Everyone Wants Everything to Be a Barbecue

By this, I mean: every assembly of people tends toward unstructured, meandering conversation about topics unrelated to the purpose of the assembly. Once upon a time, I started an engineering job at a recently-built, well-equipped research building on a large university campus. I expected this to be a serious place where people worked hard. But I soon discovered that people at desks near mine wanted to talk, throughout the workday, about matters unrelated to work. They were friendly and interesting, so in the moment, I couldn’t help myself from joining the chatter about hiking and restaurants and other trivia. Somehow I was both at work and at a barbecue. I joined against my better judgment, knowing that people on the other side of the cubicle divider wished to hear less chatter. (Those people wore what passed for noise-canceling headphones at the time, and they arrived at work very early.)

Commenting on Bubbles has been removed. Why? If you want to talk about this post, write to the author, use the comments on their blog if it has them, or reply with a "RE:" post on your own blog. Suggestions? feedback@bubbles.town