Spazzers!

I mentioned to R, my manager, today, that the more I work with A, the more he reminds me of T. R said that he'd noticed the same thing. Both A and T are grown men who act much younger and more childishly than their chronological ages would suggest. They're both self-conscious and thin-skinned about being slighted and fear being blamed for things (which are usually their fault), and about getting older. They both ask the same questions over and over again, fail to learn from their mistakes, and more than anything, they get very easily overwhelmed by minor stresses and confusion, and then they panic. They both have logorhea something fierce, and free-associate from one idea to the next, taking for granted that the listener will both care to and be able to follow the connection from one thought to the next. They both seem to have a deep need to be listened to, attended to and reassured. They monologue and don't seem to care that you've heard them say the same thing a hundred times. Actually, everyone in the mailroom does that to some extent. They both have terrible trouble reading (and seem self-conscious about reading out loud), paying attention and sitting still. They sound like typical ADHD, dyslexic nine year olds, don't they? T is about fifty-two and A and thirty-eight.