who had been pestering the manager from the minute he had been confirmed in the organization. In a matter of weeks, I was back home and never saw him again. I would rather be with cocks who thought they were peacocks than be with a real peacock that strutted around like one.
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