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The Office: Can’T We All Just Get Along?

As Americans, most of us spend more waking hours at work every day than we do in our own homes with our own families. Our coworkers become an extended family; a dysfunctional one at times but a family nonetheless. Work becomes a mini life-within-a-life where we form relationships different than any others. The entertainment industry realizes how entertaining the workplace atmosphere can be and has capitalized on it with such hits as Mike Judge’s cult classic movie Office Space (1999) and NBC’s hit sitcom The Office (2007). It is an awesome social experiment to see how such diverse personalities can coexist for such long periods of time without resulting in complete discord. But just as any family has the “drunk uncle” or “eccentric aunt” that we brace ourselves for every holiday season, our places of employment are chock full of “characters”. Love them or hate them, they provide fodder for hours upon hours of entertainment, gossip and in some cases frustration.
Every morning I sit down in front of my computer at about 7:45 am and begin the daily routine of checking voicemails and logging into the various programs I use throughout the day. Mind you, I don’t technically begin work until 8:00 am but I usually arrive a little early just out of habit. There is however, at least one dedicated employee who beats me to work every morning. We’ll call him “Overzealous Employee” for what I think are obvious reasons. At about 7:48, Overzealous comes trotting into my office with his ever-chipper demeanor and greets me with a question that usually sounds like this: “Morning. So, I was thinking about that thing we talked about last week with that one problem regarding the cutting table? Remember that? I was thinking we should talk about that more this morning.” This may seem innocent enough in itself but imagine having this conversation, every morning before work has technically begun…and then twenty more times throughout each day. “So, want me to answer your phone while...