With Meatballs

So I was sitting in the break room upstairs eating some Spaghetti-O's when a foursome of generic business-casual people came in. Each was in their 30s, with alternating black or tan slacks and pastel-colored shirts. The two women wore gold bracelets and necklaces with little gold looking swirly things, and the guys each had their cell phones in holsters on their right hip.

They proceeded to ask each other where they were from, how long they had been working here, etc. Then an obvious awkward lull while they waited for the Pepsi Machine to do its business. I'm watching all this from the corner seat of the corner table with my Economist next to my bowl, amused. One of the guys brings up the Chiefs and miraculously the silence is broken. They chatter on about Sunday game rituals, like chili with the family or feeding the dogs bacon for good luck (no joke!).

At first I am amused at how utterly generic and meaningless this conversation is. Nothing more than an awkward cover story for being forced to mingle without supervision during a break in their day-long meeting. It kind of reminds me of being a new hire, and spending those first weeks constantly chatting with people that seem interested in you, but really are just excited to have new meat listen to their stories. Only, all four of these people looked like new hires, so it was bonus awkward.

Suddenly though, I got this gut-wrenching rage. Is this really our common culture? This... nothing? This shallow platitude driven nonsense? Instead of trying to meet people we simply all pretend to be generic people because we think that is what other generic people want. Short of the feeder-of-dog-bacon, not one of these people exhibited a personality quirk or unique story. And even bacon-feeder wasn't exactly stepping out of bounds by admitting that she liked dogs. Gasp!

Why is it that we create this weird divide between our personal lives (and hence our personalities) and our 'professional' lives? Is it that we are afraid of admitting our differences in fear of offending someone? I know that is how I feel when taking a new job. Be a yes-man to everyone until you figure out who thinks what and whose opinion actually matters. But even then, I'm not myself, because I just become what those-that-matter expect me to be. How is this behavior considered healthy?

It's just like we are all going through the motions of professionalism, and are afraid to just be people. I want to be friends with my coworkers, and not just 'at work.' Maybe it would just be easier to work with my existing friends, or to start my own company, than to find it elsewhere. I don't know, but I realized in that moment that I don't really care about the paycheck, as long as I can get by. All I really want is to have fun at what I do. Maybe I should reconsider this whole office-career idea, but for what?