it's always the quiet ones

I've mentioned the struggles I sometimes have with my job. Well one day last week was one of them. Last Monday I unwittingly took part in a social experiment … at about 1PM I realized that beyond exchanging pleasantries with coworkers in the kitchen and bathroom (as in “hi, how are you, good, how are you, not bad, have a good day”) I did not have a substantive conversation with anyone in my office. There are 400 people that work in my organization. About 90 or so are on my floor, 60 of whom are in my business unit and 12 people who have offices along my hallway and not one of them went out of their way to engage me in conversation. I guess the question could be, well, why didn’t you make more of an effort? And I did – I said hi to the guy parking his bike beside mine this morning. I asked a colleague if she wanted to grab a coffee. She had a meeting so couldn’t. And then I ran into someone from another floor in the elevator and she said we should go for coffee later. I said sure, but she never did ask me for coffee.

So on this particular Monday, when I realized that I really hadn’t talked to anyone in depth, I wondered if I could make it through the rest of the day without doing so. No suspense really – it was easy. No one came by my office and no one said hello when I passed them in the halls. I even made sure to get up and move around more than usual. Seriously - I did laps around my floor. I hung out in the kitchen, pretending to read the paper, ready to discuss current events with people who came in to grab something from the fridge. Still nothing. They say silence is golden, but this was a bit ridiculous. It's not always this way of course, but I'm pretty sure I could become a mute and my co-workers might not notice. It's a good thing I have such interesting voices inside my head - otherwise I might never have a conversation with anyone ever again.