From Her Perspective

This week, I started a new job.  I like it: the commute is practically nonexistent, the pay is better, and my computer is really cool.  Macs are awesome, who knew?  Too bad I don't know how to turn it on.  For real.  I'm so dumb I had to ask someone and it was so embarrassing.  Anyway, things are pretty much coming up Kati except in one small but very crucial area: I have no work friends.

At my last job, I started out with a bang.  By my third day, everyone knew me because I got sprayed by a skunk and came into work smelling as such.  It was NOT my fault, of course, and I couldn't skip work actually using that excuse, because it is the worst excuse ever even though it was TRUE.  (I would reveal the whole story, but I'm too embarrassed so leave me alone, okay?)  So I went in, VERY bravely, smelling like a skunk and somehow this got me friends.  I am not kidding.  Everyone knew who I was and felt compelled to talk to me about the situation.  Why they would do so is beyond me, but I didn't care, because it made me cool.  Well, sort of.  Fine, it didn't.

So here I am now.  I am old, past the age of easily making friends.  Isn't it funny that the older you get the more of a pain in the ass it is to make friends?  It's like, I already have all of my friends, so why go out on a limb to make more?  Oh, right, because I'll be spending 9 hours a day with these people, and I get super bored having nobody to talk to.  And if I don't meet anyone, who am I going to be able to go to Papa Gino's with?  There's one like two seconds away from my office, and it's no fun to drink fountain Mountain Dew alone.  I love Papa Gino's.  Like, really love it.  If I don't make a Gini's friend soon, a dark depression will fall over me and I will be stuck hanging out at CVS for an hour everyday reading magazines and giggling at the products in the constipation aisle.  

I am trying to think of ways I could trick people into being friends with me.  The office is pretty evenly split between men and women, which is cool but I'm not used to it.  I've worked in all-female offices since 2003.  Prior to that, I worked in an office that was kind of like Delta House but naughtier.  I am not kidding.  A friend of mine once went to third base in her cube in the middle of the day.  Ew!  Although this office is nowhere near as insane as that one, I will say I am out of practice when it comes to dealing with men in a professional manner.  You can't flirt with your boss and you probably can't make fun of him, either.  So what do I do?  Those are the only ways I know how to communicate with men.  How do you think I ended up writing for Barstool?  Because I'm a good writer?  Yeah, right!  It's all about hitting on Dave and Jerry and making fun of the Petes.  I digress.  So that eliminates half of the people in the office I can be friends with, since I clearly can't properly befriend a man.  That leaves the girls.

I am thinking about bribing them with food.  When I started college, I shared the cookies my friend made me for the trip up and people were all up in my stuff.  Until the cookies were gone, of course.  That would be a good plan if I had anything other than oatmeal at my desk.  I mean, oatmeal is good, but it never made anyone cool.  And there is a big candy bowl for the whole office right by my desk, so it's not like I can bribe anyone with Snickers.

Or maybe I'll wow them with how much I can drink.  Except I don't think anyone parties together, from what I have gathered from eavesdropping on conversations.  And since I'm not in high school anymore, people wouldn't even care about that anyway. 

That kind of leaves me with my sparkling personality to rely on.  Or it would, if I had one.  But I'm kind of surly and really terrible at small talk, so this isn't really an option, either.  What about stories?  Do people like to hear stories?  I was at CVS today buying one of those Monster energy drinks and the lady behind the register sang "I'll Make Love to You" by Boyz II Men to me while I was paying.  And she was all business about it.  It was really, really funny, but what if nobody else thinks it is?  I'm stuck laughing at myself like an idiot and everyone is looking around uncomfortably, wishing they were dead. 

I guess I'm just going to have to rely on some sort of intervention of Fate to get me through this trying time.  Maybe I'll do something really stupid, like flip my desk chair over while I was sitting in it, like I did two jobs ago, or get hit on by my 50-year-old boss (who had a handlebar mustache), like I did at the job before that.  Come to think of it, something odd has happened to me at every job I've had that resulted in my making friends.  So I guess I just have to sit tight until that mortifying day happens.  In the meantime, if you need me, I'll be the girl skulking around Papa Gino's, mouth watering, laughing to herself about enemas.