Blinded By The Light

In almost every company you work at I think there is always one or two people that you instinctively dislike for no particular reason. It may because how they look, talk, act or even the type of clothes they wear. Little strange things that make you say to yourself 'I really don't like that person'.

Well in my company there is such a guy named Sean Hayes, who is a Project Manager in our I.T. (Information Technology) group. The minute I met him a few years ago I realized that I couldn't stand the guy.

I know that probably sounds sort of petty to someone who is reading this, but as I have said many times before 'I'm a petty man.' but in this case, I believe I had good reason.

I mean this Sean has a rather pompous and arrogant way about him when he spoke and if that was not enough, everything he wore or owned had his initials of S.H. emblazoned on them. Like they were so valuable one of his coworkers was going to steal them off him, the goof.

Anyway this idiot left the company about two years back and now he has just been hired back.

"I don't believe it!" I raged, looking over at Greg as our department meeting just finished.

"I just can't understand why they would hire that weasel, Sean Hayes, back here again after we had seen the last of him years ago." I continued. "I really despise that guy!"

Greg, the manager of my department, looked at me and just shook his head. "I can't believe you are still holding a grudge with Sean, it has been over two years now."

Just as I was about to continue in my attack on Hayes, he came up to both of us with his hand extended, pretending to be happy to see us, well maybe just pretending with me as I am sure he probably got along fine with Greg, as most folks tend to.

"I thought you left to work overseas?" Greg asked in his sneering nasally tone, looking me up and down. "I heard you left the Calgary office for England last year. Did the Brits throw you out?"

"No" I responded harshly. "If you had taken the time to read our company's Annual Report you would have seen that they sold off all of the overseas assets late last year."

"Once they sold the London office, I returned here and am now a contracting consultant to my old group and Greg here is the manager. I see you still don't do your homework or you would know all this."

Before we could get into our verbal fight any further, the Vice-President of our company came up and grabbed Sean to take him around the office to introduce him further.

"You still actually really hate that guy don't you?" Greg observed, as we headed back to his office for a coffee.

"Of course I do" I replied. "Everything about him puts me off from the egocentric attitude to his monogrammed briefcase, tie, dress shirts, etc. It's like he can't remember his own damn initials."

"As I've always said to you in the past, you know what you get when you put S.H. in I.T.? I think that sums it up quite well!"

As we were sitting down for coffee and I had finally calmed down, Greg brought up the subject of Sean Hayes once again.

"You know he's really not too bad a guy." Greg commented. "I think the real reason you dislike him is because of that stupid staff trivia night we had. That's when it all started."

Greg of course was right on this point. My real hatred towards Sean began the fateful night of the only staff function that I used to always look forward to and attend - Music Trivia night.

You see, I have always prided myself in being somewhat of an expert in music trivia (as can be seen with all my blog titles) so I always made a point of showing up to this annual event in order to win the staff trophy for my team and also to have bragging rights for the next 12 months to anyone who came within earshot of me. It was a petty foolish pride thing I realized, however it was something I enjoyed immensely.


So the night of the contest arrives and that year we had 4 teams. Greg and myself and Sean were on the team, along with 4 employees who directly reported to Sean and as such, he was elected our team captain.

It was quite clear from the start that Sean was in way over his head and had no idea about music or trivia whatsoever. This was evident from some of his bizarre comments and guesses he would blurt out.

However, being that he is the egotistical douche bag that I told you he was, he would not admit to his lack of knowledge and seemed to want to 'save face' in front of his brown-nosing employees who had elected him as their Captain.

So we were at the final round of the competition and just needed to answer one question right to win it all. Answering wrong would result in us losing a point and the other team would win however the question we got was quite simple. Or so I thought.

It was the song "Blinded by the Light" performed by Manfred Mann from the seventies. The lead singer kind of mumbled the lyrics a bit and as a result not everyone was familiar with them. (you can see and hear it HERE )

Anyway the trivia question was, "What is the first line of the song Blinded by the Light?"

Sean Hayes arrogantly turns to the group and proclaimed "This is one I know for sure. The first line is 'Blinded by the light, dressed up like a douche, another runner in the night.'

As his brainless minions quickly jumped on the bandwagon and all agreed with him readily, I stood up from my chair to get his attention as best I knew how.

"WTF!" I yelled. "What does that even mean - dressed up like a douche? Clearly it is 'Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night.' "

"Oh, I don't think so" Sean laughed back at me, in this uppity tone, which I immediately took offence to. "Your words make no sense, complete gibberish. There is no such thing as a deuce."

"It's a car, you Dick" I snapped back at him angrily. "Deuce Coupe. They were a car built by Ford in the 1930's. Didn't you ever hear of the Beach Boys song 'Little Deuce Coupe'?"

"I think our team has spoken" Sean replied contemptuously. And with that he immediately turned his back to me and announced that our 'teams' answer was 'Blinded by the light, dressed up like a douche, another runner in the night.'

After the judge had finished laughing loudly and openly to this response, he then verified the words were exactly what I had said and awarded the trophy to the other team. The night was over and we had not only lost but were publicly embarrassed at the same time.

Greg could see I was seething over this entire situation as Sean had not even offered an apology to the team or me.

"That was actually kind of a tough question." Greg observed, attempting to calm me down. "I didn't know the answer either. So you're saying there's no douche?

"Oh there's a 'douche' alright." I spat. "Just not in the song lyrics but rather sitting at the end of our table who just lost us the contest."

Shortly after this occurred, Sean left the company for so called 'greener pastures' which by his sudden and unwelcomed reappearance today would seem that they were not as green as he had initially thought.

This all happened two years ago and I still can recall every ugly detail of that evening.

Well now the douche has returned. Trivia night is only two months away and this guy better keep his distance from me, if he knows what's good for him.

As I said earlier, I'm a petty man.