Friday, December 21, 2007

Meaningless chatter

I was, earlier this week, disturbed by polite conversation. There's a guy in my office, a high up marketing type. I don't think he even knows my name, despite the fact that I work 20 feet from his office, there's only 5 people in our wing of the office (about a quarter of the total floor area, and I see him every day. Anyway, he had a death in the family this week. Must have been fairly close too, he flew back to Jersey for the funeral. I only know this because I'm observant, and, being a marketing guy, he talks loud. He's sort of autopilot super-polite to everyone (another marketing trait) "Hi, How you doing?" and the like. When asked, I said I was fine, and asked how he was. "Great!" I mean, I know people expect that sort of thing, it just struck me as dishonest at a particularly base level.

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