Smarty Pants Alert! (What To Do and What Not)

Have you ever experienced being bugged by people who think they know better than you? The constant blabbering without making much sense seem to fill the entire room and you feel that there is no escape, is this somehow familiar? What would be a workplace without the annoying, sometimes intrusive smart-alecks?

Unfortunately for me, I seem to be sharing an 8 hour training with smart-alecks that sometimes I just can’t help it but lose my cool. On my very first week, it was like an endless torture that the only way to keep me sane is my mantra “Happy Thoughts”. It didn’t really seem to help because I would end up going home stressed. 

On the second week, I had to figure out how to survive. This time, I decided to know the enemy deeper. I tried to discover why they are like that and based on my observation, I guess what they lack is acceptance. One is a single mom, just trying to squeeze in by armoring herself of knowledge overload without realizing that too much of it just kept her away from understanding the lesson resulting her to ask irrelevant questions that put her on PDI mode. (PDI: Public Display of Ignorance). The other is simply disillusioned into believing that he is a hunk and that girls should be swarming because of his unique skin color.

Since I would still be exposed to them for the next 3 weeks, I came up with a plan on how to stay composed despite their inevitable presence.

·         As soon as they start opening their mouths, I would have to look away and busy myself on the different notes my seatmates have. (Actually, that would also save me from copying unnecessary information from the powerpoint presentation.)

·         When, one starts to read with his or her mouth while digging in on assessments, I would politely request that he or she read the test with EYES ONLY.

·         If one would start asking senseless questions, I will be excusing myself to go to the john which will be very good for my bladder.

·         If one would start singing, I would courteously suggest to get an early break.

·         If they just won’t stop and I’ve ran out of tactics, I guess I’ll just have to pray hard for a miracle, particularly the trainer, to call their attention and ask them to refrain from over-expounding on senseless points.

I’m not really sure if I am that equipped to survive this ordeal but I’m just keeping my hopes up. For the meantime though, I just hope I don’t find myself saying, “Talk to the hand…PLEASE!”