door close

Working in a large office building can be odd.

You spend all this time with these people from other offices and floors, and you never actually interact with them unless the elevator is involved somehow.  You’re either waiting for the elevator or in the elevator when you see them.

You nod at some.

You scoff at others.

And still some evoke huge amounts of Internal Rage, like that lady who always breathes really loud even though you’re fucking positive she doesn’t have asthma.

My building is an especially odd one, because our elevators are terrible.  I’m pretty sure they were the third elevators ever made, because they don’t even have the up and down markers so you know which way the thing is going when it comes to your floor.

As you can imagine, this has led to me getting on the elevator going up, instead of down, plenty of times.

The latest incident happened last night.  I got on the elevator and it started going up, which immediately made me scream, “Fucking shit fuck!”  Once whoever was at the top floor got on, they would know that I am an idiot because I got on going up.  Also, we’d be stopping at my floor before we went down to the lobby.

When the elevator got to the top floor, a woman stepped on, and the following awkwardness ensued.

Me: [Smiling] “Well hello.”

Woman Who Is Smarter Than Me: [Giving me a puzzled look] “Oh, uh, hi.”

[The elevator begins to go down.  All is silent.]

[I look at the numbers because that is What I'm Supposed To Do.]

Me: “Just to let you know, we’ll be making a brief stop at the eighth floor.”

Woman Who Is Smarter Than Me: [Confused, she looks at me] “What?  Oh.  Okay.”

Me: “Yeah, I got on going up.  This isn’t the first time either.  I like to think of it as an adventure, you know, ‘oooh, will I be going up or down today?  Who can tell???’  That kind of thing.  I live life on the edge.”

[Silence]

[The elevator arrives at the eight floor, the door opens and no one is there.  The door closes and we continue down.]

Me: “I hear there’s some pretty good people who work on that floor.  Stunning decor too.”

Woman Who Is Smarter Than Me: [With a charity laugh] “Ha.  Yes, right.”

[We arrive at the lobby and we both exit. Her: A little more annoyed at working in our building. Me: Just glad that she didn't notice my zipper was down.]

problem solver

One of the worst situations to ever be caught in, is riding the elevator with someone from work that you kinda know.

Of course, it just happened to me now.

I stepped into an empty elevator, all set to enjoy a solo ride to my floor, when in walks Coworker Dude.  Now, it’d be fine if I didn’t know him at all, but because I’ve said, “hey” to him a couple times when passing by him in our office, The Rules of Life dictate that I must speak to this man during our ride, despite how I’d much rather continue rocking out to “Word Up” on my iPhone.

And so the dance begins.

Me: “So, what do you think about all this Clemens stuff?  You following that at all?”

Coworker Dude: “No, not really.”

[mad awkward silence for what seems to be about half-an-hour]

Me: “Yeah, well, it’ll be nice to get out early today if all the stories get in for the deadline.”

Coworker Dude: “Yeah.”

At this point I’m ready to punch this dude in the face.  I just put my stupid ass out there and tried to make this godawful elevator ride a little less uncomfortable, and this fucker has done nothing but make it worse.

Thankfully, just when I’m about to fly into a blind rage, our floor comes up.

The next time this happens to me, I’m just going to spout an endless stream of facts, so that there is no gap in conversation and there is no need for the other person to speak.

Me:  “Lions are the second largest cat after the tiger.”

[Coworker looks at me, wondering if I'm talking to him]

Me: “Rubber bands last longer when you put them in the fridge.”

Coworker: [Confused and slightly agitated] “Uh, are you talking to”

Me: [Cutting him off] “There’s no Betty Rubble in Flintstones Vitamins.”

[Our floor comes up]

Me: “Well, have a good one.”

[Victory is mine]

i’m not good at being a person

I just walked by this lady who works in the office next to mine and instead of the usual, “Hi” or “Hi, how are you?” You know what I said?

“Hello!”

Let me ask you something – who says that word anymore? No one. People say “hi.” Not the entire damn word. Maybe people in London do. I’m not sure about that, but they might. I don’t even know why I would think that, but I do.

So not only do I say “hello,” I said it in this weird tone where I kind of lifted my voice up at the end of the word so it sounded like, “Helooo!”

It was a really awkward moment. I’m sure right after she passed me she was thinking, “what the hell was that all about?”

Perfect.

Now I’m that weird dude who sounds like he’s from London.