more adult things i've yet to grasp

the meshing of childhood and adulthood continues.

today at work we had a pizza party - which reminded me of being in middle school, when there would always be the fundraisers to see who could sell the most magazine subscriptions or something, and the class that raised the most money would win a pizza party (and the envy of every other class). what i realized today is that grown adults love free pizza parties almost as much as 11-year-olds. which is a good thing, i think. it's nice to see that some little pleasures always stay exciting.

of course, at adult pizza parties, there's much more discussion about how bad the pizza is for you. (hint: parties are not as fun when people start talking about the caloric contents of the food - we all understand that pizza hut's grease-soaked food is not exactly "healthy" but it is also "lunch we don't have to pay for" so let's just be positive, shall we?)

i'm friends with several people at my work, and i would say i'm on friendly terms with everyone, but when you get the entire office together (11 people total), the lunch conversation can be a little awkward. i've noticed that people at work tend to be either incapable or afraid of discussing things other than work during "social" times. it's almost as if we're afraid of candid moments. "hey marie! have you finished the account reconciliation for november yet?" is NO problem, but "hey marie! have you seen any good movies lately?" = WHOA. that's uncharted territory. you never know what you're going to get from those kind of questions.

i definitely have felt awkward about making small talk with co-workers that i don't work near and don't know very well. when the olympics were on (i LOVE the olympics), i would come into work and, in an effort to make small talk and make friends since i was new at work, i'd say something like "so wasn't michael phelps awesome last night??? that race was SO amazing!" to which i would get a reply like "what? oh yeah, i think i heard his name on the news this morning or something... i don't really get into the olympics." i won't even go into how people can have that sort of apathy toward the olympics -the olympics!!! - but that was probably the moment when i realized that office small talk can be difficult and awkward. because these people are my co-workers (or bosses - YIKES) so i couldn't really just say, "you aren't watching michael phelps? do you hate having JOY in your life? do you not understand historically-significant events?" because that wouldn't have just made me a blunt person, but it could have also had some unfortunate repercussions for my professional/financial state... but, what do you say to someone who didn't spend one week of august being totally excited about michael phelps? i was at a loss. how do you make small talk with people that you see for most of your waking hours, but you don't ever discuss non-work-related things with? this is a big challenge. i am not used to being professional, either, so my efforts to be excited about other things (movies, music, the olympics!) are not always received as warmly as i would expect. anyway, i don't know why it's so hard to talk about things that aren't work-related. we know that talking about work matters is comfortable, since we do it so often. so it's difficult to break out of this cycle of only discussing work.

however, once you had everyone sitting around a table together at today's party, eating pizza and getting a little hopped up on pop, the conversation started to loosen up a little bit! meaning you can move past "work talk" on to... the weather! and the mortage crisis! stories about peoples' children! and maybe (if everyone's feeling brave enough) the fluctuating gas prices! wow, it's almost too much to handle.

weather seems to be the safe, obvious topic to discuss, but that gets old quickly. yes, it's cold outside. we've all experienced chicago winters and we know that they're A. cold and B. miserable. check and check. yes, these things are obvious, but they're also safe for small talk, so they're brought up constantly (i am definitely guilty of using the standby "try to stay warm!" line that nobody actually thinks is funny. i just can't get past that. i wish i didn't have to say it so often, but it just... comes out before i can stop myself). today at lunch we had a discussion about how many inches of snow we're supposed to get tonight. it went something like this:

bill: "so... more snow's on the way tonight, eh?"
gina: "i heard we're supposed to get 3-5 inches of snow tonight"
roger: "oh really? this morning they were saying 2-4 inches"
darlene: "well i heard we were supposed to get about 6!"

meanwhile everyone else just sort of nods and tries to decide whether they have anything to add to the conversation, so as to avoid the impending awkward lull that's about to kill this scintillating discussion. have i checked weather.com recently? do i have a funny story about a snowstorm? can i make a joke about how i hope it snows so much tonight that the office will be closed tomorrow, without making it sound like i'm lazy and just don't want to be at work? these are the questions that probably run through everyone's mind... and a few seconds later, the answer to the question "can anyone come up with something interesting (but not too deep) to add to the discussion of how many inches of snow we may or may not get tonight?" is a resounding no. nobody has anything interesting to add to the conversation. some may try... but they are quickly shot down by pity (albeit polite) laughter and a lack of eye contact.

another big topic amongst the office crowds (or at least my office - i don't mean to generalize here, although i think some of these things are probably applicable to other workplaces), is the economy. fantastic. our economy that's in a recession. that's exactly what i was hoping we'd talk about during our party. anyway, today everyone decided to talk about interest rates - what rate they got their mortgage at and what a good credit card interest rate is. i don't have a mortgage or a credit card, nor do i plan to have either anytime in the near future, so i had nothing to add. as i took part in this conversation (and by "took part," i mean that i ate my pizza, feigned interest in the topic, and every once in a while i nodded and said something ambiguous like 'ohh huh, that's interesting'). i found that taking part in a conversation like that was, for me, much like being a person who knows nothing about basketball rules watching a basketball game. when you're at a basketball game, sometimes there's someone sitting nearby who clearly doesn't understand the game very well, but they really want to be involved in the experience. so they cheer or boo, but only after hearing the cheers or boos of those sitting around them. if they were to watch the game alone, they wouldn't understand the fouls called or the hand signals of the refs. they wouldn't know whether to be happy or upset with the calls. that's why they need the crowd around them to tell them how to feel. that's the way i felt at this meeting. people would say things like "when i bought my home in 1994, we had to pay a 15% down payment," and, if i were forced to react on my own, without the help of my co-workers responses, i would be done-for! i have no idea if that's good or bad. luckily, after each statement such as the ones above, there would be a communal "oh really? that's so great!" or "oh, that's terrible" which would serve as my indicators for how to react (i was always a half-step behind on the reactions due to this little game i had to play) - every once in a while, someone would make a statement about an interest rate that wasn't particularly shocking, and it was difficult to get a read of the crowd's reaction... was this good or bad? i wasn't sure. nobody was giving me a conclusive facial/verbal signal. at that point, i would simply look down at my plate and take another bite of pizza.

and this is the reason that having food is an absolute necessity at all office gatherings. preferably something unhealthy (it gives you something else to comment on).