Annoying workplace personalities

The following personalities are among two of the most annoying I have come across in the workplace:

THE KNOW-IT-ALL – the annoying guy, usually young and full of himself, that interrupts everyone’s conversations to butt in and either correct them on some minute detail, or voice his opinion on the topic, despite the fact that no one cares what he thinks. Said individual tries to act like an expert on everything, but also seeks to bond with the more common employee on topics like football, even though he has even less knowledge of football than he does on other topics. Will tend to try to sound extra manly when talking to commoners by emphasizing Aussie accent and lowering voice. Said individual will also most likely have a partner that strokes their ego constantly, and in turn will talk up their partner to make themselves look and feel better. Management does not see through the know-it-all but other employees do, and the constant unjustified promotion of such an individual will prove to be a source of constant frustration, while the know-it-all’s ego continues to grow. In the end, they always win.

DISGRUNTLED MIDDLE AGED WOMAN THAT LIVES TO WORK – this character constantly bitches, has an inferiority complex and tries to make other people look bad so that they will look better. Generally attended university as a mature aged student and will have one close, loyal friend, usually a manager, that will make favorable selection decisions even when undeserved. The friend may also take the form of someone more competent that the disgruntled individual knows they cannot beat. Is unfriendly and hated throughout the organisation, except by a select few that she makes an effort to suck up to to get promotions and make life worthwhile, given that this type of person is generally single and lives alone.

Oh my. How annoying. How bleak. The worst.

A fleeting cloud…

A series of undertakings

I promise to try and be nicer and less passive-aggressive. I promise to try and be less like my mother, and less like my father. I promise to try and take the good in both of them, to recognize and eradicate the bad, and to be better.

I promise to always make sure my brother is happy and looked after, even though he is just as emotionally stunted as me and we don’t hang out that much.

I promise to show my man just how much I really do love him, how happy I am i found him and how he puts meaning in my life. I will probably never be able to express the feeling I get when I am in his arms, when I bury my nose in his neck and stroke the hair down to the nape of his neck. But I will show him. I accept him in spite of his weaknesses. I love him, I love him, I love him.

I promise to work hard and to never let the organization brim me down. I promise to focus on my passion and my role and on helping and understanding people a little bit better.

I promise to be more forgiving. I promise not to hold a grudge because it leads to a miserable and lonely life, like that of my parents. I do promise to try and understand my parents a bit better. I promise to be strong and brave because these qualities lie at the heart of forgiving.

I promise to love my kids when I have some. I promise to make them better than me, because really, that is all you can ask for as a parent – that your children are an improvement on you.

I promise to keep trying despite setbacks. Be better, be better, be better.

The death of someone I barely knew

Isn’t it strange the way people have spent decades upon decades upon lifetimes trying to figure out death. And life. And how it began and what the point is. I myself have spent hours trying to use literature and TV to find meaning in my life, to feel things that I’m scared I’ll never feel in reality. And if I do feel these things, there’s always the fear that these feelings may not live up to the way it’s portrayed by other people. But really, the topic fascinates almost everyone and acts as a strong driver for many that have professions that allow them to express themselves and apply their creativity.

The obvious rationale behind this fascination is that the concept of death, of an ending to us and everything that we have been, makes us appreciate what we have. It makes us want to seize every moment, savour the enjoyment, the feeling, the everything. The death of someone close to us, whether parents, a friend, partner, relative, or worse than anything else, a child, obviously affects us all in different ways. The thought of never seeing someone again is just plain sad. Even if they drive you up the wall at times. As that episode of Scrubs said ‘you may find out that thing you hate so much, is the very same thing you’ll miss, when it’s gone’.

What I don’t understand though is why, when I hear about the death of someone I only met once or twice, or someone that was close to someone else that I know but that I had never met, it has such a drastic effect on me as well. For example, a guy at work brought a friend of his to a work trivia night a couple of times and I thought she was okay… didn’t really pay much attention to her. She was outgoing and confident, reasonably good at trivia, if that counts for anything. She was killed in a car accident and I was devastated. I didn’t show it, but for some reason I found myself scouring the obituaries to find out when her funeral was and when I saw that she had siblings I was even more crushed. Likewise, a boy one of my friends dated in school died of a stomach tumour when we were 20. I’m not even friends with this girl anymore, and he was actually pretty mean to her when they broke up, as 16 year old boys tend to be. But I went to his funeral and found myself deeply affected by his death, even though I barely knew him and he would not be likely to remember me, nor would many of his friends.

It’s not like I’m a particularly caring person – in fact, I’m pretty sure that most people I meet find me stand-offish and abrasive because I’m shy and come across that way, as hard as I am trying not to. It’s not really because I think about how I would feel if someone I loved or cared about died, although that may be part of it.

In all honesty, the reason I think I lose sleep when say, a friend of a friend that I’ve never met dies, is because it reminds me of the futility of life. I mean, when I think about the girl killed in the car accident I wonder ‘is that it? is her life set to be nothing but an annual trivia night of an organisation she doesn’t work for and whatever other pointless activities she took part in’? Not that I’m judging – she probably very much enjoyed her life and found if incredibly fulfilling. There is no reason that she wouldn’t. And that boy – his father said in is eulogy that after battling cancer for almost 3 years his son was ready to go and told his family as he was slipping away that it was ‘time’, as though it was a relief. Was he happy with what he experienced in his much too short time in this world?

I do love my life and the few people that I have in it. I am not profoundly miserable. I get moody, but I am happy. I just always feel like I should be doing something more than waking up, going to work, coming home, watching TV. The odd social event. Is this what life is? Will these mundane moments suddenly all make sense and be incredibly valuable to me when I’m about to die?

Literature, TV and film throughout the times, even the very best of these, in which I have found profound meaning and comfort, all proceed upon the notion that death is significant because it motivates us to find meaning, beauty and goodness in life. I guess what I’m afraid of the most, is that at the end of my life, whenever that will be, I won’t have that feeling of ‘appreciation’ or warmth, the feeling that comes with valuing and appreciating every stupid wavering moment that I experienced in this harsh, crazy but beautiful world. The feeling of your heart swelling up and then you feel like you might explode. What if I get to the end and ask ‘is that it? was that all?’, kind of like at the end of a very disappointing movie.

I hope that doesn’t happen to me.

Deactivation complete!

Ahhhh Facebook. The latest thing to take over the world and become a part of everyday life. So many conversations involve comments like ‘did you see what [name] wrote on Facebook last night?!’ or ‘How annoying are [name's] status updates all the time’ and of course ‘[name] added me on Facebook!’ Singles use it to meet new people and communications on Facebook have particular significance when you first start dating someone. Deleting someone from Facebook has significant implications for the friendship outside of the internet. Love it or hate it, it is well on the way to becoming one of those things we don’t even think about, and ingrained in our lives. Like the email, the phone, or electricity. Even if some other social network ‘brand’ takes over, the concept is there, and Facebook was the first to make it big.

But let’s face it. Most of the people you have as Facebook friends are school friends you didn’t keep in touch with and only really wish to have you as a friend so they can see what you are up to now and how you turned out. The people you talk to and ‘connect with’ the most on Facebook are the ones you spend time with anyway. And lately people’s mum’s and dad’s are joining Facebook and becoming Facebook friends with their children. One girl in her wild early 20s that I used to work with told me her mum stalks her on Facebook to check what she is up to and questions her about posts and friends comments on her wall all the time, to the point that she tried to hide certain content from her mother (as Facebook allows you to do). Her mother found out, and it caused a massive fight. I know I for one logged onto Facebook after having deactivated my account during a busy period at work, to find a friend of mine, once quite close, complaining that she thought I had deleted her after we hadn’t been spending much time together. She made quite hurtful comments and I was incredibly upset.

So isn’t it all just a farce? Causing more problems than it solves?

I have drifted apart from all my school and university friends. I am not going to pretend this isn’t my fault. I am lazy. I don’t make an effort to hang out with people anymore, like I did when I was younger. And to be honest, I am more of an ‘alone’ person than one that enjoys being around large groups all the time. Don’t get me wrong, I am not socially inept. I used to be much wilder. But now, my sole focus has become work. I think I have mainly become like this because I expect too much from people and ultimately end up disappointed because no one can live up to my pathetically high expectations. If someone makes the smallest mistake, I will phase them out, without seeking to rectify things first. I am bitter and hold onto things. And therefore I am alone.

Every time I log onto Facebook I am reminded of the things I am no longer a part of. The weddings and parties that I haven’t bee invited to, the conversations that I am not a part of, the life I used to have, full of socialising and fun. The closeness of other people and the fact that when they have a party, there will be heaps of people they would want to invite and that would love to come. I, myself, can barely think of any.

So that’s why I deactivated my Facebook account. Once a Facebook addict, I have not found it as hard as I thought it would be. I don’t miss it, although I would be lying if I said I hadn’t logged on and reactivated (before quickly deactivating again) just to see what was going on. But all in all I think I am done with it. I am withdrawing from life in one more way, becoming more alone.

Notably though, I have only deactivated my Facebook account, not permanently deleted it, as Facebook gives you the option to. So the option to return is always there. If ever I need a reminder that I am no longer a part of anything.

A humble viewer…

I love TV. Just absolutely freaking love it. And I’m not talking that there’s like a few shows I let myself get engrossed in, carried away in, in a moment of indulgence. I mean I genuinely, 100% love TV. In every show, even the most low-brow, pointless, rubbish, I can find something to love. And I watch everything. From quality cable to awful sitcoms, I watch it all.

I have no idea where this unwavering, passionate appreciation came from. Maybe I was placed in front of a TV as a child so developed an attachment to it. I remember as a child my very active younger brother, who was about one and a half at the time, pushed the old CRT over and broke it while I was watching Sesame Street. I was crushed. Just flat-out devastated. I remember wondering what was happening on the street that I was missing out on. As the time came along for my other shows to start, I was thinking the same thing. As I grew older, this appreciation – nay, attachment – continued. I used to go bike-riding with friends after school some afternoons when I was 12, and I used to always make sure I was home in time for the weekday Brady Bunch re-runs they used to play at 5pm. Once one of my friends said as I was leaving ‘You know, I don’t really mind if I miss one episode’, meaning they had definitely noticed my TV addiction and tendency to choose TV over other life experiences, even the simple everyday ones, like spending time with your friends.

It was almost as though I was seeking the feelings that other people get through real life, happiness, sadness, love, etc, through television, instead of finding them for myself. It wasn’t as though I was a loner as a child. I was one of those people that was everybody’s ‘mate’ but nobody’s ‘friend’. I never really kept in touch with friends from school or work- I generally kept people around while I needed them and then moved on. I never really let anyone see what I was really like. Every now and then I would come close… a bit of my jealousy and controlling nature would seep out, but I tried as hard as could to reign it back in. Somehow though, I always felt like most people I became a little bit close with knew what I was really like. And most probably accepted me in spite of it.

But I still chose to keep generally to myself. And still do today. I never make an effort to keep friends. I would rather curl up in front of the TV after work than go for coffee or drinks. There are some TV shows I watch to feel (or when I feel) a certain way. The story arc on Scrubs where Dr Cox’s friend Ben (Brendan Fraser) gets cancer, goes in to remission, then relapses and dies, Sx and the City, Seachange, Gavin and Stacey, The Office (both US and UK versions)… they all have episodes, or even lines, that have a special meaning to me. Someone put their heart into writing the content. Perhaps they even lived it, or a slight version of it. Either way, shows like this provoke emotions in me that I have never had in real life.

And weirdly, sometimes it’s not even the quality or moments in the show itself. The show may not be that great, but it makes me feel a certain way just because of it’s general ‘aura’ or what it has set out to do. Like Pushing Daisies – great premise seemingly not carried out as well as it could have been, but still made me feel something like… warmth.

So for those of us that know ourselves and wish not to unleash ourselves on the world, perhaps TV serves as a workable alternative. So maybe,just maybe, that idiot box hasn’t been the worst thing that happened to the world.

If I have a blog, does that mean I’m a real writer?

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I never knew what type-tv show, novels, films… There are so many options. All I knew was that I wanted to write.

The pearls of wisdom about being being a writer are one and aplenty. Write about what you know, write about what you love, just sit down at the computer and see what comes out. Whatever you do, just freaking write!

Reading the previous few sentences you might think I’m a young renegade, full of hopes and dreams, ready to step out and make my mark on the world. In reality, I feel like just the opposite of that. I guess I’m still relatively young (I’m on the ‘cool’ side of thirty), but in actual fact, I feel like a bit of a sellout. I do a generic, unchallenging administrative job despite the fact that I studied law at university and went on to complete an honours degree. Why? I suppose I’ve always really seen myself as a legal graduate that would take my skills to broader areas and make a difference, but I haven’t really even done that (more on this topic to come). But really, I think it’s because I enjoy being the best. That’s it. I enjoy working around mediocrity, because then I’ll be the go-to guy, the hero, the one that all look up to. What an incredibly pathetic existence.

The truth is, I have no idea what I want for the rest of my still very new life. What I do know is that I need some drive for change and to stop my ego from being the motivator for everything I choose to do. I guess that’s why I’ve started a blog. I need some direction, some inspiration… Maybe writing it all down will help me find that.

At what point do we stop being a kid that hopes and transform into a grown up that organizes and plans? Why can’t the two co-exist? Watch this space while I ponder this, and other great questions of the universe, such as who the ‘mother’ will be on How I Met Your Mother, what the next season of Dexter will bring and what the best flavor of soup is.