On the row where my cubicle rests is one other guy and three girls. It is amazing to me how much the women talk about one another. If this were on a television show, there would probably be complaints about how stereotypical the women are portrayed. They’ve sort of formed a girls’ club. Simon and I, being guys, are conforming to the different stereotype. We talk about things generally not having to do with one another. Though he will bring up his girlfriend Paige and occasionally I will bring up Clancy, we’re more inclined to talk about politics, technology, or Deseretian culture.
The girls, meanwhile, will talk almost entirely about people. They’ll talk some about their husbands, but mostly it’s about each other. To put a finer point on it, mostly it’s about females that are not around. While they don’t spend all of their time “backstabbing” there is a fair amount of it that goes on. Someone from Legal Standards & Compliance will come over and ask/say something. They’ll start a conversation, and then when the other person leaves they will talk mercilessly about her. But they talk very kindly (fawningly, almost) about Mindy, my predecessor.
But what impresses me is how they just do not ever stop talking. They talk while they work and they take breaks and talk. I am saying nothing of their work ethic. They get as much done as Simon and I do. We just divide our goof-off time by talking and surfing the Internet. No such division for them.
Since I don’t know if anyone actually read my Carrying Catherine series from a while back, the long and short of it is that Catherine was a mentally troubled female coworker who had a tendency to go erratic and got up and quit for the fifth and last time one day. Since I know that she was 100% all-serious business, I can’t help but wonder if she quit because she couldn’t take the chatter.
This makes me think about that poster that says:
Extraordinary people talk about ideas.
Average people talk about events.
Small people talk about other people.
I try to hover somewhere between the 1st two. After all, an event like the recent London bombings certainly inspires a reaction. But I’m really not interested in following every waking moment experienced by say, Tom Cruise.
Comment by Ethan — July 14, 2005 @ 10:11 am
In contrast, my office is almost always utterly silent. We’re in actual office rooms, not cubicles so there’s a lot more separation. But typically everyone holes up in front of their PC’s (or are just out in a meeting) so typically it’s ghost-like.
Only myself and woman I work most closely with, whose office is directly across the hall from me, talk a good deal with each other. Actually it’s more like we holler across the hall at each other.
Comment by Barry — July 15, 2005 @ 9:31 am
[…] bit closer and it became pretty hard to deny that I have a rather sexist employer. From a sociological standpoint, it’s very interesting to have two different gender-specific groups doing s […]
Pingback by Hit Coffee » Men’s Department, Women’s Department — July 15, 2005 @ 10:02 am
Ethan, I get along with them well, but I find it all exasperating! More on the general subject to come.
Barry, back when I was looking at moving to a bigger cubicle, part me was excited but I realized that one of the few advantages to 4x4′ cubicles is that it forces socialization. Since someone like me must be forced to communicate, that’s not entirely a bad thing.
Comment by trumwill — July 16, 2005 @ 5:55 pm
[…] lly happy about. The answer did not take long at all to find: My seating arrangement. The Girl’s Club was interrupted when Marc made the quick transition to QA. Along with Simon and the gir […]
Pingback by Hit Coffee » Musical Cubicles — September 7, 2005 @ 11:03 am