Today was a much better day. If anything, I was even quieter - stealing away to an empty office for a couple of hours to get something written. But first, I patched it up with the complaining colleague of yesterday. She'd already walked past my desk without speaking or looking but later, when I came back into the open space from my secret hideaway, I found her unpacking boxes behind my chair. Better seize the occasion, I thought, and launched into speech:
"How are you doing, Karin?"
She looked up - she was half kneeling - and said a rather emphatic "Good morning", pointing out presumably that I'd failed once again to utter the obligatory words (it was half past ten by now).
I breathed in. The words "go to hell" flashed through some primitive part of my brain but fortunately - as I'm not much of a talker - didn't get past my throat. For one awkward nano-second it looked as though war might break out after all, despite the reconciliation attempt.
One nano-second, two nano-seconds. And then, click, it was over. "These boxes," she said, "it doesn't seem to matter how much clearing up I do - I've been working on them three days and they just don't seem to get any less."
"Yes, there are rather a lot of them," I agreed, surveying the cluttered array of stacked and half opened cardboard crates. She smiled and I smiled and went on my way - back to the other office, out of harm's way.
It felt good to have sorted that little bit of nonsense out before it grew into a major conflagration. It also felt good to be out of the open plan office, away from the computer and to get my article written and sent off for approval.
And then I come home and find that several of you have left supportive comments on yesterday's post. And I realise that being a writer not a talker is a JOLLY GOOD THING!
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