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I try to deflect these types of statement with humor when possible. Comments about time are meet with the Gandalf quote, "A wizard is never late, [...] nor is he early; he arrives precisely when he means to."

"Got a hair cut?" "Nope, I got all of them cut."

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Yes, but then you are somewhat assuming the mantle of the resident stand-up comedian, might be hard to live up to!

(Funny enough, I did brainstorm solutions as thought experiments. The one I saw working was to mercilessly point out what he was doing, every time he did it. "A-ha! Captain Obvious speaks!" "Got any obvious observations for me today?". But that would have been staggeringly cruel, after all the poor guy was only trying to be friendly!)

That last approach would go down very well in some British offices.

Given the level of sarcasm that goes on in my own household, I don't know if I'd be able to resist saying "Aye, Captain!" if someone habitually greeted me with obvious observations all the time. I'm used to saying that pretty regularly to my seven- and nine-year-old kids.

That's not sarcasm, it's sillines. Sarcasm is when you make false statements to annoy people.

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