Thursday, August 05, 2004
Sharing & Caring
God love office small talk. There’s nothing like being asked ridiculously personal questions by co-workers who clearly know absolutely nothing about you and only wish to feign a sufficient amount of interest to force you to tight-lipped-smile and nod your way through their own horrifyingly graphic retellings of their prom nights, messy child-custody disputes, or recent colonoscopies. One afternoon you’re just standing there at the water cooler, refilling the Taco Bell cup you reuse incessantly because you secretly feel bringing an actual glass in from home would be tantamount to an admission that you actually work at this job and may until you die, and up walks Bob from Accounting with a muttered "hello," a muted "how was your weekend," and a ten-minute account of his thrilling battle to have a public urination ticket expunged. You drift away in your mind to a magical place where Bob has been drugged and sterilized and you feast regularly on Kraft macaroni and cheese and beer, until suddenly you realize that a question of some sort has been asked and you try to respond in some neutral, totally-were-listening-but-choose-to-give-an-arch-and-noncommittal-answer sort of way, like "you know, I’m not sure" or "right, something like that." All too late, you understand from Bob’s horrified reaction that the question was clearly something like "Do you hate babies?" or "Isn’t murdering puppies so very wrong?" and you’ve left him with the impression that you’re some sort of Taco-Bell-obsessed, baby-hating, puppy-killing psychopath or, even worse, a bad listener. And then it comes to you that you really don’t care all that much, even if it does endanger your invitation to Friday happy hours at Bennigan’s. And then you feel peace, freedom, and that lingering bit of murderous rage which is always sort of in the background anyway. And then you down a "fun size" bag of M&Ms. Or maybe that’s just me.
God love office small talk. There’s nothing like being asked ridiculously personal questions by co-workers who clearly know absolutely nothing about you and only wish to feign a sufficient amount of interest to force you to tight-lipped-smile and nod your way through their own horrifyingly graphic retellings of their prom nights, messy child-custody disputes, or recent colonoscopies. One afternoon you’re just standing there at the water cooler, refilling the Taco Bell cup you reuse incessantly because you secretly feel bringing an actual glass in from home would be tantamount to an admission that you actually work at this job and may until you die, and up walks Bob from Accounting with a muttered "hello," a muted "how was your weekend," and a ten-minute account of his thrilling battle to have a public urination ticket expunged. You drift away in your mind to a magical place where Bob has been drugged and sterilized and you feast regularly on Kraft macaroni and cheese and beer, until suddenly you realize that a question of some sort has been asked and you try to respond in some neutral, totally-were-listening-but-choose-to-give-an-arch-and-noncommittal-answer sort of way, like "you know, I’m not sure" or "right, something like that." All too late, you understand from Bob’s horrified reaction that the question was clearly something like "Do you hate babies?" or "Isn’t murdering puppies so very wrong?" and you’ve left him with the impression that you’re some sort of Taco-Bell-obsessed, baby-hating, puppy-killing psychopath or, even worse, a bad listener. And then it comes to you that you really don’t care all that much, even if it does endanger your invitation to Friday happy hours at Bennigan’s. And then you feel peace, freedom, and that lingering bit of murderous rage which is always sort of in the background anyway. And then you down a "fun size" bag of M&Ms. Or maybe that’s just me.
