10 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings

[dlevere]

By Sarah Cooper

These tricks will make you look smart fast

[bungholio]

I'd also recommend letting out the loudest fart and blaming it on those damned bullfrogs.

[Pyriel]

In a pinch, "will this scale," can be exchanged for almost any set of buzzwords. I'll never forget the time we were having trouble with one of our applications, because the architects didn't understand the incoming data, or the target system, and the original developer wasn't in much better shape. Some manager offered a document from the vendor that he thought would help, and the architect glanced at it, and said simply, "is this ablative?" I asked him if he thought it should disintegrate in the atmosphere, move away from the table, or excise growths from his body, and he just looked at me like I was a fool for not reading PMP Magazine or whatever buzzword-laden book he got the term from. Then the smug twat smug-twattedly returned to pulling a design out of his ass, expecting me to write down all his words of wisdom, even though I knew I wouldn't use any part of them.

[bungholio]

That really makes me think of one special person I met years ago. Nobody could stand the guy and he had the worst case of denial I had ever seen. Never before had I seen somebody so hell bent on making himself look like an all-knowing genius every second of every day. You could barely ever talk with him around because he'd always interrupt and say something (usually some idiotic old quote every human being has heard a million times) and instantly turn any subject into something else he'd refuse to lose the argument on, even if he knew absolutely nothing. He was easy to bait that way too. I remember the fun of somebody making up people and he'd say he knows everything about them, and they'd stop and say "Well then who are they, because I just made those names up?" It was about the only time I ever saw him shut up, but only for about 10 seconds which was still an incredible record for him. I kind of think of the Wayne the Brain guy from that Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode. I really hate people doing that.