TMI in the Workplace

While this blog is here to mostly serve as an outlet for the countless decisions, speedbumps, and arguments I'll be lucky enough to be a part of during my long engagement, I'll also occasionally use it to discuss other things; such as why the hell some coworkers need to tell you every bit of mundane detail about their lives.

I am a friendly guy. I always have been, and I probably always will be. While I most definitely have a temper, and sometimes I have a tendency to say some fairly inappropriate things when I get upset, for the most part I am very cordial to people. Old ladies love me; babies adore me; I guess I have just been blessed with a face that says "take all that shit that you've been holding in for the past four or five days, and spew it all out to me because I have absolutely nothing going on in my life that is more important than listening to you ramble on about topics that are completely irrelevant and inappropriate to the relationship we have."

I work in the tech field. Which, of course, means that I work with and for several people who have spent most of their lives in front of a computer screen in a basement or other dark and solitary room surrounded by countless Snickers wrappers and empty cans of Mountain Dew. I know that it may seem like I'm stereotyping, and I'll have to admit that I am a little bit, but c'mon, we all know that in many cases, stereotypes exist because they are often true. I have worked a few jobs in my day, in many different fields, and the tech field is the only one where I have worked with and for people who are incredibly and completely socially awkward. Not being from a technical background, I don't really have this problem. Yes I was an extremely awkward teenager. I dabbled in drugs, I drank, I dressed like I stole my wardrobe out of Marilyn Manson's closet. My mom hated it, and I'm sure my dad did too (what father can be proud to see his son go out on the weekends in a fishnet shirt?) but he was, shall we say, less expressive than my mother. I can't count the number of screaming matches I got in with my mother during my teen years, I'm just thankful that we have put all that crap behind us and have a stronger relationship because of it. The only person that really stood behind me was my grandma, who has since passed. Not only did she allow me to be who I thought I wanted to be, but she embraced the sheer ridiculousness of some of the things I would do simply to push my mom's (and some of my other very religious very conservative family members) buttons. One Christmas my mom wanted me to wear something that was "Christmas-y." I went to a thrift store and bought a pair of red and grey plaid pants that were about 4 inches too short for me, a red tuxedo shirt complete with ruffles, and a holly berry bow tie. I put red and green laces in my combat boots and the ensemble was forever etched into my family history. I thought my mom was going to murder me with her eyes; my grandma almost pissed herself she thought it was so funny.

That being said, I also played sports. I ran track and played competitive soccer. I had friends, good friends, and I had a lot of acquaintances. I rarely spent a weekend night at home. I had girlfriends (pretty ones too I'd like to believe); and I had "girlfriends." The bottom line is that even though I dressed like a goth club reject and had a serious case of teen acne, I got out and interacted with people. My current colleagues seem to suffering from a severe lack of human interaction over the course of their lives. As a result, they simply don't know how to act when they're around other people. It seems to run to the extreme too. I have divided my colleagues into two types of social dysfunction:

1. the hermit-these people have a fear of any kind of human interaction. There is one employee who visibly starts to sweat profusely when you try to talk to him. These guys and gals clam up at the mere thought of sharing any personal information with another human being. We have a couple girls who, although not my type, most would consider attractive. When they are in a common area with some of these hermits you can almost hear a pin drop. The fear is simply overpowering. However, if they are in the same room as fellow hermits, all fear seems to disappear, and the discussions on MISRA and C++ vs C flow freely. Occasionally you'll be lucky enough to witness a hermit come out of his or her shell and start to interact with non-engineers and techies. Unfortunately, what usually happens as a result is that you end up with:

2. verbal diarrheans-these people have discovered that talking to people who are not on the team for their latest engineering release or robot-building project (or even engineers at all) does not, in fact, result in immediate and certain death. Once Pandoras Box has been opened, it cannot be closed. If you befriend these folks they will tell you anything and everything about their lives, no matter how embarrassing or irrelevant. It's as if 25 years of pent up socialization is all taking place at once. And once they start talking, look out. I've tried everything from getting on my cell phone and pretending to talk to actually going into and using the bathroom, but they just keep talking. And if you do manage to find something to interrupt their monologue (you'll never get a word in), they have such well controlled thought processes that they remember EXACTLY where they left off. They expect you to as well. Which is why when you see them again a week later they will continue the conversation as if you have just paused it 15 seconds ago.

I've been told by one member of our sales staff that I'm the equivalent to a "turner" in the homosexual world. These are gay men and women who, for some reason, straight men and women are drawn to. This can lead to uncomfortable and awkward mornings after I'm sure. I apparently have the gift of being able to "turn" a hermit into a verbal diarrhean. So I've gone from an office where nobody said a word to me to an office where I know WAY too much about people I barely wanted to know anything about in the first place.

At the end of the day, I really am a people person. And as annoying as a lot of these people are, I love the fact that, for some strange reason, they feel like they can talk to me. In my mind that's really what life is all about; getting to know people you normally wouldn't have in your inner circle. We can all surround ourselves with people who share our same values, beliefs, and social tendencies...that's easy. But opening yourself up to interactions with people who are nothing like you can open up whole new perspectives on the world that you would have never experienced. Or you can hear about the potential causes of your co-worker's latest bout of IBS. Either way, it ain't boring.