Longling can't stop crackin' wise.

“Even way back then people would say that I ‘had a knack’ for conversation…my brother and sister are still mad at my mom for letting me answer the phone when we were growing up instead of them despite the fact that I was six and eight years younger than they were-- it was just that I had a way with the callers and exuded a certain finesse in the ways of polite conversation. The lunch ladies and janitors in school couldn’t get enough of me either…I guess it really is a gift.”

Continually honing his craft throughout the years, Longling, now a thirty-something desk jockey in a large corporation, has turned his “gift” into an oddity that has taken his workplace by storm-- weaving a web of surface-level discourse that has his coworkers anxiously awaiting their next awkward encounter in the hallway or standing at the urinal just to hear what this “maestro of the mouth” might say next.

Coworker Dan Stuebens, “Phil is really something else. We all know what it can be like; working 8 to 5 and not really giving a rat’s ass about what we’re doing, but Phil seems to make it seem less like a death sentence and more like…well…mowing the lawn with headphones on-- you don’t want to be doing it, but at least you have something to help the time go a little bit faster. With Phil, each time you see him’s an adventure. Most people mope around the office and simply say things like ‘this weather’s crazy,’ ‘how’s it goin’?,’or ‘is it 5 yet?,” but Phil really comes up with some gems. Just the other day I was saddled up next to him in a bathroom stall to work on my ‘morning report’ (ha-ha) when I hear him say, ‘Christ almighty, did I just shit a little bit in my pants?’ Of course he said it under his breath so I couldn’t really hear him that well, but still, that’s pretty good. This morning I said ‘Hi Phil,’ and he replied, ‘Not yet.’ That’s outrageous. He should be on a radio show or something."

Despite the ongoing accolades from his office-mates and the obvious joy that he brings to the world, Phil still pauses periodically and wonders if his gift of gab isn’t more of a curse than it is a blessing.

“Sometimes I think to myself… ‘Do they even care about the real me, or am I just some trick pony that bucks for their amusement.’ I know that it’s wrong not to embrace your talents, but I can’t be ‘on’ forever. One day my voice will grow silent, and who will be there to strike up the conversation then?”

We’ll do it Phil…we’ll do it.