Tag Archives: awkward

Clearly you love your job. Not.

3 Oct

I’m tempted to start a short film project featuring the concierge in my office building. She’s a heavy set woman in her mid-forties, and she clearly hates her job. Or me. One of the two.

I’m generally friendly to strangers. I go out of my way to say hi in the elevator. I strike up conversations over the bathroom sink. I ask cashiers how their day is going and actually listen to the answer. I figure we’re all in this together, so why not get to know each other a bit?

Apparently the concierge disagrees with my approach. Every time I greet her in passing, she gives me a stare that borders on hostile — a stare that I would probably reserve for people whose incompetence negatively and directly impacted my day. Oh, and she never actually answers me, even when I frame up the exchange with a question.

“Good weekend?” I’ll ask on Monday morning. She stares back as if I formed the words using Pig Latin.

I’ve gathered that she does speak English, because there are sometimes people hanging out talking to her. But for whatever reason, she’s decided she doesn’t want anything to do with me.

Bless her heart – that’s not the best approach to take with me. Because my response to that? Game On.

Fine line between a concierge and an animatronic chicken.

Case in point: Today, heading out for lunch, when I stepped off the elevator, she was in the middle of a huge yawn and we locked eyes. So as I walked by, I tapped her desk and said, “Late night?!” and winked at her. (No response, btw.)

Other days, I’ll make comments that are ludicrous – like whipping in from a downpour and commenting, “Been outside lately? It’s gorgeous!” without a trace of sarcasm.

And still: no response. I’m beginning to think she’s an Animatronic Concierge that our property management company leased from Chuck E. Cheese.

Each day I plan to get a bit more ridiculous in my attempts to engage her, just to see what will happen. In my mind, I’ve gone as far as to imagine walking in pantless and asking her if she can recommend a dry cleaner. Or bringing in a cat in a cat carrier filled with squirrels.

Because those are the places my mind goes. That’s normal, right?

I just can’t understand why she won’t be my friend.

 

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At least I didn’t scream “GO!”

11 Aug

Because during the day, an alligator avoids eating children.

The other night I whipped into Safeway on my walk home from work to pick up a few items for dinner. On my way in the door, I passed Melissa, the woman who bought my old condo. (I still live in the neighborhood so we shop at the same store and bump into each other occasionally.)

Naturally, I tapped the glass, waved and said, “Hey stranger!” as we passed each other.

She caught my eye, smiled, and — as soon as the door held still — said, “Hey back! It’s been forever! How are you doing?”

And as she said that, my mind finished its computer-like body scan of her and realized she was NOT, in fact, the woman living in my old place. She was a complete stranger. Albeit one who bore an uncanny resemblance to Melissa and was willing to humor me, but a stranger nonetheless.

Embarrassment must’ve registered on my face, because just as I started to say, “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry! You look like someone I know –” she broke out in a huge grin, saying, “Wow! I totally thought you were someone I used to work with who lives in the neighborhood!”

And then, with the best-timed “jinx” ever, we both shrugged and said, “Small world!” at the exact same time. Had we met under different circumstances, I’m sure we would’ve been BFFs.

It’s always awkward when you mistake a stranger for someone you know — I think it harkens back to childhood, when (without looking up) you accidentally took a stranger’s hand, thinking it belonged to your mother. This instance (with the Melissa-look-alike) was about the best case scenario because we BOTH were confused.

Now let’s jump into the Way-Back Machine to check out the other end of the spectrum.

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I think there’s probably a lesson in here somewhere.

16 Mar

This has nothing to do with the rest of this post. But it's so disturbing I had to share. (Image source: http://www.tmz.com)

Thankfully, she’s been out of the news so long I couldn’t remember her moniker. Hence I found myself googling, “woman who wants to be Angelina Jolie” and “woman with too many babies” before I stumbled upon it: OCTOMOM.

While I believe whole-heartedly in Zero Population Growth, I wasn’t googling that Waste of Space  because I wanted to mount my soapbox. No, it was actually because I was trying to come up with a good comparison to make this statement come to life:

Today I used so much KY Jelly I think I may have outpaced Jenna Jameson and the Octomom combined.

Now I have your attention, don’t I?

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I hate it when that happens.

15 Jun

If both of these are YOUR feet, it's cool. If one is not, it's AWKWARD.

So one of the most awkward category of human encounters I can think of is when someone is touching you without realizing it.

You know what I’m talking about: When you’re grabbing lunch with a client and somehow someone plants their foot right on top of yours without realizing it. And you either respond quickly and slide your foot away, or – more commonly – freeze, hoping they’ll adjust their foot and you can reposition yours without them noticing. But then they DON’T move theirs, and you sit there, unable to fully engage in conversation, because you are so fixated on holding that foot PERFECTLY STILL. Because now a decent period of time has passed, enough that if you DO move your foot, they are going to think you a freak for not having just pulled it away when they first stepped on it.

Right? This has happened to you, too, right?

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