Work Conversation

Working in customer service means that there is a revolving door of employees. They come and they go with the tide or the phases of the moon. (Edit: These may be the same thing, I've got the boys in the lab working on sorting that out.)

The company I work for recently hired several new employees. One of them hung up some vacation photos of a fishing trip she took with her kid. One of my coworkers used this as an opportunity to engage in some "get to know you" conversation. "Get to know you," conversations are awesome because run the dangerous risk of becoming awkward. It's like russian roulette with words, where seemingly casual questions can be answered with things like "I've got cancer," or "he's dead now," or "we're divorced."

"Is that your daughter?" asked my coworker pointing at a photo of a ten year old girl holding a fish. The photo was clearly taken at the end of a long, sun drenched day.

"Yeah, we went fishing with my uncle," said the new lady.

"Boy, she's really got a tan," he said casually

"She's half african american," said the new lady.

Slight pause.

"You look like you got some sun too," he said.

That "crashing" noise was me falling off my chair in laughter and peeing my pants a little.