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penfield"Hell is other people."
- Jean-Paul Sartre, "No Exit"
It is my longstanding policy to strenuously separate my worklife and personal life. I share only the most basic, minimally required information about myself and prefer that my colleagues do the same. It would be just fine with me if I were respected in the same way as they might treat a sophisticated and expensive piece of office machinery.
Maybe its because I'm from a different generation than most of the other folks in my office, or maybe I am simply a down-to-business kind of guy. Ultimately, I have a very limited tolerance for phoniness and the enforced cameraderie of the workplace is lousy with it. So I try to be as honest as possible without being downright rude.
I have absolutely zero interest in my coworkers' family lives, their car troubles or the movie they saw last night, except in the rare instances when such information is pertinent to me being able to do my job. Even then, it is pretty much useless except that it sharpens my general disdain into a more specific and rational loathing.
It's not like I go around snubbing people or giving them a hard time. I merely snuff out idle chit-chat before it can blossom into an actual conversation, and assiduously avoid invitations for other people to "share."
That said, I am occasionally called upon to act like a human being and interrelate with these people. Two weeks ago, a coworker with whom I seldom work and even more rarely socialize, was called away from the office suddenly; a subsequent e-mail to the staff indicated that he was "with his daughter in the emergency room," with no further detail. I was concerned for about five seconds, and then I went back to work.
Last week I was on my way to the copy room when I saw him back at his desk. I had walked almost all the way past him, when I stopped and said, "Hey, Bob. How is your daughter doing?"
I didn't really want to know. I certainly didn't want to hear a long, detailed story about it, especially the kind of gruesome details that would surround an emergency room visit. For a moment my humanity got the best of me, and then I was relieved when he simply said, "Oh, she's doing fine now."
But the strange part is, he added, "Thank you for asking." He thanked me, like I was doing him a favor. I don't know what I did that was worth being thanked for -- half-heartedly prying into his personal life? Giving him a quick flash of attention? Inadvertently implying that I cared about his child's well-being?
I remember a few weeks ago when I was in the middle of my own family health crisis and I was silently begging people to leave me alone about it. Different people deal with these things differently, right? Or maybe I'm the phony, a man pretending to be a machine.
It's possible, I guess. There's really only one way to find out: I need more interesting coworkers.
- Jean-Paul Sartre, "No Exit"
It is my longstanding policy to strenuously separate my worklife and personal life. I share only the most basic, minimally required information about myself and prefer that my colleagues do the same. It would be just fine with me if I were respected in the same way as they might treat a sophisticated and expensive piece of office machinery.
Maybe its because I'm from a different generation than most of the other folks in my office, or maybe I am simply a down-to-business kind of guy. Ultimately, I have a very limited tolerance for phoniness and the enforced cameraderie of the workplace is lousy with it. So I try to be as honest as possible without being downright rude.
I have absolutely zero interest in my coworkers' family lives, their car troubles or the movie they saw last night, except in the rare instances when such information is pertinent to me being able to do my job. Even then, it is pretty much useless except that it sharpens my general disdain into a more specific and rational loathing.
It's not like I go around snubbing people or giving them a hard time. I merely snuff out idle chit-chat before it can blossom into an actual conversation, and assiduously avoid invitations for other people to "share."
That said, I am occasionally called upon to act like a human being and interrelate with these people. Two weeks ago, a coworker with whom I seldom work and even more rarely socialize, was called away from the office suddenly; a subsequent e-mail to the staff indicated that he was "with his daughter in the emergency room," with no further detail. I was concerned for about five seconds, and then I went back to work.
Last week I was on my way to the copy room when I saw him back at his desk. I had walked almost all the way past him, when I stopped and said, "Hey, Bob. How is your daughter doing?"
I didn't really want to know. I certainly didn't want to hear a long, detailed story about it, especially the kind of gruesome details that would surround an emergency room visit. For a moment my humanity got the best of me, and then I was relieved when he simply said, "Oh, she's doing fine now."
But the strange part is, he added, "Thank you for asking." He thanked me, like I was doing him a favor. I don't know what I did that was worth being thanked for -- half-heartedly prying into his personal life? Giving him a quick flash of attention? Inadvertently implying that I cared about his child's well-being?
I remember a few weeks ago when I was in the middle of my own family health crisis and I was silently begging people to leave me alone about it. Different people deal with these things differently, right? Or maybe I'm the phony, a man pretending to be a machine.
It's possible, I guess. There's really only one way to find out: I need more interesting coworkers.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-29 05:35 am (UTC)Your co-worker clearly wanted to, and appreciated the invitation to engage with life after what must have been at least a brief compulsion toward distress-based, self-absorbed tunnel vision. But when difficult times hit, some of us prefer to imagine it isn't really happening, and by extension, that we aren't really where we are - we detach; to be forced to engage with others is like an involuntary awakening when we prefer to be asleep and dreaming.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-29 09:39 pm (UTC)The truth is, I hadn't even thought very deeply about where my coworker was in that moment, instead focusing on the superfluous philosophical implications of our exchange. That's how much of a heartless prick I am.