Amphigouri: varnished nonsense

Laughter has always been a big part of my life, particularly during family gatherings. Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, particularly when I was in college and when I was living in VA & NC; it always means lots of my mom’s fantastic food, and even more good humor. There is always good-natured ribbing between my brothers and myself (there was a span of several years when my mother refused to sit me next to or directly across from Brother M during mealtime, as inevitably he’d make some snarky comment under his breath or give me one of his one-eyebrow-raised looks, which always resulted in a gasping fit of giggles), Dad’s horrific puns (which seem to get even worse as the years go by!), teasing of the parents, and Simpsons quotes (and other pop culture references) galore. Family gatherings have made me really appreciate environments in which there’s abundant amusement, but not until recently did I realize that I no longer laugh that much at work, and how much I actually miss it.

I first started working at my current place of employment in the mid-90s, back when I was learning Unix system administration and worked with a bunch of other techies. Nearly every day saw us lunching together in the cafeteria, where the conversations were almost always humor-filled, and always enjoyable. I usually met for daily coffee with another group of like-minded folks at work, and tech talk was almost always interspersed with a few jokes. After two years, I moved to VA into a very different environment, but one thing remained the same - the humor. Actually, the jocularity there took on a very different flavor - much more geeky, and not for the thin-of-skin or easily offended (if you’ve ever seen South Park, you’ll have a sense of the milder side of most of the jokes in that work environment). Despite the fact that I refer to my time in VA at that job as one of life’s “learning experiences” (a euphemism of grandest proportions), I have to admit that I did enjoy the more social aspect of the environment and my coworkers when not dealing directly with work stuffs.

Three and a half years ago, I started working in my current group, which is small and geographically dispersed. Most of our communications take place via emails and conference calls, and I thought I’d adjusted quite nicely to being a cube-hermit (the folks I sit near are not in my group and we very rarely have any interaction aside from a cursory “hi” in the morning and “have a good evening” on the way out the door). Last week, however, I was reminded how much I’m missing.

One of our current projects necessitates my working with some software vendors in order to test drive their products before selecting one to purchase. Last week marked the first of our official tests, and I found myself working for four days with the sales engineer, trying to understand the software. There were several problems with the software, actually, but on Friday as I was writing up my report I was surprised to discover that it hadn’t really been a frustrating week; I laughed more at the office last week than I have in ages, due largely to the fact that the vendor was so laid back and had a sense of humor that I could appreciate. (I’m suddenly reminded of a Jack Handey/Deep Thought, which was something like: “Dad always said laughter is the best medicine, which is why, I guess, so many of us died of tuberculosis” ; aside from the tuberculosis bit, there *is* something to be said for laughter as “medicine”) He reminded me a great deal of many of the folks I’d worked with in VA and a few in NC; and while my current coworkers all have fine senses of humor, there’s something to be said for people in the workplace with whom you can share a chuckle at things like Strong Bad’s English paper. (don’t ask me why that’s funny. it just is)

At any rate… thank you, VendorDude, for the reminder that I still need to have some of that face-to-face contact with some of the other tech people in the workplace, no matter how comfortable I think I am in my cube/cave, and for reminding me to add this to my list of criteria when I’m on my next job hunt.
I suppose I should also add my thanks for illustrating that not all vendors are evil.