I'm polling you guys on this one. How weird is it, on a scale of 1 to 10, if one of your officemates:
1. completely totally ignores the standard "don't talk to me" signs such as wearing headphones, typing away at lightspeed, staring intently at your computer, and/or resolutely ignoring her as she chirps your name, until ignoring becomes impossible and you are forced to answer a burning question like "What's the web address for Google maps?" (Elli's head: "try Google")
2. drops everything to intently monitor every conversation you have. A friend comes into your office and you talk about, say, moving, or losing your keys, or a conference they went to or whatever. Your officemate drops everything she's doing, takes off her earphones, swivels partly around in her chair, and stared unabashedly at you both while you talk. Once your friend LEAVES and you are finally getting back to work, she says "What was all that?" and hashes the nothing-to-do-with-her conversation back out for way too long to be normal. (odder: you're making a quick cell phone call and the moment your voice starts up she turns around and stares at you, steadily and unblinkingly, while you talk.) (Elli's head: "don't even pretend the noise is bothering you. You're wearing ATC-esque noise-muffling headphones and you've been reading Ph.D. comics for two hours. By the way, I'm propping my feet up on my desk to block your face because it is REALLY distracting to have you stare at me while I talk.")
3. similarly monitors anything else you're up to. You buy Skittles and open the bag. Ooh, tearing noise! She turns around and stares at you for way longer that it takes to process the fact that yes, you are eating a bag of Skittles (Elli's head: "My God! A bag of Skittles has appeared in my hand! You may be wondering how this happened. But wait...you have your own bag of M&Ms right there. You bought them from the vending machine downstairs. This mystery, it is solvable. And how the HELL do you hear this stuff through your super-sexy bigger-than-your-head noise-blocking headphones, anyway?")
4. thinks that it is a really good idea to cut into a conversation you are having with your adviser (about a deadline you are scrambling to meet) to tell you that man, she just is kinda bored and really has time to kill and there was this guy on the bus this morning and do you know if craigslist might have any small tables on it that she could look for? (Elli's head: "can you not use Google*? Are your conversation monitoring skills suddenly broken? Can you not tell I'm really busy? Can you just...oh my god go away")
I know she could just be shy, or searching for acceptance, but it's...just...weird. I'd really rather not be stared at on and off all day (and no, she doesn't have a crush on me - I don't get the "I like you" vibe OR the gaydar vibe). Am I being unreasonable? Does this get better? Or is it legitimately kinda weird?
*my most I'm-a-bitch pet peeve is definitely being asked stuff like "Do you know if the course schedules are online?" or "Do you know the email address of the assistant deputy computer guy's secretary's babysitter?", especially from someone with one hand on a computer mouse. My way of answering them would be to perform a five-second Google search - which begs the question of why THEY'RE not doing it instead of bothering me. How have they gotten to a Ph.D. program without this skill? If I'm not too busy I sometimes actually bother with the search and answer them. Keeps them thinking that I'm a mad computer ninja, when really I've typed "course schedules" into the department website's search box.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Weirdness scale
Posted by Elli at 5:20 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
She might just be bored, or have imperfect social skills... Harmless, but difficult to escape since you inhabit the same office... :p Put up a bookshelf or something as a screen perhaps?
Post a Comment