Office Encounters

I feel slightly ridiculous.

As a trade off for being allowed to work at home, I arranged with my boss, who is incidentally based on the other side of the world, to come up to London every two weeks to spend some quality time bonding with the design department (currently me, a freelancer who is leaving in a month and my junior) and to generally do some wholesome face showing to the rest of the company (this wasn’t my idea) which seems to constitute substantially more conversation than I ever made with anyone when I was here on a permanent basis.

I have until recently been able to seamlessly blend this at breakneck speed with a reasonably important client meeting. However this time the reasonably important client meeting materialised and was quickly abolished but I still had a train ticket and a design department to bond with. And what was more frustrating is that I'd booked a two day visit, worried that someone would notice that of late my visits to work had been as brief as a crotchless thong.

Yesterday I spent the majority of the day attempting to make chit chat with my work colleagues and struggling to unzip some assets (it was a lot more complicated than it sounds). Everyone wanted to know how I was doing, and the same questions are asked as they were two weeks ago.

My answers lacking in any substance (I have an inability to give a concise or appropriate response, which is magnified once fuelled by alcohol, so a verbal 'out of office' response such as 'I'm fine', 'things are great' and 'isn't London hot?' is usually adopted for when an outpouring is inappropriate), I attempted to stimulate the conversation by individually tailoring similar questions in return ('how is your wife/house/divorce/personal ailment').

I am utterly terrible at making small talk and either start thinking of a reason to leave the conversation as soon as a person attempts to engage in conversation with me. I have a terrible habit of bombarding people with questions, occasionally highly awkward and deeply personal, usually before they have finished the answer to the previous one.

To enter the final stages of the painful crucifixion of a conversation and to not have avoided such awkwardness by a. voicing that I need the toilet, b. offering to make a cup of tea or c. edging backwards out of the room until I can no longer physically partake in any discussion is considered by my brain as the ultimate in faux pas. On the telephone, my inability to observe a momentary silence with respect like a mature adult, my habit increases to an embarrassing degree.

Today, having dealt with several rounds of small talk (having not wished to express any particular personal problem with work colleagues, nor indulge in asking such questions) and concluding with some imaginative exits, I actually managed to get something done. I conducted said design bonding which involved discussing all the things we hadn't done from the minutes from the last session, and actioning them for next week. I viewed the finally unzipped assets. In a fit of verbal generosity on my brain's part, I walked into town with my junior to buy lunch and actually had a few things to say that weren't offensive or related to the weather. I ate a hummus and carrot sandwich. I drunk coffee.

And then I realised I was sat in an office. In London. On my own.

I have been sat in the office, due to my usual office being full, on my own for at least two hours now. I have moved around a few objects in Photoshop and made a slice or two in ImageReady but it doesn't exactly constitute the sort of level of productivity that I exude in Cornwall. I have spent the majority of my time in the office this afternoon writing this blog.

I will be sat here, on my own, for the rest of the afternoon, until five PM when I will depart to get my train home. I am not, I quickly noticed after about five minutes of being sat on my own, and has continued to be apparent, bonding with anyone. People actually talk to me more when I’m at home, albeit on Skype.

I think my boss, who is currently probably deep in sleep in his beautiful far away home, is laughing at me.

I might go and see if anyone in the next office wants a cuppa.