2003-02-05

The single biggest reason I hate working in an office is as follows: you know when you�re walking down the hall, and you see a coworker or a casual acquaintance like fifty feet away, and then you have to keep walking towards them, trying to look distracted, waiting for that fugacious moment when it�s socially acceptable to make eye contact? And then you have to give that fake, �Hey! It�s you!� smile as you walk past? I fucking HATE that. Arbitrary niceties like that irritate me right down to my bone marrow. And as you�re walking, staring furiously at some random spot on the wall, you have to do this rapid burst of social calculation: if you spoke to the person once in a meeting three months ago, do you even have to acknowledge their presence? If they work two offices away from you but you rarely speak to them, do they warrant a �hello� just because of proximity? If Robin actually thinks about this stuff, does that make her lovably eccentric, or a raging neurotic?

That last question was rhetorical, yo.