u/Coconut_Scrambled

TL; DR- I screwed up an introduction call with a senior employee because I assumed he was grilling me unnecessarily.

I recently joined a company (I don't wish to reveal the details to maintain anonymity) after finishing MBA. I got placed in a relatively senior role. My manager asked me to connect with other people working on her level so that I get an overall sense of what's going on in the team before I start my work.

My third or fourth day at the office, they hosted a team lunch. During the lunch, I met one of the guys whom my manager asked me to talk to. At first I told him I'm a new joinee and he was very warm and welcoming, joking around etc. However, while we were having lunch, something suddenly changed. I guess he asked another senior employee (also on my manager's level) about me and what I'm going to be doing. His demeanor changed and he got serious and started asking me about my technical qualifications. I got a slight inkling that it could be jealousy. This man has 20 years of work experience in the company and here I am, some kid with just 6 years work experience and I'm placed in the level just below him. However, I do have a tendency to assume malicious intent where there is none so I let it go and moved on.

A couple of days later, I had my one on one connect with him as my manager asked me to (it was a Teams call). Since we already met once face to face, I thought we didn't need any formal intro. I said hi, how are you and I started talking about why I scheduled the call. He stopped me and said, "First tell me about yourself. I have no idea what's your background. Tell me what role you're here to do. What's your experience etc etc." The tone here caught me off guard but I maintained composure and told him that I'm not yet sure what I'm going to do since my manager hasn't told me. I gave him an executive summary of my career before MBA. Then he started asking me about my technical capabilities. I told him what they were and I assumed we were good to go but he didn't back off. He kept asking me in depth about what I did with each technology. When I explained, he was like "Okay so you did only this much with X? So you did this much with Y?" I answered a little bit but after a point it started to feel like this guy was interviewing me. I finally put my foot down and said "Okay let me clarify the agenda of this call. I'm merely trying to understand what is the work that we do here. Like I said, I'm not sure what I'm going to be doing here yet so if that's what you're trying to understand, you can contact my manager." I know this is a bit direct and basically the corporate speak for "You're not interviewing me so stfu" but he was getting on my nerves. Maybe I was wrong to assume malicious intent but this call put together with his attitude during team lunch made me feel like he was being a d!ck because he's insecure. Maybe I'm completely wrong though and he was merely trying to get to know more about my background.

Anyway, he obviously got offended at what I said. He started giving me a long lecture about how technical skills are important at senior level also and about how he does 3-4 new joinee introductions every week and this is by far the most difficult intro call he's ever been part of etc. Realising that I offended him, I told him "No, I'm simply clarifying to you what the agenda of the call is because you seem to be asking me for my whole resume." (Maybe this wasn't the de-escalation that I thought it was). He replied with "Yeah you're asking me for my resume so isn't that fair I ask you for yours?" I so wasn't asking him for his whole resume but he went on to justify by saying "I just need to know what you're an expert in so I can give you a relevant briefing." Which I think is bs because my initial elevator pitch should have been enough for that but I guess it was an attempt to de-escalate from his side so I agreed with him. I then gave him a detailed walkthrough of my resume.

From there, the call went somewhat smoother. He half heartedly and quickly explained everything his team does in a single breath (too fast for me to make a note of anything). We then finished the call on (at least what I hope was) a good note. I thanked him and he wished me good luck.

IDK if I'm at fault for the call going poorly at first. I hope I saved it in time and I am really worried how my tenure here is going to be now that I managed to piss off a guy with such a huge experience and working on the same level as my manager.

Too Long, didn't read (TL; DR)- I screwed up an introduction call with a senior employee because I assumed he was grilling me unnecessarily.

I don't know if it has been discussed why Nikki walks backwards or if there's an official theory. But this is just my read:

In the scene where she starts walking backwards, is when Bear stops once more and asks Nikki if she loves him and if she likes him. As a response she reassures him that she loves him and then as she walks backwards, Nikki says "Rail me. Rail my guts!"

The previous time when Bear stops and wonders if Nikki really likes him is at the restaurant when he asks her if she loves him more than anyone else in the world and she says yes. Then he asks about her dad. Freaky Nikki sees that Bear is having doubts and she gets upset, followed by Bear reassuring her that it doesn't matter to him. Then they go back home and we know what happens.

So here's the theory: Freaky Nikki isn't just randomly out of the blue asking him to "rail her". When Bear had doubts last time if she was the real Nikki, she noticed that his doubts went away after they had sex. Hence when Bear has this doubt again, she's offering him sex yet again to remove those doubts again, just like before.

And this one is a bit of a stretch - she's walking backwards because she has limited cognitive ability. Her brain is thinking back to what she did when this situation arose last time. It's literally rewinding and hence so is her body. She's yelling like that because she has to fight very hard with the real Nikki who's trying to get out and stop Freaky Nikki from offering sex again and maybe take advantage of Bear's vulnerable moment and try and reason with him.

This is a slightly old story but it's been bugging me and I finally decided to ask it here.

So right out of college, me (who was 22M at the time) and four of my friends rented a flat together in Bangalore. We knew each other from back home in different ways- school friends, college friends, neighbors back home etc. Since we were all placed in the same company my friend's dad suggested and all five of us rented a 2BHK flat together.

A few months later, one of my friends got an opportunity to go to US as a temporary on-site for three months. Since he's eventually coming back and his things will remain there, naturally I assumed that he'll keep paying his share of the rent even in those three months. However, in the dinner that we went out to to celebrate his posting, he vaguely hinted that he's not going to be paying the rent for those three months and this surprised me. What surprised me even more is that the other three guys seemed to be okay with that.

So later I talked to those three about it and the exchanges were frustrating. They went something like this:

Their reasoning: He's not staying here so he shouldn't be paying rent.

Me: Well that's not how renting works. You pay rent whether or not you use something if you rent it.

Them: But we're friends. We should help each other out like that.

Me: Why are we helping him out? It's not like he's gonna have to pay rent in US since he's getting company accommodation

Them: Him getting company accommodation is none of our business

Me: If that's the logic, if I go on a week's vacation with my family, will you be okay if I don't pay the rent for that week?

Them: (after laughing at me) So basically you're bringing this up because you want us to refund your rent for when you went on that vacation?

Me: I still don't understand why we're supporting him "financially". He's going to US for the betterment of his career. True that he's still getting paid in Indian salary but it's just for three months. It's not like he's struggling or anything

Them: Now you're just being jealous that you didn't get that opportunity

I wanted to talk to the guy going directly because this did bother me. The rent share wasn't that high but the principle was absurd. But then like I said, these guys are friends from back home and I didn't want to sour the relationship so I just let it go even though I very much didn't want to. This was several years ago and it still bugs me though. AITK here?