Office based conversations are a strange thing. Very few people go to work and consider themselves among friends yet most people find a common link between each other that brings them together to discuss any number of awesome inane topics over the proverbial water cooler.
Having worked in many fields in my relatively short existence I’ve heard all sorts of banter, ranging from problems at home and work to perceived “clever” banter to attempt an office romance.
What I would like to address here however is the change in dialog based on where you are. It is an odd thing to see conversations shift so drastically from workplace to workplace.
For a time I was working as a staff writer for one of the largest higher education teacher’s unions in the US and some of the things that were brought up boggled my mind (and baffled my sense of work ethic at the length of the aforementioned chats).
I sat next to a particularly attractive soccer mom who was the “Bell of the Ball” with all the men swooning over her footsteps. Through my stay there I learned, unwillingly, all about her life as she had near constant conversations with half the office on a daily basis. She was in a loveless marriage, her children were spoiled, she wasn’t raising in the ranks quick enough, she couldn’t seem to make her and her husband’s 6 figure incomes make ends meet, etc…
Different men would approach her desk at the same times every day, I could have set my watch to it assuming that I felt the need to track the ebb of time pass as her conversations were precious minutes of my life that I would never get back.
Day in and day out I overheard the drivel spewing from her mouth that was eagerly absorbed by the voracious ears of her gentlemen callers.
This level of casual work conversation in this setting prompted me to leave for bigger and brighter pastures. But I myself am no saint, which is where the dichotomy of my rant begins.
I now work for a major video game publisher and we have a fairly laid back work environment, no dress code, flex hours, did I mention we make video games?
I’ve found myself in my time here engaged in all sorts of heated debates of all natures. I never would have thought that in a professional environment (which we attempt to maintain despite the casual nature of what we do) I would be having a full fledged argument with my peers over who would win in a baby eating contest, Superman or Wolverine. This topic stands out particularly in my mind as it involves mythical characters, unspeakable atrocities, and harks to my early days as a comic aficionado (see: fanboy).
I sided with Wolverine having a distaste for all things Superman under the umbrella that Superman, while he could physically eat more babies and at a faster rate, would be less likely to eat babies than Wolverine who would effectively do anything if it were for the better good.
Without digressing further into the troubling jaunt that spawned from that conversation I’ll simply say that it went on for a good hour or so and involved double digits worth of employees as they passed by, heard, and then joined in with their two cents.
So here I am, in all of my hypocrite glory. But is it hypocrisy if I take the environment into consideration? I would have never discussed eating children at any prior place of work. That kind of conversation should be reserved to gaming companies and early 1700s Irish meal plans.
So then is office chatter a positive? Is it a negative? I dislike the fact that I have fallen into the icy grip of mindless colloquy but perhaps there is a place for it in the workplace assuming the correct topics are discussed given those around you. It does serve to raise general moral, especially when working a long series of 12 hour days, and as studies have shown we as Americans spend more waking hours with people at work than we do with our families which in turn makes our human interactions at work that much more important.
\\drew
