PlatKat.com

I was hanging out in my cubicle around 6pm, waiting for a poker game at 6:30, when a fellow cube-farmer from a different group approached me. Because I’m a decent human being, I obeyed the Heirarchy of Attentiveness: people physically in front of you come first, the phone is second, chat is third, VM/emails to be returned are fourth, and work to be done goes after that by order of importance, which you should have determined when it landed on your plate.

“Hey Kat, does [your boss] have a policy on cell phone usage?”

I look up from gchat, surprised and slightly put-off by such an inane question.

“I don’t know why she would. She sits in another building.”

Semi-annoyed that I told him something he already knew, he replied, “Right, but what does she say about using them?”

“I’m not really sure why you’re asking me this question,” I said.

This went on for a few minutes. I was bored and he had trouble getting to the point, which is typical of most of my conversations here.

“I hear cell phones ringing a lot in this area and I was wondering if those people know that they’re bothering everyone else,” he told me.

“Well, I like to silence my phone and take personal calls outside, and I’ve encouraged people to do the same,” I said. (This is an understatement; I am a cell phone nazi.)

“But not everyone does that,” he said.

“True, but if someone’s phone is bothering me, I ask them to put it on vibrate and that usually takes care of it,” I replied.

“Yeah, I’ve talked to a few of the validators, but maybe there should be some sort of rule,” he said.

“If a specific rule is going to be made about that, why don’t we also make rules about when people eat lunch or go to the bathroom? I think people should monitor themselves…”

He interrupted me with over-compensating laughter and agreed that we don’t want to go down that road. We spent a few more minutes talking about unnamed coworkers who weren’t present and habits of theirs that we can’t change, another typical aspect of conversations here.

“Yeah, I guess I stopped expecting people to have common knowledge about these things when I started working in the tech industry,” I said, as it is generally accepted that technically oriented people are socially incompetent. I think techies improperly use this generalization as an excuse for poor personal conduct, but I had better things to do than open that can of worms with this guy.

“I never expect common knowledge to exist anywhere,” he said.

“In some environments, you just can’t,” I agreed, hoping to close the conversation so I could return to my multiple flashing chat windows.

“In any environment,” he corrected me, “…in life.”

“Get out of my cube.”