Corporate Tongues & Mathematic Nostrils

i was sitting at my desk, sort of absorbing the office environment thirty minutes before i needed to be on the clock. this is something i've always had to do at a job-- it helps me ready myself for whatever character i'm about to play for the next nine hours.

anyway, as i sat there, listening to frantic keystrokes and overly pleasant phone calls, i overheard my colleague speaking to our supervisor. it went like this:

"hiya."

i despise people who consider that a cute salution.

"hi!"

"how's it going?"

"good! and you?"

"i'm glad to hear it. i'm doing well."

"oh, good!"

i think i was frozen in place, staring at the two employees at this point. i wanted to just throw my coffee on the ground and yell, "GET TO THE FUCKING POINT!" but i couldn't move. the way the two workers danced through their back-and-forth conversation of vague, ingenuine questions and comments terrified me because it seemed as though they were legitimately comforted by the grey chatter.

"i have a question..."

yes, she knows. even i know. get to it already.

"anytime! go ahead."

"you wouldn't happen to know who i should speak to about receiving a wristpad for my desk, would you? my keyboard makes my wrists sore."

that ridiculously anticlimactic twenty-part conversation reminded me of my first high school math teacher. he was a strict wall of a man named mr. mansfield. he had a bald head and a booming voice and he'd never hand your homework directly to you. he had an obsession with lifting the paper above his head and letting it float in whatever direction it decided, hoping it might just choose to land in the vicinity of the correct student's hand.

the few times things worked as magicially as he had hoped, we all got to see a childishly happy mr. mansfield. it was the strangest experience.

if mr. mansfield were a superhero, he would be the thing from the fantastic four. beyond their physical similarities, they both seemed to suffer from too much emotion trapped in an offensive body. and they both compensated for their delicate feelings with unruly tempers.

one student reviewed mr. mansfield on yelp saying he "was a jerk, but made THE BEST peppermint cookies EVER."

that may just be the perfect way to represent the sort of man he was.

either way, the point is i never really could decide if i liked him but he had this theory that i've always agreed with and remembered. it was about conversational etiquette-- in his case, particularly conversation surrounding sneezes.

"look," he'd say, "if someone sneezes, great. let them sneeze. they can't help that. it happens. and it interrupts my class. what i ask is that when someone sneezes no one says 'bless you!' because then i've been interrupted twice. and then the person who sneezed is going to say, 'thank you!' and then the other guy is gonna say, 'you're welcome!' and now i've been interrupted four times and i have no idea what i'm teaching anymore. all that polite stuff that follows a sneeze just wastes everyone's time so just sneeze and everyone else keep your mouth shut."

the corporate "how are you? i'm fine and how are you" conversation about wristpads had sent me into a sort of daydreaming flashback and i found myself laughing out loud in memory of mr. mansfield's odd self.

"what are you giggling about?" my supervisor asked.

"no," i started, "it's nothing. i was just thinking about this math teacher i had in ninth grade."

"oh," she said while looking at me as if i were mentally challenged.

"i mean, yeah. it's nothing. he was just a weird guy."

"you're a weird guy."

despite my efforts, this corporate character may just be the first one i'll never be able to play convincingly. and i'm undecided about whether or not i care.