Ok ok,

To me, the most annoying thing about working in an office environment is that when you show up in the morning you say “hi” to everyone and then for some reason, you have to continue to greet these people all day every time you see them. You walk in at the start of the day, “Morning, Alice, morning, Mark. How are you doing?” “Fine.”

Ten minutes later you see them in the hall, again you say, “How you doing?” Now, I already know how he’s doing, I just saw him, he told me how he’s doing. But you’ve got to keep saying something each time you pass. So you keep coming up with different little greetings. You start coming up with nicknames for them. . . . “Jimbo.”

You do the little smile with the head raise. The almost imperceptible beneath-the breath “Hey” with a half-smile. If it’s a narrow passageway, thank God now you can say, “Excuse me.” But it has to have a very friendly singsong quality. You kind of go up a note on the “me.” If you feel more familiar, “Tight squeeze” is popular. When walking by a group of 3 or more men, “Gentlemen” is often used to confer an air of sophistication that is always misplaced.

Day-of-the-week references are always good, especially Monday or Friday because of the obligatory emotions that are assumed to go with them. Any mention of weekend seems to comfort people. “Good weekend?” “Had a good weekend?” People like anything with weekend in it. Thursday’s good for “One more day,” which usually prompts the easy “Yeah, can’t wait”.

We should all agree that we’re just going to say, “Acknowledge” as we pass people in the halls. You know, just walk by, “Acknowledge, acknowledge.” We’ll become ewoks for four seconds and not have to wrack our brains every time we just want to go to the bathroom or a coffee break.

Cheers.
ps: It’s a good thing i only go back to the office once or twice a week.