Partly Cloudy, 64°
Holding her nose and squinting her eyes tightly, local woman Tess Cleary did everything in her power to suppress a sneeze Monday in order to avoid a “bless you” interaction with her coworkers .
“It’s not like I really despise them or anything,” explained Clearly, dimming the brightness of her computer screen so her coworker’s couldn’t peek over her shoulder to see what she was up to in an attempt to start conversation. “It’s just that the thought of having to make small talk with the people I work with is the most exhausting and horrible thing I can imagine. What am I supposed to talk about?”
During her break, Cleary put in headphones and scrolled through her phone in an attempt to look as engaged and unapproachable as possible. “I’m not even looking at anything interesting,” she explained, “I just make a really strained face so it seems like I’m reading an important email or something and shouldn’t be disturbed.” Cleary added that she will sometimes walk to the break room and just stand there by herself in order to spend a few minutes in a room alone. “Again, it’s not like these people are my enemies, it’s just that I have zero desire to be chatty or make a connection with the people that I work with. That sounds so difficult and I am terrible at making conversation. It’s best to just avoid it all together.”
Despite her prolonged efforts, Cleary ultimately let out a small cough, which prompted the man who works in the cubicle next to her if she thinks she may have caught that bug that’s been going around, and whether she’s caught up on Mr. Robot.
