Thursday, September 28, 2006

It's quiet in here... too quiet.

There are a few unusual things about my new office. The first thing I noticed was that, on the bus station platform and even at the bus stop outside the office, the people in this part of the city stand in tidy line-ups while waiting for the bus, and then board in order. The buses are fairly packed at rush hour and these queues make for some funny use of space -- People snaking all over the place. I like to freak everybody out by standing randomly somewhere and then watch them get all tense when I board the bus out of "turn".
My main concern these days, though, is the oppressive silence of my office. Yes, we are all attentively reading. That's our job and it is easier to do when there are no noisy distractions. But there's something eerie about coming in to work and it's quiet. Leaving and it's quiet. Nibbling my lunch in slow mouthfuls because for sure everyone can hear me crunching. The girl right next to me whispers into the phone to her fiance, because, yup, I can hear every word. The most noise comes from the whirring HVAC system, which kindly provides our office with constant near-Arctic temperatures. And my keyboard. It's the clackiest. All my surrounding cubicle-buddies must be wondering what the heck I'm typing (uh, that would be lengthy personal emails and my BLOG, duh) since I have no need for so much clackity-clacking while doing actual work (a comma here, delete an extra space there).
Possibly as a result from the overwhelming lack of noise, my coworkers have a kind of stunned, fearful expression whenever I talk to them. Like little nocturnal animals blinking in the glaring sunlight. I've tried to be really friendly - we all know that I would be perfectly capable of slouching in to work and home again without any human contact and I'd be just fine (I've done it before, and I still hate you, data-enterers at the WSIB) - but I really wanted to have a positive working environment. It's just hard because when you say hi or socialize with anyone, the entire office is unofficially part of the conversation. I joined the lunchtime Pilates group. Pilates is a really great way to bond with coworkers because you get to a) see them in their underwear in the changeroom and b) see them "rolling like a ball". I joined the Tuesday afterwork yoga class (Fitness Tip of the Day: Thong underwear and yoga make poor partners. Sure, it gets you all in touch with your mula bandha, but Child's Pose is supposed to be restful, not a little bit naughty!) Still, when I see my coworkers darting between their cubicles and the elevator, or in the kitchen, everyone seems a little shy. It's making me shy. I wonder if it's because everyone is feeling two-dimensional from staring so intently at a computer screen all day. Or if everyone is a little ashamed because of the content we've been reading. There's an alarming thought: it isn't stunned shyness, it's flushed excitement being repressed!
Where all this is headed is that I was responsible for a rather alarming break in the silence the other day, and since I can't confess it to my stunned and/or repressed coworkers, it's coming out here. Mid-afternoon, I decided I would just quietly let one slip out, but instead let out a big sharp bark of a fart. I waited in the ensuing total silence for some kind of a reaction. None came. Now, I react to farts (or "biffs" as we charmingly called them in my house when I was wee) like a 9-year-old boy. Hilarious! In fact, I'm giggling (silently) again as I write this. So - was it mistaken for a drawer squeaking closed, or an unusually creaky chair? Or was everyone sitting silently in their cubicles wondering WHO DARED?!? How's that for a noisy distraction?

1 comment:

Jessica McGann said...

HALLELUJAH!!