Humor

That Time I Realized I Might be Too Unruly

How we feed off our environment

After reading my title some of you might be muttering to yourselves, “She’s just realizing this now?”

But wait, you don’t even know me in real life.

As I get older and care less about how others see me, I realize I may be getting louder and more disorderly in public settings. It is mostly apparent at work, because that’s the only place I have consistent human contact.

When I hang out with friends outside of work I sort of take on the vibe of my surroundings, which is quite muted. Sadly, my friends aren’t as bawdy as I seem to have become over the years.

If you regularly read my writing you’ve no doubt noticed that plenty of my stories start off along the lines of, “This one time, at work….”

What can I say? I work, and it’s the only real event going on. It’s the highlight of my life and I’m not sure if that’s a sad realization or if it makes me feel fortunate.

Not only do I work, but I work with some of the most unruly people to ever roam the planet, which is just the way I like it. I fit right in.

My job isn’t the type where we all sit behind desks, silently plodding away at our individual tasks. We must remain in constant motion and non-stop communication with each other for several hours a day, with many lewd comments sprinkled throughout for good measure.

In short, nobody ever shuts up. It’s no wonder why I love to introvert back into my cocoon when I get home. Work feels like that old Looney Tunes character, the Tasmanian devil.

We all look and behave like:

And then we go home like:

It’s all about balance, really. I don’t think I could keep up one or the other full-time, but I definitely need both.

Those I work with are rude people who love/hate each other and spare no expense jabbing the next guy at every opportunity. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve always been this way or if my particular career path has made me so uproarious.

I’m entirely too inappropriate and I don’t see myself curtailing my behavior anytime soon. It’s far too much fun.

The restaurant industry is not for regular people. Those types wouldn’t fit in. You need a thick skin and wit as sharp as a razor to be able to get by, because one day you might be sitting down to eat with coworkers and get unexpectedly hazed with inappropriateness.

Regular mealtime conversation might go something like this:

“Yea, my ex-husband was a black man.”

One of them responds, “Oh, so you’re a night rider.”

**insert jaw drop here**

Then every time after that day, when someone orders blackened salmon for dinner it’s never just a blackened piece of food. It becomes, “Why don’t you ask Kristi how that tastes?”

**insert all the people dropping to the floor laughing**

Now, when I put in my order for blackened salmon I add notes on the order to amuse the wise crackers.

NOTE: “The salmon of darkness, please. The blacker the better.”

And the laughter continues.

Sometimes we don’t even need to talk to communicate. We play restaurant charades too.

For example, one day an excited child flailed his hands in the air at the exact moment our food runner delivered chicken fingers to the table. Flailed hands hit the plate and chicken fingers rained throughout the atmosphere, until fingers, plate, and plum sauce smashed to the floor. The area of debris was miles wide.

Since that incident, all we need to do to is flail our arms in the air near each other to recall that single moment in time. The minute someone flails, we all yell, “Fingers!”

When someone does something wrong at work or makes an error, there’s no positive reinforcement to help them do better. Instead, we make them feel like a heel for even attempting to show up for work that day. If they didn’t bring their A-game it’s not our problem, but it is our opportunity to mock them.

If a coworker walks in at 5:01 P.M., a general announcement pointing out his tardiness is made, to everyone within earshot.

If his hair is out of place we immediately notice and call him out with, “Just rolling out of bed, are we?”

When a coworker excels at her job and outperforms the others, we call her an android and ask if we can clone her to replace the slackers.

And most importantly, if one of them is spotted using their cell phone during peak hours, without question I will loudly point out, “Clearly you are finished working for the day. You can go home now.” Even if they’re only 30 minutes into their shift.

They all want to get off early — until they’re sent home early. The reverse psychology effect of this tactic is very compelling.

The one time I realized I may be a little too loud is when I scared the shit out of a coworker, just by opening my mouth. During conversation, when he smiled I noticed that he no longer had braces and I yelled, “Oh my god, you got your braces off!”

It was so unexpected that he put his hands over his head and ducked, like someone would do if they noticed a piano dropping out of the sky. Or someone taking cover when a bomb explodes.

That was the exact day I wondered if I’m just too rowdy. Is there such a thing? Making people in my vicinity duck and take cover seems a little over the top, no?

It’s interesting how we adapt and take the shape of our surroundings. None of us behave this way on our own. It usually takes the power of a crowd to fuel the behavior.

This is proven in the vast collection of “Run” prank videos you can find on Youtube. A single person can trigger hysteria with one small comment or action.

On January 1st, I went into work and made it known to everyone that I was going to calm down and be normal. I thought maybe I should curtail my behavior after the duck and take cover incident, so it became my resolution.

I was immediately met with resistance and comments like, “Fuck that! Let’s see how long you last being all nice and normal.”

It did last. For nine whole days, until everyone became bored. They tried and tried to egg me on but I didn’t bite once. Until I also got bored and felt compelled to fit back in again.

I couldn’t bear the feeling of being a bystander to other people’s jokes and not doing something about it. Why fight what comes naturally?

Until HR comes running, I don’t see our behavior changing anytime soon.

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