The New Girl at Work

There’s a new colleague at work and she is one bizarre chick. Okay wait, that was way too judgmental. Let’s just put it this way, she isn’t exactly the kind of human being I would find myself within a 1 mile radius of, and we definitely live on different galaxies wavelength wise. I do try not to be too judgmental, and I’ve been told I’m biased, but god, she just rubs me the wrong way all the freakin’ time.

1. She really should dress up for the office. I mean flowery pants? Yew… and I’ve been given the honored task of talking to her about it. Great, just great…
   
   
2. Does she have to talk so loudly and be so in-my-face? I’m not deaf you know.
   
   
3. New girl leaves office earlier than anyone else her first week at work, so much so that her boss has asked me to talk to her about “managing expectations”. Once more, not quite the job I was hoping for.
   
   
4. Don’t ever talk with noodles hanging out of your mouth. I’m guilty of occasionally talking with my mouth full, but not with oodles of noodles swinging from my lips!
   

Okay, I admit I’m being harsh. I’m probably the most unforgiving one at the office, and this is probably because I am wicked and callous but I’m also the one who has to play buddy and talk to her about dressing and “managing expectations”. I probably wouldn’t quite give a crap if it didn’t impinge on me. But I gotta’ admit its hard to be the outcast. Almost everyone at work treats her like an outsider of sorts… sure we talk to her, have lunch and do all the usual social activities you engage in with your colleagues, but its never quite at the same level of, shall we say, intimacy. We’re careful with what we say, jokes we make, who we gossip about when we’re around her. Its almost always only the serious types, almost interview-like, conversations with her. “So where did you go to school?” “Where did you work previously?” “No, I didn’t read that article about gingko nuts…” “Yes, yes, please tell me all about your previous job. Of course I would love to spend my entire lunch break listening to every single freakin’ detail about what you used to do.”


I admit I’m not going to be the bigger person in this instance. I’m not going to bend over backwards just to be friends with the new girl. We’re colleagues and honestly, if that’s the way it remains, I will have no complaints. But I am going to be less judgmental about her, and I’ll try to talk to her a little bit more, and yes help her to try to fit in a bit more. I will consciously do this not because I’m nice, ask friends who know me, I can be a fucking bitch sometimes. I can be ferociously mean and unbearably kind, but I know what it feels like to be an outcast. I am not nice, not in the very least, but that won’t stop me from helping you.