The Greeting Game
This one is more fun the larger your office complex is and the more strangers there are. Depending on your countries, but more importantly, the "culture" in your workplace, greeting customs can be quite different.
Greeting your direct coworkers usually involves some more intimate greeting:
- waving towards the office/cubicle area, with a "(Hi/Mornin'/ 'Ello!)"
- shaking everyone's hand, girls first, short eye-to-eye and smile
- shaking everyone's hand, no eye-contact, because you're already talking to someone else (going-through-the-motions)
- short pat on the others arm or shoulders
- eye-contact, short smile and a greeting (Hello/G'd aft'noon)
- eye-contact, smile and a curt nod
- eye-contact and a curt nod without the smile
- avoiding eye-contact by pretending to be in thought/reading paper/smart-phone diddling
The fun part comes later - since you're usually not tied to your desk all day, you encounter those people several times each day. Greeting them the same as before? They'll think you're some kind of amnesiac or just plain vapid. So, after a few years in the office, your brain devotes a non-negligible part of its awareness to a moving database whether or not you've seen That Cute Girl With Those Ugly Buck Teeth, Man With Obvious Wig, or Frazzled Dude With The Same Stupid Tie Every Thursday.
Thank God we're not doing anything important with our brains all day, huh?
The Small-Talk Game
Let's face it. Most of your coworkers wouldn't have anything to do with you if you met them in "real life", so to speak. And you'd do likewise, because people just tend to be different. But since you're all squeezed into more or less vacuous cubicles, office rooms or what-have-you, you have to communicate with them somehow, or risk becoming an antisocial jerk.
This situation probably goes back into prehistoric times. Once upon a time, Oog and Zog were trapped inside a tiny cave for several hours because of a nasty case of Tyrannosaurs outside. What can Oog and Zog possibly talk about, Oog thought?
- Talk about shiny stone? But what if Zog not like shiny stone?
- Talk about dino outside? No. Zog surely not want talk about dinos. Oog and Zog run from Dinos every ugh-ing day!
- Talk about worshipping bear-totem? No, no, no! Last religion war only month ago! Bad Oog!
- Talk about woman with big gazongas, down by river? Not good. Oog not want Zog to want gazonga-woman too! Or more bad, what if Zog not like gazonga-women, but other Oog-Men? This would even mean the Awkward.
Then, a lightbu...err, bonfire went up over Oog's head.
Oog: So, errm - nice weather, huh?
Ever since then, people have talked about the weather, in order to pass a simple 30-second pause in the conversation. Because silence surely can't mean people are simply doing their job or don't have anything of interest to utter. This behaviour seems so ingrained in office culture, or culture in general, that I postulate: If ever a nuclear war or a giant meteorite happens to wipe out everone but a few pockets of life, buried deep underground, people will still have conversations like this:
Moleman One: Wow...sky sure is, erm. Rocky today.
Moleman Two: Yeah, tell me about it. And this artificial climate control, that keeps the same exact conditions down here - way too warm and wet, if ye're asking me.
Moleman One: Yeah, I know what you mean. Too warm, totally.
Moleman Two: But it's not the heat. It's the humidity.
And if I live to see that future, the next seconds involve MoleTeshik bludgeoning those two into greasy spots in the cave floor, now that those pesky ethical restrictions about killing stupid people are gone. Because, seriously? I like talking about the weather, one, or twice. But not all the fucking time.
The Information A-Bomb Game
Bosses positively LOVE this game. It involves one person arriving in a hurry at the desk of the other person.
Offender: "Hi there did you know what (random department or company) has done now?I'll tell you: they totally changed (some kind of their modus operandi)! Isn't that (good/bad/awesome/green with yellow stripes)? Yeah that's what I thought. Listen, since you're the one here who has (some vague connection with the topic/ little to no knowledge about it) because (of your study paper ten years back / you worked in the same office with that guy for two weeks / your name rhymes with the topics anagram), I think you're the perfect (guy/gal) for the job! It only involves (a shitload of work you won't realize until it's too late). And since you're only (totally overworked) and want to (make the carreer move / get a raise / keep your job). It would be impolite to refuse, since (I'm your boss / I'm your bosses' boss / I play golf with your boss / I can blackmail you). Thanks for your enthusiasm! See you later!!"
He/She then hurries out, to avoid questions or resistance.
The Offended: *blinks* Oh Fuck-a-doodle.
The Toilet Game
Sorry girls, this one's for men only. The Pissoir in the Men's bathroom saves space and quite frankly, negates the necessity of sitting down on what may or may not be a surface laced with strange, disgusting and infected bodily fluids of undetermined origins. And I'm generally thankful of that, because, I don't know about the ladies, but in the men's bathroom, men usually are pigs.
In the office, people tend to behave better than in the average disco, so it isn't that nessecary to have a Pissoir. Every self-respecting loo still has one or several, for some odd civilizational reason I can't comprehend right now.
But it also gives anyone in the general vicinity a very thorough view of body parts everyone usually keeps hidden under at least two layers of clothing during office hours. Well, unless you have a very lax dress code on your Casual Friday, or you're saving your underwear for more important stuff. (In which case: I don't even wanna know). And do you want to see those body parts of your same-sex boss or coworker while he shakes of the last little drops of pee off his dick? Well, I don't.
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