COLUMBUS, Ohio — A Midwest-based project manager whose LinkedIn profile prominently lists "direct communicator" as a core competency has not, according to a thorough review of available records, communicated directly with anyone since the second quarter of 2011.

Todd Brannick, 44, of Meridian Solutions Group, has for over a decade maintained a fierce personal reputation for bluntness that colleagues, former managers, and at least two family members describe as, in the words of his sister, "completely made up."

"Todd will say something like, 'Look, I'm just going to be straight with you here, because that's how I operate — and I think we both know, at the end of the day, that there are certain dynamics at play in certain situations that may or may not warrant a conversation about whether a conversation is warranted,'" said Deb Purcell, a senior analyst who has shared an office wall with Brannick for six years. "And then he'll leave. And you'll sit there wondering if you've been fired or promoted or if he was just getting a coffee."

Researchers at the Institute for Occupational Language Behavior at the University of Northern Westfield have studied the Brannick phenomenon, which they classify under the emerging diagnostic category of "assertive circumlocution."

"What's remarkable is the preamble," said Dr. Lena Forsythe, the institute's Associate Director of Self-Reported Communication Competency Studies. "Mr. Brannick will reliably spend between four and nine minutes explaining that he is about to be direct before introducing a subordinate clause so dense it essentially forms a load-bearing wall around the original thought. The actual content is never reached. It's architecturally impressive."

"I just tell it like it is. I think people respect that about me. Some people can't handle it, but that's not really my problem — and I say that with a lot of compassion." — Todd Brannick, speaking for approximately twenty-two minutes about a misfiled expense report

The last confirmed instance of Brannick communicating directly occurred on April 14, 2011, when he told a Subway employee he wanted a footlong turkey on wheat. Even that exchange, colleagues note, was preceded by three minutes of him saying he was "not really a complicated order kind of guy."

Since then, Brannick's requests, concerns, feedback, and at least one marriage proposal have all been delivered through a fog of throat-clearing, scene-setting, and what linguists term "telegraphed imminence" — the repeated suggestion that the real point is coming, which it never does.

Brannick declined to comment for this story, though he did leave a seventeen-minute voicemail in which he said he was "not going to sugarcoat" anything and then described, at length, the general concept of sugarcoating.

He is currently listed as a mentor in Meridian Solutions Group's internal leadership program, under the module titled "Authentic Communication."