Tall Tales from the Office Millennial

The Incident

The worst thing in the whole word happened today - my boss sent out a team email. If this doesn't sound horrendous yet, just wait. Back in the olden days a team-wide email was referred to as an 'office memo.' I read the email quickly, and my face flushed with every word. The exact contents are as follows:

Good Afternoon Everyone,

I have been asked to touch base with the team about the amount of talking within the team area. There has been some concerns raised that the chatting within the team is becoming disruptive to those working in the surrounding areas. While I always encourage healthy discussions within the team, we need to be aware of how those discussions can impact others. Please keep others in mind and try to either reduce the volume of discussions or move them to another area (such as the lunch room) if possible.

Thanks

Ben

This is quite possibly the most horrific thing that has happened to me in the eight months I have been at the office. Which, by all the messes that I've gotten myself into, is saying something. Ben is the best boss in the world - I've said this a million times (never to him of course - I'm not a creep) - but this email is a direct assault on me, and everyone on the team knows it.

Yes, I talk quite a bit in the office. It's fun to talk! How else am I supposed to survive the trudge of the nine to five? The day is so long in the office; it stretches on like a highway; you can't envision an end. Talking speeds things up a little; it puts you in a Tesla.

I spend most of my day talking to the new guy - Maxwell. He arrived four months after I did, which was enough time for me to shed my 'new kid' status and hand it over to him instead. He sit on the opposite side of the small area in which our team is located. We sit diagonally across from one another. A guy named Boris sits across from me, and Marcus sits across from Maxwell. They rarely join in on our conversations, which means they're forced to sit in silence, listening to the content of riveting conversations. The most recent topic of discussion (before this email came out and destroyed everything that was good in the world between 9 a.m to 5 p.m.) was how open I was to adoption. Not simply to save the world, but because I wouldn't end up fat.

I don't understand what irritates people about this.

I work at a consulting firm - A&W Consultants. Why we didn't think to change our name to avoid become compared to a burger chain, I don't know. My office is a huge, two storey building with a gym, yoga studio, cafeteria, and rows upon rows of cubicles which house 120 employees building their lives and careers from 9 to 5. I sit with my team of twelve, right smack in the middle. This not only limits the amount of time I can spend reading the news, but it means that when something like this happens, I'm a beacon of ridicule for the rest of the team.

The team-wide email from Ben was opened with a bang within our team. There were a few nervous chuckles. Henry muttered 'about time' under his breath. No surprise there. Henry is the halfway point between being a junior and senior, and it's a bitter spot that he's not enjoying. He thinks talking about non-work related issues should be enough to fire someone.

My best friend at work - Ayala - turned to Marcus and said, 'See Marcus? This is why you need to shut up once and a while; you're always getting on our nerves.'

Oh. My. God.

I glared at her. 'Ayala, you just made this way more awkward.'

Her comment was not only torture to hear because she was kidding (Marcus is the quietest person on our team), but because she was making it so blatantly obvious that it was me, and not Marcus, that the email was aimed at. Marcus laughed. Does this mean that I got on everyone's nerves? I read the email again.