Good luck, Dana. Maybe follow the swirls for a while, see where they lead you.

My job is so interesting -- as part of diversity and inclusion we just had a discussion about masculinity. At which several of the men in the room didn't say anything, but still, it's a start! Also it was still 75% women in the room, which generally reflects the office.

I'm glad your head's a bit better, Dana.

That does sound interesting, Jesse. At my recent communications class, the instructor said a lot of things like "this is common to our culture, but it's pretty widespread around the world" and "eye contact is part of common courtesy" that struck me as...not quite right. I suppose I could have included comments about that in the course evaluation but I wasn't really thinking about it at the end of the class.

Oh, dear. The Senior VP of Finance just responded to an email asking for information that was in the email he was responding to and left the customer on the distribution. That's just embarrassing. I'm so glad there is no need for me to actually say anything to any of these people at this point.

"eye contact is part of common courtesy"

That reminds me of a coffee I had with a brilliant faculty member who was somehow completely charming without ever making eye contact! I was impressed.

Determined eye contact from someone I don't know annoys me and makes me think they're trying to sell me something.

"eye contact is part of common courtesy"

Jesse, I know you read Ask A Manager -- did you read the comments section to yesterday's podcast? Specifically, all the people in the comments who agreed with the caller that having to say "good morning" to co-workers falls somewhere on the gamut from "deeply traumatic on a physiological level" to "makes me want to punch you in the face." (!!!!!!!)

Those commenters are MESSED UP. Saying "good morning" to your co-workers is...part of having a job WHAT THE FUCK. And a very large portion of the commenters are confusing introversion with sociopathy.

Good lord. I register about as far as possible on the Introvert side of the Introvert-Extrovert scale. And I can still say "good morning" to my coworkers. Sometimes I ask after their sick kids or car problems, too. That's part of being in the world.

Oh god, no I didn't -- I haven't listened to the podcast yet. I do believe there are pathological good morning-ers, but 90% of people are normal! Or normal enough. Like, I sit in a office that a lot of people walk by, but I'm facing parallel to the hallway, so no one has to say anything when they walk by. One person on my team always says good night, and usually good morning, and that seems fine! I don't care that she does it, or that other people don't! Because we are all normal enough!