S2: "I have this habit of trying to come up with creative ways to solve a problem even if I have to put forth a lot of effort into it because I assume that it will make me understand the problem better. Plus, I feel more rewarded this way."

His response when I pointed out that his way has always been different and always caused him and others more problems until he works through it. Even if his way is infinitely more complicated.

Example: We're supposed to (easy way and TA's solution way) use Solver with a sum of the difference squared error to find parameters in a HW assignment. S2 went out of his way to use Gram-Schmidt and MathCad. No one else is using either. S2 crashed his computer a few times and worked for a few hours to "get it right" and "get it more accurate than any one else's"

I've been wondering how on earth S2 can get a girlfriend. I thought maybe she's uh...special. Or guys never hit on her. Or she has quirks that turn all guys away.

1. Found out she thinks S2 is calm. Strike 1

2. She can't think for herself. Ever. She called him to tell her whether or not she should go to sleep. Strike 2.

3. She needed help setting up and plugging into a router. A frakking router. And she's out.

S2, please stop talking in a high voice for no reason at all, it isn't amusing, charming, or funny in any way. It is really just ridiculously annoying.

1. S2 didn't believe he should tip people. He claims his jobs in retail and as a custodian were far worse. He didn't tip until some of us lectured him about it. I guess he didn't know that waitstaff get paid under minimum wage because they're expected to make up the difference in tips.

One time we went to a bar and he wanted to close his tab. S2 raised his credit card and held it out like he was royalty, expecting the bartender to come immediately to close the tab. Bartender was busy, couldn't come right away, S2 got mad and wondered what was wrong with the service.

Another time, a group of 8 of us walked into the restaurant portion of the place and sat down for dinner. Waitress was busy and tried to keep up with our orders and requests. Once, she came over and asked us if we wanted water. Loudly...so that we could all hear. A few people said yes. But not S2. She came back with waters and S2 looked angry and said "where's mine?" The waitress left to take care of 3 other tables and walked by us with plates in all of her arms. S2 had raised his hand and was waving. When she rushed by and didn't see, he basically yelled "WELL SOMEONE'S NOT GETTING A TIP".

Last time in the bar (for now). We're eating dinner. I buy a pitcher for me and a friend since I owe him. S2 pours himself a glass of beer. He orders a $6 meal. He threw in $10 for all of his stuff. He got upset when we didn't give him change back. We told him that whatever was left of his $10 was absorbed into the tip. He said he "expected $10 to last longer".

2. S2 has a tendency to come to my cube and do work. While he's working, he talks to himself. One time:

"So then I carry this...take the derivative...I have a really bad habit of talking aloud....mostly to myself...maybe I should stop...but I continue with this...and the boundary condition is this..."

3. I had to tell S2 to "use his inside voice" because he was so loud. He's older than me. I had to tell a grown man to use his inside voice.

He didn't hear. Precisely because he wasn't using his goddamn inside voice.

4. S2 has a tendency to open himself up to bad things happening to him...and then he gets upset and claims it isn't his fault. He went to see the professor for help on a problem, the professor said "your solution looks a lot like coworkerofstan's, did you work together?"

The correct answer was no. And that's true, as we did not work together except for one part where we both got stuck and we simply bounced ideas off of each other. S2's answer: "Is that a problem?"

The professor gave us a lecture on copying hw solutions and working in groups during class that day. S2 said the professor was being ridiculous. I sternly told him that he royally fucked up by answering that question improperly. What happened next?

S2: "Well, if I said 'no, I didn't work with coworkerofstan' it would have been untrue since I got to that point when I was sitting next to you in your cube"

Me: "....that doesn't mean I worked with you on it. in fact, we worked separately until that difficult point, and we didn't write down the same thing for what happened after"

He then said something about how I just wouldn't get it.

5. S2 told a story about how awful working in industry is. He said his 1st week at his 1st internship, he got sprayed/covered with resin while changing a pump filter. The reason? He screwed up and didn't tighten one screw correctly. For some reason, that became industry's fault...and he was "lucky to not get fired"

1. S2 gave me a lecture on how the moon affects tides. Apparently, he had to look this up online and was fascinated by the fact that the moon causes high/low tide. When he asked me if I knew this amazing fact, I said simply "Yes, the moon being closer to the earth on one side causes water to be drawn there, thus creating high tide near the moon and low tide away from it on the other side of the earth." He claimed that I didn't understand how the moon could do this and that there was no point explaining it to me because I "wouldn't get it".

I guess he missed this day in elementary school when tides were explained?

2. S2 claims that a "good thermo problem" is to explain why it takes longer for 2 turkeys to cook in an oven than 1 turkey. When my friend responded "...it's because there's greater mass to heat up", S2 replied, "no that's wrong."

3. He had said conversation while I was on the phone with my dad. I could not hear my dad on the phone because S2 was yelling. This resulted in the following:

Friend: "Dude, lower your voice, he's on the phone and it sounds really important."

S2: "What? Are you telling me to shut up?"

Friend: "NO, he's on the freaking phone!"

4. We were stuck on a hw problem. S2 came over to my cube and wanted to check his work. He did some stuff wrong and completely overreacted to needing to correct it. Whatevs. After we were on the same page, I said I felt tired and wanted to call it a night to try to go sleep. He didn't leave. I said this another 3 times. He didn't get it. He stayed put and kept trying, uselessly, to solve the problem. I then said, "dude, i'm going to ask the professor tomorrow, i'm just going to call it a night". He nodded, said ok, then kept working. When he expressed his frustration at not being able to solve the problem (yet again), I said "This is why i've already said 4 times that I'm calling it a night and want to go home". He said fine and did not leave my cube. After trying for another 10 minutes and not getting anywhere, he said he was frustrated again, to which I said "YES, this is why I said 5 times already that I am calling it a night and want to go home."

He got upset at me for saying that. Let's recap: he invites himself over, I help him, he's still stuck, I say do it tomorrow a few times, he's still stuck and won't leave my cube, and then when I say "that's enough" he gets upset at me.

5. S2 decided not to even look at one of our homework assignments until 7 pm the night before. He became a whiny bitch about it for the whole night. We all had to help him get caught up to where we were, which took 3 days, in order to get him to shut up. We also had to learn his unique way to code the problems due to his insistence on not using the sample code provided. His excuses for not looking at the pset earlier?

1. "I did other homeworks" (so did everyone else)

2. "I forgot my power cable, so I can't code on a dead laptop." (he forgot it TWICE in 2 days)

3. "I helped other people do other homework" (so did I)

4. "I thought the hw would take 30 mins"

He spent the days beforehand Skype-ing with his GF, watching YouTube, reading Gizmodo, and drawing cartoons for our professor.

Oh man, I have to write the tip stories here later. But I have class stuff to do now.