Friday Free-for-all — Don’t Touch Those Dials

For those of you playing along at home, today is Friday.

I know it is Friday because when I got to work today, I had no less than seven people say “At least it’s Friday” when I asked them how they were doing.

It makes me want to stop asking people how they’re doing.

It’s not like I can do anything about it if they were to answer with anything other than “fine” or “at least it’s Friday“.

What if someone were to say, “Today is horrible!  Please help me!”

After an awkward silence and a Wallace-and-Gromit grin, I would just say, “Well, you enjoy the rest of your day, now.  I’m just going to … um … you know … go to my office … and … um … do stuff.”

[Exit stage left, hurriedly.]

It’s not that I don’t care.   I do.   But I have also taken all of the mandatory on-line training modules on “Ethics” and “Workplace Harassment” and “Inclusion” and “Diversity” and “Sensitivity“.

From what I can ascertain from taking these modules and watching the poorly-acted vignettes, is that it is best not to get too involved in the various crises and incidents and particulars of one’s co-workers.  Ideally, one should not even come into contact at all with one’s co-workers.

In fact, I may have already violated company policy by even saying “How are you doing today?”

And, in retrospect, I probably should not have made eye contact.

Now I will probably be reported to HR for flagrant eye-contact with a non-exempt employee.

Just this past Tuesday I had to block a fellow employee from pushing the down button on the elevator for about 30 seconds because I was afraid that it might still be warm with some residual body heat from when I’d pushed it seconds before.

I’m pretty sure there is an entire on-line training module on “The Hazards of Inappropriate Residual Body Heat on Door Knobs, Light Switches, Elevator Buttons, Etc.”

There is also the companion module, “Avoiding Secondary, Tertiary and Quaternary Human Contact While Still Being a Team Player“.

To help the employees remain compliant to company policies, the walls are festooned with inspirational posters such as:

“Keep it to yourself”

“Hide your feelings”

“Sharing is scaring”

“Emotions cause commotions”

“Your thoughts are important … but only to you”

and

“Keep looking at the floor”

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Well, that’s it for this post.

I would say “Have a nice Friday,” but it may already be too late for that.

I’d ask you how you feel about that, but it’s probably better if I don’t know.