The crux is in the question. I was wondering if anyone works with someone who is completely devoid of personality or any likable characteristics? I know it is sort of a morbid thing to think of but I am realizing I work with a woman who is a Quaker - no problems there - and she is almost completely devoid of personality or likability. Why? I have no idea? She and I get along brilliantly, but I often tell her that she can smile now, at a joke or some other such funny item. Most people I work with are tree-hugg’in dirt worshipers…We are a likable bunch, we are free spirited, non confrontational, quite nice to be around if I do say so myself, but we all have our own particular personality. This person does not.
I usually have no problem getting along with anyone. I could care less if you milk cows whilst standing on your head, or paint your eye brows like a bumble bee. It doesn’t matter to me. However, I am finding a personal defect within myself, that I don’t think I like. I’m finding I have a hard time with people who appear and or act indifferent to anyone or anything around them.
I did, until last week. He finally quit after having been here a long time. Now, for the first time anyone can remember, it’s amazingly copacetic around here. We’re crossing our fingers.
Yes, but it just makes me sad more than anything because I keep thinking about how boring and empty their lives must be.
A few years ago I worked with a guy named Poindexter (name changed, of course, but he had an equally outdated “circa 1895” name for a guy in his early thirties). He was an averagely nice guy, but he basically acted like a weird little old man. I always got the feeling that he was probably one of those people born when their parents were already over 40, because he was socially awkward and his mannerisms were always that of someone decades older. He was pleasant to work with, but was essentially the human equivalent of the color beige. He seemed to have no hobbies or outside interests and no friends or social life. He was the only one of his siblings that wasn’t a lawyer, and “wasn’t close” to his family. I seriously wondered what the guy went home to and what he did in his free time. But yeah, mostly it just made me depressed.
He was completely out of touch with anything going on in the world or popular culture, as well. We worked in copy editing, and one time he brought over “J-Lo” (Jennifer Lopez) to me and said, “Excuse me, but I think this is a typo. Are they attempting to refer to the geltatinous dessert popularly branded Jell-o?”
I won’t even mention the time that “Tupac” came up.
I once worked with a 42 year old woman who was the only child of a single mother. She had gotten her job immediately out of high school and had spent the next 25 years working and living at home with mommy. Her mother would call her at least twice a day to make sure she was doing okay.
The woman never did anything. I’m serious. She was so mother dominated. She wouldn’t go out for lunch (always brought it, packed by you-know-who). Wouldn’t go out after work or on weekends. All she did was stay at home with her mother, who did all the shopping and made all the daughter’s clothes!
I’m awkward around people I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of similar hobbies as people I work with, so I could see that people think I have “no personality.” I have a great sense of humor and laugh at jokes, I have myriad hobbies and interests, many of which are social, but many that are not.
I think it is vaguely insulting to say that because somebody is so different from you in tastes and interests that it appears they have no interests, that you assume they have no life or don’t enjoy what life they have.
These are people smart enough not to tell you their true hobbies because you will insult them for what they enjoy. Some people collect stamps, pretty boring to talk about, but enjoyable for some (not me mind you, bleh), some people watch Star Trek over and over and dress up, who wants to admit that. So when you ask what they did this weekend, instead of saying “I dressed up as a star trek guy, licked some stamps, read some books about World War II, and played 12 hours of WOW,” they say “Nothing.”
Don’t assume people don’t have any hobbies or interests, just know they probably don’t trust you and think you are an asshole so they say nothing.
It is a defensive mechanism. Hell, at their little conventions or whatnot, they probably have more friends than you.
edit: I do play video games, but don’t dress up and go to conventions or collect stamps, I was just going for the most extreme I could think of. (I was going to mention D&D but never fit it in)
No offense, but I hate when people tell me to smile. Of course, if she’s asked you to help her with social cues, fine. I have known a couple of co-workers who don’t have much of a sense of humor, or at least a sense of my humor. I just remain very straightforward with them (no shades of sarcasm) and we get along fine.
I didn’t want to come across in this post as sounding crass or anything like that, and I hope you don’t think I was insulting anyone, because I did not say I thought someone had no life, or interests.
I can deal with people with little or no personality provided they have the slightest bit of a sense of humor.
Sometimes people are quiet or shy and a little harder to get to know. Maybe I have too much of a sense of humor but working with the public is pretty hilarious sometimes. Some people are completely devoid of all humor. Nothing amuses them, they never make a joke or crack a smile. That I can’t take.
She never said to help her with social cues, but we talk all the time about laughing and what makes something funny, it’s sort of an inside joke if you will between her and I. Like I said in the post, she and I get along brilliantly. I just feel for her because of her lack of enthusiasm for just about anything she does, or anyone else does for that matter.
Have you heard anything derrogatory about Quakers in the past? Something someone may have poked fun at? If you have, I probably l have too. I do not want to poke fun at, or participate in any other such incidiousness about people of Quaker decent. That’s not the point of the post Twicks and I’m not meaning to bring it there either.
My mother once worked with a forty-ish woman who lived with both her mother and sister. You never saw her without her mother. In fact, her mother would come to work with her, and sit in the car all day waiting until her daughter was done work, then they would go home together. Mind you, she did have epilepsy and had had a seizure once while driving, so some of her fears were rooted in reality.
