Work Quirks

Last week marked my three-year anniversary at work. Crazy how time flies. It feels like just yesterday I was power-washing homes and hunting squirrels for rent. But for better or for worse, I’ve now been a bonafide businessman for three years. And though I still look like a science fair entrant in business pants (or “trousers,” as my fancy friend calls them), I’ll concede that I’ve slowly matured in other ways, some of which both puzzle and frighten me.

Hot for per.
I knew I was in trouble the day “per” cropped up in my everyday dialect. I don’t remember our first encounter, but I do – embarrassingly enough – remember thinking “My God, where have you been?” It didn’t take long for me to develop a sick sort of satisfaction in its abuse. It felt so easy. So natural. So trousery. For example, rather than send my friends an email about “that cat video we talked about at lunch,” I found myself saying things like, “Per our discussion over sandwiches,” or “Per our conversation re: cats.” (More to come on re:) I was totally out of control. The only time I can remember obsessing in such a way was when I was eight and discovered the word “bastard.” To be sure, I hadn’t yet discovered the meaning of bastard, so I used it interchangeably with “friend(s)” or “guy(s).” E.g.: “Come on, you bastards! Let’s get some snacks!”

Around the same age I discovered “bastard,” Can you believe it?

Re: the ridiculousness of re:
After readily adopting “per,” it was only a matter of time before I began exploring the darker, more formal morsels of jargon at my disposal. Though I experimented with several options – most notably the notion of signing my emails with “Best,” – I eventually landed on re:. Re:, as in, “I got your voicemail re: the peanut butter.” Or “Your email re: the trouser sale was well received by all.” I knew it was terrible sentence structure. I knew it was pretentious. But I didn’t care. It felt good to be bad. And if I’m being totally honest here, it made me feel a hair grayer (in a well-respected wizard sort of way, that is).

The Hello Whisper.
I find something very uncomfortable about passing people in hallways. They’re at one end, you’re at the other, and you have no choice but to surmount a full-frontal approach before meeting your respective destinations.

To handle these situations, I’ve developed two coping strategies: The Hello Whisper and the Captain’s Wave. Certainly, each has become somewhat irrelevant as I’ve grown more comfortable in my company, but they’ve both served me well.

The Hello Whisper came to me in the first year of my career, presumably born out of shyness and insecurity. It happens like this: upon noticing an approaching coworker, I tuck my pelvis under, focus intently on the carpet and quicken my pace, as if I’m late to a very important meeting. Once I feel that my coworker and I have reached an appropriate distance from each other, I look up, smile, and silently mouth “Hi” Like I’m very excited to see them, but also quietly respectful of the hardworking businessmen around me.

The Captain’s Wave.
As seasons changed, I began to replace my meek Hello Whisper with something a little bolder, a little more dramatic — the Captain’s Wave. It came to me when I realized that what I hated most about hallway encounters was the anticipation. Do I say hi? When should I say hi? How do I say hi? Where should I look until I say hi? What if I have chocolate on my face? What if it’s my boss and I have chocolate on my face? 

So, I decided to avoid said discomfort by asserting myself from the get-go. If I notice a coworker at the opposite end of the hallway, I throw up my hand and give them a big, slow half-circular wave, like I’m saluting them from the helm of my ship. It seems to work quite nicely. After a few months testing it in the market, I’ve found that it gets about a 55 percent response rate, depending on how backlit I am.

So there you have it. A small taste of my more unfortunate work quirks. Also, for my own vanity, I must note that I’ve weaned myself off “per” and “re:,” though you have every right to judge our brief affair.

As you can see, I’ve grown quite comfortable in my work environment.

The Silver Fox

Nearly one month away from my 25th year of life, I’m discovering some interesting things about myself. About my aging, to be exact. A particularly depressing revelation occurred about a week or so ago. I’d say it was the worst one I’ve had yet, but earlier this year, my mom asked me if I “did Botox.”  That would be the worst. However, something horrible happened recently that painfully confirmed my rapidly waning youth: my first gray hair.

The proof is in the pudding.

A coworker spotted it one morning as we were talking in my office. It couldn’t have been hard to do — the bastard was sticking straight up from my scalp, waving in the AC draft like the white flag of my surrendering youth. To this day, the visual is still unsettling.

After somewhat awkwardly asking her to remove it from my head, we delved into an almost mathematical rationalization of all the things this could be other than a gray hair. We blamed my highlights (which I’ve never had), my potential “scalp birth mark,” and the small pharmacy of hair pills I’m taking to outgrow my Thomas Jeffersonesque bob. Perhaps I’d been particularly stressed out at work, or had a shocking, life-altering moment, she suggested. Almost instantly, I thought of the night I watched the “Red Wedding,” a night so dark and lonely I can scarcely bare to think of it. Certainly, this was life-alerting, but could it have been enough of a trauma to catapult me into early menopause?

My reaction to the Red Wedding. And yes, I had to blur some of the more unsuitable language.

Since the initial spotting, I’ve done a lot of self-reflecting. Who am I, really? Am I an adult, or a post-grad? I don’t feel like an adult, and I definitely don’t feel old enough to sprout a gray hair. Yes, I boast some elderly qualities, such as my scary witch hands and sensitivity to air quality alerts, but I’m also pretty sure there’s a Wet Seal tube-top still floating around in my top drawer.

The truth is, I am in an awkward stage of life. And as a generally awkward individual, this would seem a natural place for me. But it’s not. Adult life has proven to be as exciting and rewarding as it is uncomfortable and scary (the most uncomfortable moment being when I accidentally said “in fart of” instead of “in front of” during a client meeting.) But although the amount of math involved is far beyond my remedial abilities, and I’ve found myself, on more than one occasion, sobbing hysterically during episodes Downton Abbey, I’m excited for what’s to come in my new-found adult life. 

Wet-Seal tube-top circa 2008