Man tells colleague he won Nobel Prize at 2 A.M. instead of waiting for morning like a normal person
Standford University’s Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson won this year’s Nobel Prize In Economic Sciences. The award was announced on Monday, in the middle of the night, Pacific Standard time. While logical people would understand that sharing this news with a winner could wait until a reasonable hour—at, say, 9 or 10, just to be sure you don’t catch them in the shower or while watching cartoons in their pajamas—Wilson was filmed on a Nest camera going over to Milgrom’s house at 2:15 A.M. to share the news of their award.
The footage shows the 82-year old Wilson, who may be intellectually gifted but is obviously lacking in common sense, ringing the doorbell of his neighbor and co-winner’s door. Milgrom, at 72, does not need to have his sleep interrupted, but Wilson and his wife Mary persist anyway. “Paul? It’s Bob Wilson,” the rude economist announces. “You’ve won the Nobel Prize, and they’re trying to reach you but they cannot.”
Mary, just as bad as her husband at interfering with a neighbor’s sleep, tells him, “We gave them your cellphone number.”
“Wow,” Milgrom replies, obviously expressing astonishment not at winning the Nobel Prize but at his colleague and neighbor’s incredible disregard for social niceties. After sharing the Nest footage online, Stanford University (which needs to start offering more serious classes on manners, obviously) explained that Milgrom’s wife was in Stockholm during the announcement and “got to watch live as Wilson told Milgrom he’d won” the prize.
According to Mashable, Milgrom and Wilson’s award converts to “about US $1 million,” which is nice and all, but really, Milgrom could have been told about this life-changing sum after he’d had his first cup of coffee. The Nobel Prize was still going to be there in the morning, Wilson. There was no need to mess with a man’s sleep schedule to tell him about it right away.
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