Castiel233 Posted December 11, 2015 Share Posted December 11, 2015 Where ever I have worked, generally speaking the conversations are nearly always about the following. 1- Work 2-Co- Worker gossip 3- Sport 4-Holidays No one ever talks about much else, ever. I suspect it is the desire to fit in. Its always a bland subject. No one really talks about the meaning of life, or science. Having said that I was talking to one woman , who regaled me with ghost stories in her building, which made a refreshing change, but she is an exception. How about you guys, is it the same deal the world over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RenaissanceWoman Posted December 11, 2015 Share Posted December 11, 2015 Don't forget gossip about the clients! That was our favorite. We were always trying to figure out why they were so annoying or incompetent or demanding or mean or distracted or disorganized or whatever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knightcore Posted December 12, 2015 Share Posted December 12, 2015 I think one of the reasons people keep to those subjects is that it's common ground you all have. That said I work with a bunch of other college students and we talk about all kinds of shit during downtime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
directionless Posted December 12, 2015 Share Posted December 12, 2015 I didn't talk that much, but here are the thing others talked about: - stupidity of our supervisors - what happened last weekend (especially do-it-yourself projects) - children Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreySkiesGreenEyes Posted December 13, 2015 Share Posted December 13, 2015 -how irritating the customers were- who did what over the weekend- children children and grand children- what we did on our holiday time off it's always the same wherever you go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreySkiesGreenEyes Posted December 13, 2015 Share Posted December 13, 2015 Oh there was one random guy I met at work who made things interesting . He always asked random questions like " if you could fly but had to eat only hot dogs in order to do it, would you think it was worth it? ". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted December 13, 2015 Share Posted December 13, 2015 Before college, I worked in a retail store in various capacities. There, I worked by far the hardest for the least amount of money I've ever made. The environment in the break room was poisonous. People were angry and discontent with every aspect of their jobs and this was the subject of conversation. After college, I got a job in an office and the atmosphere was so starkly different It felt like utopia for me for a while until I got used to it. People there talked about all sorts of things and were generally positive about work and life. Add to that, my work was physically undemanding and I earned 3 or 4 times what I'd earned in retail. Toward the end of my retail days, I used to fuck with the managers by writing communist slogans on the breakroom walls. "Workers of the world Unite!" and "The people united will never be divided!" Most people I worked with didn't have a clue as to the meaning so I'm not sure of the effect. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themonkeyman Posted December 13, 2015 Share Posted December 13, 2015 I work in a large media company so whatever is happening in the news is the topic as well as sharing non public gossip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RenaissanceWoman Posted December 13, 2015 Share Posted December 13, 2015 I'm wondering, Castiel, if there is something you want to talk to others at work about? Do you feel like you're missing out on something in life by not having meaningful conversations at work? Are you thinking maybe as a society we are too detached from each other? It's probably good that we don't talk about too much personal stuff with coworkers (including politics, religion, sex, etc.). Work gossip spreads fast, since you're stuck with the same people all day every day for much of your waking life. It's probably best not to give people juicy tidbits that can get misconstrued (against you) as they are retold. I shared an office space with a guy known as "the bitter atheist." If he ever got upset about some legitimate work issue, some people elsewhere in the building blew him off (cranky old man) rather than delve into investigating and solving the problem. It was unfair. I'm still friends with him now, even though we parted ways a few years ago. I like his bitter atheist-ness. And once you or others move on to another job, you realize that after a few emails here and there over the following months, you were never really friends. Even if you sat next to them 10 hours a day for several years, and shared everything -- once one of you is no longer in the day-to-day picture, it's pretty much over. I do have a couple friends that "stuck" after leaving, now 10 years later or so. But I am surprised by the others who seemed so close at the time, but I would have to try pretty hard to track them down now. Sigh. I hope this isn't too far off topic. I'm just curious why you're asking about this. Just come talk to us, OK? We won't gossip to coworkers or get your fired or anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disillusioned Posted December 13, 2015 Share Posted December 13, 2015 Where I work now, there's a group of us that like each other a lot, so we talk about pretty much everything. It's really more like a group of friends than a group of colleagues. But last year I was somewhere different, and there it was pretty much just small talk, bitching, and what we were doing on the weekend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prometheus Posted December 14, 2015 Share Posted December 14, 2015 I'm transitioning careers in February, but currently work at an engineering firm. All of the employees except myself are married and have exactly 2 children. My coworkers talk about their kids, the weather, engineering meetings, engineering clubs, engineering parties, and engineering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amateur Posted December 14, 2015 Share Posted December 14, 2015 Work topics from different jobs I've had: - kids - different dinner ideas - boyfriends, husbands, guys in general I made a best friend at one job, and we had a good time writing haiku about some of our co-workers (comparing them to farm animals), she was taking a short-story writing class so she wrote a story involving our various co-workers which was funny, we re-wrote xmas songs to apply to our co-workers, and we also came up with a great murder/mystery involving our co-workers. Yes, we enjoyed our co-workers, who were quite the odd bunch. I currently work in a warehouse with several hundred people, and we basically are ants toiling in a hill. We don't talk very much at all, and I don't even know that many people's names. I'm exhausted at the end of the day, so just don't care. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dichotomy Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 I guess it depends on your profession. I work in people's homes and know my two employers very well. We talk about pretty much everything, life, universe, science, religion, children, family, TV, sex, books. whatever it is we've probably covered it at some point. They're both atheists too which means we have no awkwardness in that respect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts