Playing chicken: the office version
First of all: I haven't updated this in awhile, but that is because I moved apartments this week and my life has gone down into a swirling, sweaty, expensive vortex, wherein I lost my couch due to non-fitting-through-the dooredness. So lay off me.
If you're not completely put off by my snippiness, please go on to enjoy my extra-unfancy edition of Today in My Head, While I Sat Here, Bored at Work.
Today in My Head, While I Sat Here, Bored at Work, I started to count all the times I play chicken during the workday (if you don't know what playing chicken is, you've never seen the best movie ever, Crybaby, plus like 43 cajillion references/instances in American film). Here are a few I thought of Today in My Head, While I Sat Here, Bored at Work:
1. Morning news/breaking gossip Chicken, also known as Silence, I'm Working Chicken: This is when something interesting or breaking happens in the real/gossip world, and no one wants to be the first to shout it over the cubicle, but everyone wants to talk about it. Seeing how long you can go, wondering "Am I the first to read/hear/watch this? Does anyone else know? What do they think? Do I have a better comment?" is rough. But if you're the first to bring it up, everyone knows you're not working, and then Suckeyup McBrownoser over there, who started working at 9 am sharp while you drifted in at 9:06 and then left again to get coffee (and a donut, fine), starts looking like a nice candidate for promotion.
2. Hallway Chicken: Very similar to Sidewalk Chicken, this happens when you're walking directly towards another person along the tiny hall and you're not sure which one of you is going to move where when the time comes to interesect, or if you should just turn off down a random aisle to avoide an uncomfortable hallway side-to-side dance.
3. Eye contact Chicken: In circumstances like the one above, when both parties are studiously looking anywhere but ahead, until one has to break and make eye contact, thus forcing an awkward greeting.
4. Bathroom stall Chicken: Perhaps the most nervewracking of all Chicken games. Can only be played in office bathrooms with stalls that do not have floor-to-ceiling walls/doors, and therefore, no barrier to protect other inhabitants from hearing/smelling your stinky offerings.
Unfortunately, these happen to me almost every day. Number 4 most recently, as I battled it out with a woman known to me only as "blue flip flops," as that was all I could see of her feet. I entered the bathroom after her, and from the moment I took my position and silence ensued, it was on. She was in there first, she had her chance. As the minutes ticked by and neither of us gave up and left, I started to panic. What if my boss thought I was up to inappropriate bathroom behavior like drugs or picking my teeth with his letter opener? What if she never left and I had to surrender and suffer for the rest of the day? I was about to yell "I'll go if you go! I mean, everybody does it, and mine really smells like roses," when I heard the toilet paper roll shuffle, the sign that she was quitting. She got back at me though, by running the water in the sink for approximately 442748 minutes before leaving.
But I won. For today.
If you're not completely put off by my snippiness, please go on to enjoy my extra-unfancy edition of Today in My Head, While I Sat Here, Bored at Work.
Today in My Head, While I Sat Here, Bored at Work, I started to count all the times I play chicken during the workday (if you don't know what playing chicken is, you've never seen the best movie ever, Crybaby, plus like 43 cajillion references/instances in American film). Here are a few I thought of Today in My Head, While I Sat Here, Bored at Work:
1. Morning news/breaking gossip Chicken, also known as Silence, I'm Working Chicken: This is when something interesting or breaking happens in the real/gossip world, and no one wants to be the first to shout it over the cubicle, but everyone wants to talk about it. Seeing how long you can go, wondering "Am I the first to read/hear/watch this? Does anyone else know? What do they think? Do I have a better comment?" is rough. But if you're the first to bring it up, everyone knows you're not working, and then Suckeyup McBrownoser over there, who started working at 9 am sharp while you drifted in at 9:06 and then left again to get coffee (and a donut, fine), starts looking like a nice candidate for promotion.
2. Hallway Chicken: Very similar to Sidewalk Chicken, this happens when you're walking directly towards another person along the tiny hall and you're not sure which one of you is going to move where when the time comes to interesect, or if you should just turn off down a random aisle to avoide an uncomfortable hallway side-to-side dance.
3. Eye contact Chicken: In circumstances like the one above, when both parties are studiously looking anywhere but ahead, until one has to break and make eye contact, thus forcing an awkward greeting.
4. Bathroom stall Chicken: Perhaps the most nervewracking of all Chicken games. Can only be played in office bathrooms with stalls that do not have floor-to-ceiling walls/doors, and therefore, no barrier to protect other inhabitants from hearing/smelling your stinky offerings.
Unfortunately, these happen to me almost every day. Number 4 most recently, as I battled it out with a woman known to me only as "blue flip flops," as that was all I could see of her feet. I entered the bathroom after her, and from the moment I took my position and silence ensued, it was on. She was in there first, she had her chance. As the minutes ticked by and neither of us gave up and left, I started to panic. What if my boss thought I was up to inappropriate bathroom behavior like drugs or picking my teeth with his letter opener? What if she never left and I had to surrender and suffer for the rest of the day? I was about to yell "I'll go if you go! I mean, everybody does it, and mine really smells like roses," when I heard the toilet paper roll shuffle, the sign that she was quitting. She got back at me though, by running the water in the sink for approximately 442748 minutes before leaving.
But I won. For today.
posted by Tete Rouge at 3:08 PM
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