It seems there are certain types of people you find only in the offices of white-collar America. There are the classic stereotypes water cooler guy, toady, troll and then there are the bona fide loons, the true idiosyncrasies, the specimens listed below for whom no amount of education can prepare you. My goals here are: 1) to provide some marginally useful advice about how to interact with these people, and more importantly 2) to briefly entertain students and alums who are off-campus and checking The D's website to distract themselves from excel spreadsheets and market research and bosses who make them feed their pet goldfish everyday.
- "The Whistler." This guy belongs on an episode of Seinfeld. His name derives from the sad fact that when conversing with fellow employees, he's occasionally struck by what's best described as temporary aphonia. During these instances, he can't remember or verbalize what he wants to say, and is therefore obliged to communicate via whistle. Sometimes he croaks or raises his eyebrows or gesticulates or smiles sheepishly. Most of the time he just whistles. He's good at it. His standard tune is two notes the first high-pitched, the second low-pitched. Once he whistles, that's it. It's up to you to understand. If he later remembers the word he wanted to say, he never inserts it into the conversation retroactively.
Tip: Let him save face. Ignore the whistle and pretend you understand. Keep asking questions about tangentially related topics so your incomprehension is never obvious.
- "The Enigma." This guy has been working at the company longer than anyone and has a tendency to wear sweater vests without undershirts, make overtly sexist jokes, browse Facebook at inappropriate times and eat low-fat Greek yogurts with disposable plastic spoons he never throws away. A popular office joke is that The Enigma has a PhD, which is intended to be funny because although implausible, no one really has any idea if it is real. The Engima is supposed to arrive at the office at 8 a.m. and leave at 4 p.m. Since no one else gets to work before 9 a.m., The Enigma can arrive at 8:45 and pretend that he has been working for an extra 45 minutes. You know he does this because on your first few days of work, you arrived 20 minutes early and were locked out. The Engima had not yet arrived to unlock the door. At 9:30, The Engima moves his car. The cumulative effect of all this is that he doesn't really settle down until 10 a.m. which is okay since The Enigma simply has interns complete his tasks for him.
Tip: Do his work. You don't know what kind of ridiculous connections keeps this man employed. Better not to tempt fate with this one. Since The Enigma apparently has the real world equivalent of tenure, he's really uninhibited and fun to talk to. You should work hard to have a good relationship with him.
- "The Evil Mute." Because she is a receptionist, you're required to toss her some sort of pleasantry a "good morning" or a smile or a "how's it going?" several times a day. The Evil Mute never reciprocates or acknowledges your pleasantries. She just stares straight ahead. Her default emotion is boredom. Perhaps that's why she's usually frowning and her eyes are perpetually drooped at half-mast. It's worth noting that despite her name, The Evil Mute can speak, since she has lively conversations with her friends. The upshot here is that she compounds the ordinary pressure of thinking up new pleasantries and making them seem genuine and upbeat while knowing that your best attempts at decency and politeness will be ignored with apathetic disdain.
Tip: Keep saying your pleasantries. Even if she ignores you, don't ignore her back. You'll gradually stop caring that she doesn't respond, after which point you'll simply be practicing decent manners and improving your patience.
