Hijacked Lunch

I generally like my coworkers. Some are more annoying than others, but I get along well with them all. Although for the most part, these are not individuals that I would choose to hang out with after work…or during work… or ever….

One woman today tried to cross that line. I was sitting in the break room waiting for my yummy leftovers (fetuucine alfredo) to finish their circular journey inside the microwave when my coworker sat down across the table from me. This was my own fault as I had not prepared myself for an enjoyable lunch hour by spreading out my purse and water bottle and book across the table, marking my territory as I typically do. In fact my book was still in my purse, and once she sat down I felt like too big of a jerk to pull it out and start reading (although I’m not sure she’d get the hint even at that point that I would prefer to be left alone).

Now I am not so anti-social as to never want to eat lunch with anyone, but my lunch hour only lasts 60 precious minutes. Minutes which go by at least three times faster than regular minutes, so really I only have a 20 minute lunch, so I’d rather have it planned out before hand that we are going to eat lunch together. Actually, its not so much the fact that I have no time to prepare for this type of social situation, as it is the fact that the conversation (a word I am using VERY loosely here) was centered solely on her. In fact she just told me stories of her past, with me nodding and “hmming” every once in a while. As she relayed her past without ever once asking me anything about myself, I was nearly to my breaking point, and considered stabbing myself with my fork (which would have been less painful than hearing all of her stories).

Fortunately I didn't have to impale myself with a fork to get her to stop. My unwanted tour down her Memory Lane ended abruptly when she had to get back to work, having started her lunch a half hour earlier than me.

I'm generally a nice person and I will willingly listen to your (probably stupid) stories, for hours on end, but it would be nice if people at least pretended to take some interest in hearing some of of my (most definitely stupid) stories as well. I feel like conversation is about give and take, but most people just focus on the giving (and this is the one case in which giving is not a selfless act). In my coworker's case she not only focused on the giving part by relaying her past experiences , but decided to bestow this gift on me repeatedly by retelling the same stories within the same half hour period in which she hijacked my lunch break.

The art of conversation has truly become a lost art. A fact which I attribute to texting and the rise in narcissitic behavior in society.