Pete has a system worked out with the cube across from her. They give a couple minutes for polite conversation then the phone rings...

Since you have no cell service, you need to make a deal with one of your other coworkers for mutual support. Everyone has to be on Chatty Cathy alert. If he shows up at your cube, your lifeguard calls your extension. You provide the same service for someone else in your end of the cube farm. Not foolproof, because Chatty Cathy may end up trained by intermittent reinforcement to only approach someone when their lifeguard is in the bathroom, but you could get a month or two's use out of this strategy.

That would be Tou-fucking-rettes.

If you just casually zap him with one of these million volt stun guns, he'll fall on the floor and twitch around a bit, but probably won't be able to talk for a while.

maybe i should slip some cocaine into his morning coffee then tell HR i saw him doing lines in the mens room.

Take off your shoes and socks. Clip your toenails and save the pieces. Make little smiley face arrangements on your desk with them.

Ask that he repeat everything since you are only listening with half an ear. When he says "What!?", ask him to repeat that.

Compliment his choice of underwear.

Take a ketchup or mustard packet from your desk and squirt it on piece of paper. Fingerpaint idly while he's talking. Extra credit for vulgar images.

Rap loudly and openly on your desk. Ask him if he heard that. Then say you have to check the door or the mail. Get up and leave.

Keep a length of cord in your desk. Fashion a hangman's noose. When you are done making it, wave the noose and tell him his time is up.

Use an egg timer.

Take a vitamin C tablet out and crush it on the desk. Cut the big pieces with a sharp knife or razor blade. Pick a straw out of the garbage and offer him a toot.

I actually had a boss who used this one with people who made their comments too slowly: Keep working and move one hand in a forward rolling circle as if to say, "keep moving keep up keep going you blithering idiot". You might try the words, too, but if you are proficient at it, the gesture is sufficient.

Off topic, but isn't it alarming, the type of people who get promoted to management positions?

Ask him if he hears the voices too.

i think there is a book about this.

if you really want to be done with it, and don;t have the balls to tell him to go fuck himself, you need to tell on him. tell the boss that he's annoying you while you're trying to read the cellar and to keep an eye on him, and let the boss be the bad guy

Fella talks that constantly, no he can't hear the voices.

Ask him to stop.

just a small update:

i came into work this morning and did my regular routine of stopping in the cafeteria, grabbing breakfast and bringing it back to my cube to chow down. just as i start eating (with my back to my cube entrance), i get that "someones standing right behind me" feeling. so i turn around and suprise-suprise there he is, just fucking standing there! he said something about my breakfast being really big and i just turned around and started eating. i just thank God i don't have to deal with this guy outside of work, if he was my neighbor, or worse related to me i think i'd end up choking this guy.

Although I liked fresh's and HLJ suggestions for the funny factor this one made me do the double take. :) lol

If he asks you if you have his stapler, I'd take action.

There is this guy who advises students part-time, the cubby across from me. He used to just stealth into my office and stand right next to me. I wouldn't see him and would get a jolt when I heard his mouth-breathing next to me. I think the namby pamby finally got the hint that I think he's a freak; he doesn't talk to me much anymore. I'm glad!

A sidler? Just give him tic-tacs.