Listen in on office banter

One of the great things about spending a considerable amount of time every day in offices – and don’t let this on to your HRD – is the utter pleasure of spending an inordinate time listening to office banter. As your day progresses, colleagues (calling them ‘co-workers’ doesn’t increase productivity) start getting more voluble, social, things that WFH does not provide.

Soon enough, the hum of conversations, cackle of jokes being shared, exclamations of protein-rich gossip intermingle with the steady clatter of keyboards. This is the happy cantata sound of the workplace.

Amid all this, you can discern distinct personalities – diligent worker; pretend-diligent worker; social butterfly who moves among cubicles; canteen comrade; and veteran, soaking in information with gravitational authority.

Yet, within this structured chaos, there are moments of actual work. Even as the romance of WFH is played up so that the guilty pleasure of ‘officing’ is never caught on. Despite diversity of job roles, however, there is a shared sense of being, if not always purpose. In essence, watching, listening and participating in office life is the joyous pleasure you’ll never get outside it.