the know it all

We all have someone like this at the office. You know who I'm talking about. That guy who knows EVERYTHING. The nerd gamer who knows random tidbits of information that you never even thought to think about.

He's the one who complains about how stupid everyone else is; Always suggesting "better" ways to accomplish the mission; Improving (in his own eyes) standard company procedures that are older than the dinosaurs; The guy who looks down on everyone who has a normal IQ.

That's who I'm talking about. He's the guy that talks of leaving the firm in pursuit of a higher education. He's the one who has a BA in Communications, but in his spare time writes about Quantum Mechanics. He frequently visits websites that predict how our galaxy will evolve years from now. And don't forget he can accurately pinpoint when our sun will eventually explode, because it's a yellow dwarf star. (His words, not mine)

When you see him snickering to himself while watching Youtube at work, you think you've got him. Maybe he actually is a normal guy who sneaks and watches movies at work. That is, until you walk over to check out what he's trying so hard to conceal his laughter over. Turns out to be a video of another (older) nerd demonstrating an experiment that proves the velocity of an object propelled from a moving object will be the same as the object it was propelled from. (SHEESH! Try saying that five times fast)

He's always saying stupid things like that, and when he taps you and says, "Get a load of this. Can you believe this idiot thinks the Mayans were mystic 'cause they created those pyramids?" You just shrug, laugh and say, "Yeah. what an idiot." Even though you believe Mayans probably had help from aliens because they were too primitive to design such precise architecture.

"I know, right?" he asks. "Anyone can do anything with the power of math. That's how the ancient pyrimids were designed,-- using math. Duh!" He rolls his eyes. You roll yours too, but for different reasons. He'll never know how you barely passed math for dummies in college. But that's none of his business anyway.

Earlier today he distracted me from my work by waving a flat folded piece of aluminum foil until I caught it in my peripheral vision. I looked in his direction. He asked if I want to see something. I said "Sure." The next five minutes of my life were so boring, I nearly fell asleep. He went on and on about how the foil blocks some kind of waves. He places his cell phone in the foil pocket he made, and says all the bars began to disappear one by one. He also told me that he tried this experiment while standing next to his car, and it was even worse. He didnt have service for like five minutes, or something like that.

I guess it's kind of cool having the nerd working next to me, because I get to learn all types of random facts. (One time he even told me about what rights I have if I'm ever pulled over by the cops and they want to search my car. That was actually useful information!) I even learn science from time to time, as demonstrated earlier in this post. However, I'm still convinced that I would be fine without this knowledge. I mean, I'm 31 and have lived this long not knowing, right?

Do you have a know-it-all in your workplace? How do you avoid him/her?