I realize that a large amount of the content on this website are thoughts on working, which you might begin to think is the only thing ever on my mind. As it happens it isn't. Most of the time I am thinking about ladies and how they're so pretty, or diseases, or lies I intend to tell my employer, or time machines, so basic everyday normal stuff. But so much wacky stuff happens at work that I can't help but find it interesting, and here's some of it, hey.
The place where I am working is in an office building which has a cleaning staff that comes in every day at 5pm. I am at work later in the day than the rest of the drones so I am usually alone in the office of broken dreams when the cleaners come in. The cleaners are a Portuguese husband and wife who are very nice people. Since I see them daily I always say hello and a make a little small talk since they both speak good english. Usually we talk about funny things in Canada or Portugal, I happened to notice the husband wears a soccer jersey now and then but for some reason we never talk about soccer, mostly because I know nothing about soccer.
So the wife for some reason recently decided to teach me Portuguese, which was a little unexpected because I didn't bring it up. I have been playing along because I don't have the heart to tell her I don't think she can teach me Portuguese in 10 minute lessons. Especially when the lessons, at least so far, have consisted entirely of a small woman gesturing at objects or at me and urgently speaking words in Portuguese which I can't comprehend.
I am not sure if next week she's coming in with flash cards or a video, but I have a hunch this pointing and yelling method might actually be her complete teaching strategy. I appreciate what she wants to do, but it is probably a bigger job than she realizes. But if I do learn Portuguese then that inexplicable miracle will for me be something twice as wondrous as my new language skills.
These lessons have had the saddening effect of artificially creating a language barrier between me and the cleaners. Before we understood each other perfectly, but now its a battle to get across simple concepts such as have a good weekend or tem um bom fim de semana. But despite the language barrier I do like the cleaners, they seem to have no desire stronger than to make the place tidy so they can get the hell out of there and get on with their lives, something I totally respect.
There is one unique person at work with who I don't like as much since this person does several things that irritate me incredibly. I will(and already do) refer to this person as the dunce. The dunce wants people to like her so she tries very hard to be funny and makes lots of jokes. When she jokes around she seems to be under the impression it heightens the hilarity if she speaks in an odd high pitched whiny voice, so she speaks in that voice roughly 95% of the time. But the jokes and the voice aren't funny so it is instead an endless stream of unserious words that causes my internal organs to shift and tighten. She can't stand even the slightest level of tension so she will not be serious for one second. Nothing is ever serious. It's hard to explain just how fucking irritating that can be.
Tension is necessary, it exists because your amazing rational mind can detect threats and seeks to resolve them. As long as you're sane you should probably try to understand your tension rather than run from it like a panicking turkey.
So here's a little true story. All us worker bees were in a staff meeting where our multiple bosses were discussing the new levels of quotas for our productivity. Our productivity is measured and occasionally we have staff meetings in which the bosses try to find new parts of us to squeeze more out of, or in this case to blindly raise the quotas.
This staff meeting was not going well, when the subject of the quotas was discussed the multi-bosses said these new levels were what they now expected and if an individual couldn't meet them they would be called into their offices to work out how to improve their performance. So then someone asked what happens if an individual still can't meet the new quotas. The bosses said then they would call the person back into the office to try to find other ways to improve their performance. Then someone asked what happens if that doesn't work. Then the bosses said that they would have to take it to the next level. Then someone asked what the next level was. Then the bosses said the next level would be to answer the question of whether that person was really suited for this job. So then someone asked what they meant by that.
Now it is clear what they meant, but asking them to be specific about it was a good idea. We have a very mighty union and our job should not really be at stake since our current productivity was in line with our job description which was written way before all this new quota business. Our job description was written long before the new quotas and it sets out what is to be expected of us. Our union will defend someone terminated for a cause that isn't fair, and changing the expectations of us and then terminating us if we fail to meet them might be considered unfair. So the bosses were vaguely threatening our jobs in a dodgy way that could possibly go against the collective agreement. By asking them exactly what they meant the person basically put them on the spot to either actually say they might violate our rights in the collective agreement or otherwise take back everything they had just said about the new quotas in the first place.
This should have been a pretty tense moment for the bosses. Everything they had said in the meeting was to scare us into meeting the new quotas, but they shouldn't actually threaten us with getting canned because it could mean they went against the collective agreement. So we were waiting with bated breath for what they would say. Would they hang themselves with the threat? Would they take back the quotas? The room was quiet, we waited for their answer and it was very tense. The dunce just couldn't stand the pressure so she blurted out some totally mindless joke. Of course the joke wasn't funny, but the women were all nervous so they laughed, and so it diffused the tension anyway. But then moment passed and the subject somehow changes before anyone really can put together what just happened. But now the meeting is whipping past and then its over, thanks for coming everybody! Hey ... by the way ... don't choke on the new quotas! Bye!
And so the dunce blew a chance for us to make a stand. Just because she sensed someone was uncomfortable and didn't think for a second about who it was, or why, or what good could possibly come of her actions. That behavior is irritating in regular interaction, but I know now that under the right circumstances that personality flaw can actually be 100 times worse.
I think the dunce suspects I don't like her, probably because I only reply to her questions with grunts, gestures or total silence and avoid her like she has ebola. When she speaks to me I only respond if the question is work related, if not I usually just shut off my ears and stare blankly until she goes away. I do everything in my power to avoid her completely.
Now I am willing to bet she is picking up on these subtle clues and I think she might know she's not my favorite. Of course this doesn't sit well with her. So she tries to fix it. She goes about this, as you might guess, by trying to be funny or way too friendly and these efforts to win me over are somewhat abundant. I have managed to slightly discourage the jokes however with an ace strategy which I will outline. Whenever she made a joke I would stop what I was doing or saying, take a little breath, pause for about 10 seconds, look at her, then say "I'll pretend I didn't hear that." It has had no effect on her overall jokes, but has cut down on her jokes said specifically to me. So instead of humor with me she uses excessive friendliness.
I decided one random day to keep track of her efforts with me. As background, I usually come in to work at 12:30pm. On this day I arrived at 12:35pm.
12:35 the dunce says "Oh you came in late today, I was hoping you wouldn't come in so I
could use
your computer, jokey, jokey. But do you know that I like to use your computer?
Do you want to talk about it?"
I say "No, it's okay."
12:45 the dunce says "I'm opening this bag of peanuts for myself, would you like some?"
I say "No. Thanks."
1:10 the dunce says "I put a fan under my desk, do you feel a draft? If you do, can we
talk about it?"
I say "It's fine."
1:30 the dunce says "When you go on holidays I hope I can use your computer, do you have
any thoughts?"
I say "Ehh...Nerhh."
1:45 the dunce says "I noticed you aren't eating potato chips at work anymore, why not?"
I say "Humprh."
2:00 the dunce says "I will be leaving soon, would you like some of
this work I haven't finished
that is exactly like the stuff you already have right there beside you?"
I say "Mrmhrm."
That was a typical 2 hours. At least she only bugs me when it is
absolutely critical. It might seem that she just
wants to be helpful but that is misleading. It is actually not helpful to
constantly distract someone from their work if their productivity is being
measured and the quotas all just went up without any resistance for some reason.
I would prefer it if she left me alone. So here's the funny paradox, she knows that leaving me alone is what I want(I believe I have made certain of this), she probably also knows that one way to make people like you is to give them what they want, but she still doesn't leave me alone. Why is that?
Because she actually doesn't care what I want. What she actually cares about it what she wants, which is for me to act nice to her. She isn't really trying to make me like her, she is just repeatedly testing to see if I will suddenly act as if I do. I can't read her mind but I have a theory on why that is what she wants. I think that she wants me to act like I like her, even if it was fake, so she could just ignore thinking about whether or not I don't like her. Which is very interesting. She doesn't care if I actually like her, just as long as she can feel better about it. But that is selfish. And since I am me it is also impossible. I don't want her to feel better about me not liking her, I don't care how she feels about me not liking her. If me not liking her made her happy I still wouldn't care, because my number 1 priority is to not have to hear what she thinks or feels about anything.
I guess these kind of things go with the territory of being around human beings, all of who, and especially me, have flaws. But some people have flaws that unlike mine aren't cute.
Disclaimer. The preceding was not written by or about anybody you know or might know so if you're planning on bringing this up with anyone's employer you can't, whomever you aren't because clearly you don't exist, and logically therefore any employer of the anonymous person who wrote this, who by the way lives in Kopanyang and has no connection to this website in any way. There shall be no come-uppance for that anonymous individual, I repeat, no come-uppance.