Miasmatic Review

Now that is awkward

Friday night I went out with some people from work. One of my friends is leaving the company and moving to Arizona. He’s been with the company for three years and started off in the other office, about 6 months ago he transferred to our office. He’s a bit of a social butterfly, unlike shy ol’ me, so there where a lot of people there to wish him well.

Many of these people were not from my current unit, so I didn’t know who they where. After a while, I forced myself to stop being such a wall flower and try to talk to some of the people I didn’t know. When I saw a table that had a group that I didn’t know sitting at it, I walked up. Taking a seat, I waited until they finished their conversation to introduce myself. I’m thinking I should have been a little more aggressive to save the following situation from happening.

Worker A: I’m not sure who he is, do you?

Worker B: I’ve never met him; I’m not sure who he is either. Do you know anything about him?

Worker C: Not at all, he’s from the other office.

(At this point I’m getting ready to interrupt, introduce myself and inquire who they where talking about.)

Worker A: All I know is that he got the promotion. I heard he is an asshole.

(Only two people received a promotion at work in the last couple of weeks, and only one of them was male, me.)

Contagion: I don’t know, I always thought I was a pretty nice guy. Hi, I’m (Contagion).

The looks on their faces was classic. I sat and talked with them for a little bit and even bought them a drink. We laughed about the whole thing. There is a chance that one of them may end up reporting to me next week. To me it would be better that they feel comfortable with me, then to be worried about some kind of imagined repercussion for an incident of gossiping outside of the work place. That’s just not something I do, nor do I want them thinking that way of me. As far as I’m concerned, what happens outside of work can not be punished at work. In fact that is the corporate policy.

Personally, I’d never risk it. You never know what is going to happen and who is going to try to get you in trouble for an imagined slight after hours at the local bar.