Typically-Void-of-Emotion CoWorker: <with a giggle> Hi! How are you?
Sunny: <perplexed> Umm... Great! How are you?
Typically-Void-of-Emotion CoWorker: I'm good! Just nutty, but good! <giggles and departs>
Sunny: <more perplexed> Huh.
Showing posts with label greetings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label greetings. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Working Hard...
Why is it that, within an office, one of the most popular greetings is "Working hard, or hardly working?"
It's said typically by a nonchalant coworker who meanders by your cubicle, coffee mug in hand, and interrupts something important to ask you their inane question. It's said with aloofness, as though you're being caught red-handed in a fit of nonproductive glee.**1
Typically, when I'm approached with this question, I'm in one of two states:
1.) I'm typing frantically, trying to cobble together intelligent thoughts for an e-mail before they escape me,
or
2.) I'm up to my elbows in paperwork.
In either of these situations, the derailment that comes from that question will cost me at least half an hour of productivity: ten minutes of conversation with my assailant, and an additional twenty to get myself back into the swing of whatever-I-was-doing-before.
Let's consider that:
Say I get paid $16 an hour. (I don't. But it's a nice thought.)
Losing half an hour of productive time is $8.
Out of that $8, obviously the government needs their cut. We'll say $3 out of that is claimed by taxes.
That leaves $5... Which will be the new fee I impose on any wayward peanut galleries that darken my doorway.
I'm gonna be rich.
It's said typically by a nonchalant coworker who meanders by your cubicle, coffee mug in hand, and interrupts something important to ask you their inane question. It's said with aloofness, as though you're being caught red-handed in a fit of nonproductive glee.**1
Typically, when I'm approached with this question, I'm in one of two states:
1.) I'm typing frantically, trying to cobble together intelligent thoughts for an e-mail before they escape me,
or
2.) I'm up to my elbows in paperwork.
In either of these situations, the derailment that comes from that question will cost me at least half an hour of productivity: ten minutes of conversation with my assailant, and an additional twenty to get myself back into the swing of whatever-I-was-doing-before.
Let's consider that:
Say I get paid $16 an hour. (I don't. But it's a nice thought.)
Losing half an hour of productive time is $8.
Out of that $8, obviously the government needs their cut. We'll say $3 out of that is claimed by taxes.
That leaves $5... Which will be the new fee I impose on any wayward peanut galleries that darken my doorway.
I'm gonna be rich.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Greetings, Greetings...
Public Service Announcement
Perhaps I've got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Please correct me if I misunderstand you, but when you say "How are you," what you're really looking for as a response from me is silence so as not to impede your headfirst propulsion into your demand for my action. Because I certainly can't tell you how fabulously my day is going in the thirty nanoseconds you allow for my report.
Perhaps it would behoove us both to dispense with this frivolity of conversation? It seems equally pointless for me to waste valuable moments inquiring after your well-being when I could instead commit them to chasing your constantly-moving target. Especially since the highest response you can afford is a half-hearted smile and a nod in my direction as you hasten away.
Really, I'm not that scary. And sometimes I even smell nice.
RaYD,
Sunny
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