literature

Guide to Office Conversation

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There's two kinds of existing communication forms - socialising & conversation.

Conversation is the exchange of actual information. It can include instructions, information on a topic of interest, jokes, honest discussions about emotions, and anything else where the information contained is actually the entire content.

Socialising is the exchange of very small, "light" amounts of information that is exchanged for the purposes of subtly transmitting an entirely separate set of information. It includes small talk (in which the purpose is to reaffirm relationship statuses, infer emotional states, and remind others that the included people are part of the same "tribe"), power games (in which the purpose is to define a pecking order), and jokoids (A term I stole from "The Comic Toolbox by John Vorhaus - it means something that looks and sounds like a joke, and has all the same qualities as a joke, with the exception that it contains nothing funny - an indication that it is being used for another purpose. Generally it will be used as a power game, or to convey information that would otherwise be considered insulting. For instance, I often get the jokoid "Keep the noise down" at work when I'm not saying anything. This is a way of them conveying the information "Concentrating on your work rather than engaging in small talk makes us nervous". For some reason many people consider a jokey statement as less offensive than a blunt statement, rather than more offensive).

Generally, socialising is an unpleasant activity for spectrumites. Unfortunately, not socialising enough makes NT's uncomfortable. As socialising is used to reaffirm relationship status, emotional state and pecking orders, not socialising can cause the following problems - Relationship status can be read as "This person currently dislikes or is annoyed by us", emotional status can be read as "This person is depressed or angry", and the pecking order rank can be read as "This person, by default, is on the bottom". The other problem that arises is that by not socialising, you are usually not trusted enough for people to engage you in actual conversation.

As socialising is entirely foreign to me, a technique I've used is to memorize one good social conversation for each situation, and just keep reusing it. As socialising doesn't actually contain much information, no-one really seems to notice, and these particular conversations seem to read as "all systems go, carry on".

Here's my "just walked in to the office" conversation - where the goal is to perform an "acceptable" amount of socialising, then withdraw without consequences. It can be adapted to many different situations.

When you first walk in the door, someone will usually say "hi" or "hello". Rather than saying the same in return, give an obscure variation. I usually try "yello", "hoy hoy", "heya", or "greetings". This gives the illusion of a spontaneous and friendly greeting, rather than an obligatory one.

The next one is "How are you?". Any "happy" answer to this is acceptable, as long as it's at least 3 syllables - anything less sounds "curt", and puts you under suspicion of not enjoying the conversation. Also, "thanks", as in "not bad, thanks", doesn't count as a syllable, as it's a formal rather than a casual term.

From here on, there's too many options to be entirely comprehensive, so I'll just offer a few possibilities.

Firstly, agree with anything anyone says about the weather. People are apathetic about politics, religion and philosophy, but they'll fight to the death over whether or not it's "too hot" or "too cold".

Secondly, if someone uses a jokoid that's meant as small talk rather than a power-game, the best responses are ones that have no content, but contain the emotional message "I understand and am amused by whatever you just said." These include things like "It's a bit like that", or "Well..." (followed by a grin).

Thirdly, if someone asks what you did on the weekend and you don't actually have anything to go into, a good response is "a lot of sleeping in". People always identify with it, for some reason.

Fourth, if you need to delay while thinking of an answer, have a few "stalling" phrases in stock - Things like "It's sort of like...", or "what's that word...". These phrases imply an "acceptable" reason for pausing to think - i.e. trying to think of a particular scenario or word.

There you go, and over to you - Do you find memorized conversations useful, or do you have other techniques? And if you do use standard conversations, what sort of tricks do you have?
Back in 2007, I started a little forum column called Zakkie Rants.
This is one of those pieces.

They were always meant to encourage discussion, so please respond if something grabs your attention...
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Kitty-On-Fire's avatar
He he that was awesome. I've never thought that deeply into small talk, but yes it is very confusing when you think about it. ^__^