Tuesday, June 10, 2008

You know someone wants a favour from you when...

Ever felt odd when that person who's always ignored you comes up to you and becomes nice all of a sudden? When that person who's always in the 'I'm busy' mode when you're online suddenly opens a chat conversation and says “Hi! How are you today?”. Well, chances are, Mr/Mrs X wants a favour from you. In this post, I'll give you a little tutorial on how to tell if someone wants something from you. Once you're through with this, you'll be unmasking those hypocritic maggots in no time! I shall move on to a little categorisation based on how cunning the maggot under consideration is. So with no further ado...

NOTE: I don't know what you call such a person, so I guess I'll continue referring to them as maggots throughout this tutorial. No offence to the real maggots which are just nice little crawly creatures who want to make the world a better place.

Level 1 maggot: Loser class

Skill level: poor
Cunningness: poor
Brains: N/A
Sinister rating: 1/10
Signs: You've never had a conversation with him in your entire life, nor will you for many more lives to come, but this person actually walks into your room, sits on your bed and acts as if he's very interested in whatever you're doing. When asked, “Hey, what brings you here?”, he's dumb enough to answer, “Nothing, just dropped by to say hi, we are friends and all aren't we?”. Note, he said friends. Wrong answer. The verdict: maggot!
Comments: The one finger salute works well. Try it out.

Level 2 maggot: Grunt class

Skill level: less than average
Cunningness: less than average
Brains: Rumours are they do have some, but I still go for N/A
Sinister rating: 3/10

Signs: You're sitting in the mess, cursing your rotten luck to be served cattle feed, when the suspected maggot comes running and sits right next to you. You observe he's already had his meal. You also remember you've just given a kick ass presentation that morning. He puts his arm around you like you grew up together only to say, “Hey man! How're you doing? How's your life going?” Note that both the questions are related to you. This is a sure give away. This person has nothing to do with you at all and you're not related. Chances are, he's going to ask you to help him out with his project but he's going to play around for a while before asking you for certain, just to make you feel comfortable.

Comments: Shove your plate up his throat. And then proceed with the one finger salute.

Level 3 maggot: Striker class

Skill level: above average
Cunningness: above average
Brains: A teeny weeny bit. Or maybe not.
Sinister rating: 6/10

Signs: You know there are a lot of people in your friends list who don't give a beep about you and vice versa? That's the kind of people that we're talking about here. Now you're working away in the server room trying to figure out a solution to a problem that has long been elusive. Then, the maggot opens up a chat conversation saying, “hi”. You also note that he's got the 'I'm busy/Don't disturb/away/I'm dead' status message up. The conversation proceeds as follows:

Maggot: hi
You: hi there! ssup?

...10 seconds later...

Maggot: how are you?

... Notice the delay...

You: uh...i'm ok. Wat abt you?

Maggot: i'm fine.

... It's time to slip up you evil scum...

Maggot: wat are you workin on in the server room again?

... Gotcha!...

This is where they all go wrong. The two of you might have been in the same class for maybe two years and it's been a whole two semesters probably since you've been working in the server room and he knows it and you know that he knows it. BUT, he comes out of the blue and decides to ask you what you've been doing all along? It's strange. It's not like he woke up one fine morning and while having coffee, realisation struck, he went OMGWTF and he figured out he didn't know what you've been doing in the server room all along. I'm sorry. What he really wants to do, is to get a conversation going so he can ask you a little while later to check his grades or something of that sort. Dork.

Comments: Tell him he flunked in all his subjects and that he's got a sem back. It works great!

Level 4 maggot: Elite class

Skill level: High
Cunningness: High
Brains: Lots of it. Lots and lots of it. Or then again, I'm just kidding.
Sinister rating: 10/10

Signs: These guys are the mommy's and daddy's of all the above mentioned maggots. They're the pros. If this whole thing was Warcraft, they would be some boss like Nerzhul, the Lich King. They're pretty good at getting what they want from you. They'll plan way in advance as to get what they want from you and how they're going to go about to get it from you. Even people who rule as much as myself are prone to these things. They're a menace and we should all unite to send them to oblivion. Yet again, I'll take the example of a chat conversation but in this case, the hunter won't make it that obvious until at least half an hour.

Elite maggot: Heya... long time! Have you forgotten me kya?
You: oh hi. yeah right. long time!
Elite maggot: So what have you been doing?
You: oh nothing...just working away...
Elite maggot: i c. when're you going home?

...blah blah blah...

...blah blah blah...

...blah blah blah...

20-30 minutes later, the maggot is out of things to talk about...

Elite maggot: temme...howz ur (continued below)

Remember, all this person wants from you is the favour and he/she doesn't give a shit about you or your life, let alone your...

(continued from above) ....girlfriend? ;)


It's a 99% complete give away and this is a sign for you to become cautious. Put up your guard and be on the defense. Or better, do what I do...

You: hey...the connection seems to have some probs here. I might get disconnected any sec...

Elite maggot: wait... can you do me a favour?


And it's at exactly that instant that you turn invisible to the maggot. You have to time this right ok? It's all about practice. But do keep in mind that this depends heavily on the IM client you're using. For example, in Gtalk, it takes a while for the other person to get the message that you're offline. So it's all about preventing the maggot from knowing that you're sure there's that question coming to you.

Comments: Once you turn invisible, either block that person or ignore him/her for at least a century and a half.


So there you go folks. Hope this helps. And don't forget, squish 'em maggots! And an advice to anyone who wants a favour from me; JUST ASK!

13 comments:

Mavrik said...

happens........
looks like quite a lot of time for u, huh?
Well only thing that comes to my mind after reading this is I might have been that level 1 guy back in our first year..... when I asked your help in the exams :)

You did squash the maggot, didn't ya? ;)

Vivishek Sudhir said...

i am really amazed that u get time to write about such mundane stuff with all your 'busy' server-room schedule :-p but on a graver note, i agree with your classification of 'favor mongers', probably u shud add the 'super elite' class as well... for all those people who r so brilliant n cunning that they actually seem like friends... hey probably all of your real friends are such 'super elites' after all ;-) zen thought eh??

Unknown said...

i love the way uv dealt wid the elite class...maggots lol

but i wish u wud make it more bitchy [:D]make evry1 a maggot - like a maggots hidden in u, leaps out ..u nuture it unknowingly ...

Anonymous said...

Hey, cool! Seems like all the hours you spent online hasn't gone wasted. You are sure to get one research paper out at least! Does Prof. M S Gaur know of your findings? You need to pay him royalty, its His internet after all :)

You missed one kind of maggots though, the upfront on-the-face type, who sit on your case until you do them the favor they ask! Spammers who think they have 100% rights on you... What do you think?

VIKAS PLAKKOT said...

Stunned to see ur research work inspite of the hours of busy schedule of linux, server rooms and whatever! :)
The Elite Maggot Class thing was just fantastic.. How true!
But I had just go for the easy shortcut, Delete them from your friends list :)

Sumeet Seth said...

Grunt class was superb!!

But, the elite was a masterpiece!

And, dude, lemme tell you, you got some serious shit in you man....

Amazing writing style, hilarious to the core...

Damn, this is turning out to be one of my favorite blogs ever.!! Keep writing.... and i will make sure the RSS feed constantly keeps me updated of a new post as well....

:)

Lalith said...

Hey everyone. I couldn't access the server room for two days so I couldn't work then. Wrote this during my idle time. Vivishek, I agree. Thinking from that angle, all your friends are super-elites. Nikhila, I actually thought of that. Because everyone has potential! Pixel (Murmuria), I guess I did miss out on that one, but that isn't exactly a maggot is it? Because they at least tell you what they want real quick! And yes, Gaur Sir knows I have a blog. I have links to my 'A little hack and lo! The SMS is sent...' article in the zabbix documentation I'd shared with him. Vikas, yeah, deleting works just as fine :). And Sumeet, thanks a lot! I'll remember our deal ok?

chetna samant said...

hmmmmm... unlike d others here who wonder how d-gr8est-geek-alive-lalith got time outta his hectic schedule 2 write dis super informative blog 4 us, i for one m d least surprised. he's got a knack for making such observations and on top of it presenting it in suchh a humorous style(4 those who dont belong to d class of d 'maggots' themselves)!!!

however i'd say dat d 'maggots' do deserve a chance dude!! i mean sometimes wat they aspire for is just nothing more than a smmaaall favour like knowing their grades as u've written, so maybe, just maybe u can humour them ONCE, and in return ask for bigger favours sometime later ...
in short give d maggot a dose of its own medicine..wat say? haha
u may get back on it this way!!

but it all depends on how high d maggots' IQ(irritation quotient) is.

for high-ranging IQs.. well.... what cn i say..u're d best at squashing 'em!!

Akshat said...

The post is Legendary ...
If you do not mind can I copy it to my blog ....
Also I was wondering in which category would I fall ... need to check my chat log "How I asked u get my provisional degree out" .... Will tell u the answer in a while (or better do me a FAVOR and tell me ;) )

SSK said...

Well ma boy, sensing the 'Maddox' kick ass style writing here!(......hmmm.....not TAT close even :p......) A very good 'Classification' approach which i shd say 'pawned' the idea!! :D......(we GAMERS Rule!! :p).......moreover, the Attributes i shd say were smartly chosen, could have added the 'Delta proximity' rating:- prox b4 and after askin of the favor; as well!!.......even a conclusion wid the 'tablular approach' would have looked SMASHING!! :).........witty comments (esp Striker class Comment :p).........and the classic Lalith humour......in short a NEAT post!! :)

Ps. Lolz at Akshat's comment!!!! :D

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

dude!! touched on a topic, you really are sensitive bout init !?! :P ... Comp dept batch of 2006 beware !! The above blog is aimed only and only at U !! :P .. i know some of the people mentioned above myself ... tho it would be great if who could tabulate the whole list (category wise) for me boi !! awesome categorization ... one last doubt ! Maggots trying to make the world a better place to live ?!! :D

kirti agarwal said...

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
ok....here it comes i think m the level 3 maggot!!must say..brilliant stuff..humour+sarcasm at its best..