It all started with a simple meeting request from HR. "Can someone please get Ellen to stop talking?" they asked. At first, we thought it was a joke. A meeting to discuss the art of silence? How quaint. How...human.
But as the days went by, we realized that Ellen was not just a chatty coworker, but a force of nature. She would talk during meetings, during lunches, and even during our precious coffee breaks. We needed a solution.
Thus, we formed a team of experts: a linguist, a psychologist, and a ninja. Our mission: to get Ellen to stop talking.
We tried to understand the root of the problem. What drives Ellen to talk so much? We discovered that she was a word hoarder, a collector of sounds and syllables. She needed to be spoken to, not just heard.
We implemented a new system: whenever Ellen started talking, we would respond with a simple "uh-huh" or "mmm-hmm." It would give her the illusion that we were listening.
But it didn't work. She just talked louder.