- All your base are belong to us -

New recruits to my Prison, I mean, workplace (I kid) suffer an indignation that infringes every chapter in the UN Human Rights Charter. It is a public and ostentatious humiliation no single human, primate or marsupial should have the misfortune of enduring, and one that nothing and noone can come out of with nary a shred of dignity left in his being.
They're made to write a little about themselves. To make matters worse, a picture of the subject accompanies each piece.

While not daring to insult my colleagues and with all due respect to them, the process of reading some of the pieces is equally painful. The articles all seem to adhere to a particular template, so much so that on occasion it seems as if they were written by one Central Scribe. My name is soandso, I studied yadayada at hereandthere, my hobbies are watching my nails grow and I hope to learn a lot from everyone here! Yay!
You can almost hear the jubilation with which they end off their write-ups.

Unsurprisingly I failed to avoid this unpalatable task and on my 2nd day I had to write about myself. Unsurprisingly I had more than enough time to agonize over it.

Weirdly enough I received plaudits for my write-up, goodness knows why:

Writing about oneself is always a daunting task, one nigh on impossible in my opinion.
There is always the risk of sounding boastful should one decide to trumpet his achievements ( I would, if I had any ) or putting one's audience to sleep by painstakingly expounding every last facet of one's life ( no one wants to hear about my cat, fish and recently deceased other fish ).
What is there to say in 10 lines or less that would succintly describe me, yet not subject the reader to abject boredom?

That despite my 1.86m-frame, my passion lies in football (Newcastle, thank you) , not basketball?
That I blog as an avenue down which I direct the pent-up emotion of everyday life?
That 2 years reading Economics at the LSE, that bastion of student politics, followed no knowledge whatsoever of the subject in JC, where triple science tormented my every waking moment?

No, for that would not be of interest. But then other more juicy details would be a tad out of place here on the staff directory, wouldn't they?

"You write very well!" "It's one of the best pieces I've read on the staff directory!"

Errrrrrrr. Thanks. But errrrrrr (again) it's just a write-up. And a very boring one actually.
Let's visit the library more.