21
ICE COLD

I was at an air show as the only delegate from my team, and since I am a fairly pleasant person, the sales account managers often called on me to help out with customers that popped in to our meeting space and to see our aircraft. Air shows are hectic events where hundreds of companies in the industry send delegations to have supplier and customer meetings over the span of a few days. On one particular day, a large delegation arrived an hour earlier than scheduled and I was asked to take them on a tour of an aircraft. I brought the group through the aircraft and they were impressed! They took their time and asked lots of questions and I treated them to coffee afterwards. 
As they were about to leave, one of their colleagues who went by the nickname “Icy” arrived. Since his colleagues raved about the aircraft tour, they asked if I could take Icy on the same tour separately while they went to their next meeting. It turns out Icy must have earned that nickname because he didn’t speak at all when spoken to. I was politely explaining various items to him, offering to answer questions and so forth, while he pulled out a measuring tape and proceeded to measure each and every item in the aircraft. Each overhead bin, the armrests on the seat, the lavatory door and everything else in sight. He scrawled down each item and measurement in a little notebook, nodding furiously and muttering to himself. I initially thought there might have been a language barrier, but he did in fact speak English well. All the while, I tried to interject and ask if he was curious about overhead baggage space and whatnot. No answer to 95% of what I said as he kept on measuring and writing in his notebook.
It was very awkward to accompany an unresponsive client for 30 minutes but I imagine it was by design that his coworkers conveniently had him running behind schedule. I guess I learned that some nicknames make a lot of sense. Icy was ice cold!