Workplace Personalities - The 3P

3P = Pathologically Proud Parent.

The cliche is to say that this is always a mother, but I have had male colleagues who are equally boring.

These are the colleagues who insist on regaling you in nauseating detail about every tedious, insignificant exploit their child is engaged in. Sporting achievements, Scouts, Girl Guides, acting debuts, music recitals are all weaved into stories worthy of Olympic athletes.

These are the colleagues who guilt you into buying tasteless Girl Scout cookies, who look askance at you on Halloween if you haven't decorated your cube and put out cheap candy, who simply do not understand why you wouldn't want to hold their new baby, a wet-lipped, snot-nosed, purple-faced, wrinkled and gurgling thing who cannot even hold it's own head up.

These are the colleagues who constantly interrupt you to call you over to their cube to view the latest Flickr photos of their bambino, their genius-child, their prodigy.

There is a strange mathematical phenomenon that surrounds these people. For each 3P you add to a conversation, the volume, detail and length of the sharing is cubed.

3P3.

God forbid you are in a meeting with three or more, because you will never get down to business.

Key signs:

• Screensavers of kid pics
• A cube covered in framed kid pics

Catch phrase: Oh my God, you won't believe what little [insert Snotgoblin's name here] did!

Your Strategy: Grin and bear it. Sadly, anything else is non-PC.

Their comeuppance: When their kids become teenagers and start to hate their parents.

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