Wow, the boys at Triablogue are having a field day. Check out Patrick’s latest shot across my bow. (And they’ve had at least two other posts about me since then.) Patrick has definitely been putting a lot of time and effort into formulating comebacks to my witty posts.
But is it too much time and effort?
As I read through Pat’s work I was reminded of an episode of Seinfeld called “The Comeback”. The scene opens with George Costanza gorging himself on a shrimp cocktail at a meeting when George’s coworker throws out a witty remark: “”Hey George, the ocean called. They’re running out of shrimp!” And with that everyone bursts into laughter.
A moment later the conversation has moved on. But not for George. He spends the rest of the episode planning out his great comeback which turns out to be this: “Well, the Jerk Store called, and they’re running out of you.”
Here’s the problem. George missed the moment. And he put way too much thought and effort into crafting the “perfect rebuttal”. But things don’t work like that. If you put too much time and effort into these things it sort of ends up backfiring. People start to wonder “Is he still thinking about that? Doesn’t he have something more important to think about?”
Pat, I dunno if “The Comeback” applies to you or not. But you might want to think about it. Here’s the start of the episode for further reflection.
