At the risk of sounding like an insensitive human being I'm going to occasionally archive the repeat personality types my newfound office life has furnished my existence with. Perhaps you've met them too.
First up is "The Fog". I run into this type occasionally around and even outside of work. We've all seen someone go into screensaver mode while talking to them. You know the look. They're gone and most of the processors aren't firing anymore. I didn't think it was possible to think about 'nothing' until the first time I saw this vacant expression overcome someone's face.
At work this results in that co-worker who asks you for the same information repeatedly and even as you're reminding them you can see your answer disappearing into some sort of fog in their brain. Where does it get filed? Who's to say? Perhaps it goes through a dryer, or a wardrobe--either way it ends up in Narnia with your socks, every file you've ever forgotten where you saved it to, corrupt mp3's from the Napster era and stuff your computer told you it didn't manage to salvage when it crashed. And even if you managed to find this magical land you would arrive to discover that unicorns are using these lost items as toilet paper.
My results to engage with this type have mostly been a dismal failure. The only lasting impression I seem to make is when I get upset over damage caused by their fog-like actions (I remember you said to calculate these important numbers like this - what were the other 2 steps again? whoops.). Resulting in things like this conversation:
"Hey, I remember some sort of weird thing happens in the system when I do this twice in a row....what was it again? Nat knows---I remember she doesn't like it."
Me, "Do you mean *technical jargon here* ?!?! Yeah, don't do that twice in a row! You need to cancel the first set and start again."
"Are you sure I have to? I mean I really have to get this done. Can I just release both sets?"
WHAT?! That's like asking if fire can be put out with MORE FIRE. (note: fire + fire = FIRE)
You know they know this, yet, in the fog, time slows down and someone's drinking a hot chocolate in a very relaxed way and going, "Are you sure I need to get up for this? Seriously? I have cocoa. Mmmm cocoa."
Look, we all like cocoa, but sh*t needs to get done, son.
My trouble arises from a complete inability to relate to this personality type. I run on like 70% anxiety and 29% guilt (1% occasional random euphoria, god I love that 1%). I'm convinced horrible ethical consequences await me if I don't give 150% to everything I do (this includes evenly sealing envelopes) and is coupled with horrible guilt if I do happen to get away with 99% effort and don't think I feel bad enough about it afterwards.
There is no fog in my brain. Screensavers NEVER come on. I'm pretty sure I stir extra brain RAM into every cup of tea I make. When someone communicates to me from this blankness it is like staring into the face of the nothing from the Never Ending Story. Suddenly it's me and excel responsible for saving Fantasia. And what's excel really going to do for me? Can I vlookup in that necklace of power? No? I'm screwed.
Apparently only the fury of my anxious terror at the sight and realization of how far-reaching the consequences of this kind of mental apathy can stretch their obnoxiously lazy tentacles is the only lasting impression I leave on this personality type. It must be alarming for them to look into my brain as well. What do they see? Is it like Time Lords looking into a rip in the space-time continuum? (I enjoy this as I am now Doctor Who and infinitely awesome. I need to replace my cubicle with a TARDIS stat!)
Probably the most unchanging thing about getting older is that I don't feel anymore equipped to deal with personality types vastly different than my own now than I did in junior high school when I'd be randomly grouped on an important project. (Immediate pre-teen horror would set in. Could I trust these people? Did they own a thesaurus? Did they care at all? Oh God!)
An open concept office creates a strange menagerie of behaviour - followed by a condensing the longer you spend around everyone. I'm going on three years at my office and the layers that shed, the comfort level and inner-speak you develop with colleagues is amazing. I mine so much great insight from it, and so much incredible bafflement at the types and interactions that blow my mind.
Hopefully there is something to be learned when paths cross between two disparate types like mine and the Fog (otherwise I must conclude the karmic overlord of our universe enjoys prodding me with a stick).
Me: Too afraid to make mistakes.
Them: Crippling apathy launching avalanches of make-work errors all from a lazy oversight the size of a small coin.
Me: Immediate strategizing of a capture-all process to clean up whatever hideous trail of errors have been created in the past and a stern plan for the future to prevent them (already assuming 'The Fog' feels the horrible crushing weight of their error like I do just hearing about it).
Them: Remembers vaguely my upset from last time and shows up to describe it to me in a horrible Pictionary like fashion that inspires multiple equally horrifying scenarios before I guess which one it actually is
Me: Moment of stupefied wonder at the state of the world, human nature, life in general, my karma, the real meaning of it all
Them: Oh so you can take care of this? Great! Thanks.
Is apathy like recreational drugs? I feel like I'm constantly being offered it by burn-outs "It's really easy and fun, try it! Dude, it's amazing!"
But is it amazing?
I don't want to be less alive in own life, even if my rapier of justice is aimed only momentarily at something as seemingly insignificant as doing the same math twice.
Is the fog living in a cocoon? Are they enlightened? Am I too uptight?
The thing is, I want to populate my Narnia with enormous dreams, not lost files.
I would like my socks back though.
Unless they’re unicorn toilet paper.
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