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"Teach Me Something..."

I say this. A lot. I'll walk into someone's office, sit down, and bellow it. Poor Tom heard this way too many times. Sometimes I learn really neat stuff, but most of the time I get rather blank looks. Why? Do these people not know anything that I don't already know? Hardly! I've been blessed to work with really intelligent people over the years.

I think it is because most people are thrown off by improvisation. They'd rather have time to prepare so they don't stumble or feel dumb or so they are simply more comfortable or... something. I dunno. There is something to be said about the power of improvisation, but I'll leave that to the likes of Malcolm Gladwell and other smarter people.

Me? I was a drama fag. In fact, I was Queen of the Drama Fags in High School (although we couldn't print that title in the yearbook, that was the real title). I didn't get too much out of the experience (besides an inordinate amount of personal bullshit that is rightly associated with drama fags), but I don't have much of a problem with improvisation or public speaking.

So one day Tom, sure he's got me, comes into my office and bellows "teach me something!" and without missing a beat I say "So I know you know Objective-C's reference counting, but have you ever heard of a Baker Two-Space Copying Collector?" and walk up to the whiteboard and start to draw.

Gotcha Tom.