Misteragus

“Mr Agus, why are you so quiet?” asked a university intern as she parked in front of my cubicle.

“I guess I have nothing to say” I told her.

She’s now in her three weeks of her three months internship and gradually bonding with the rest of the crew at work. The fact that she’s attached to the second company (billboard advertising) owned by Boss gave us nothing much to exchange, apart from setting up her laptop’s networking and computer system optimization.

“But it makes you invisible…” she added.

That quickly pulled a smile on my face and I replied “That’s good. Really good!”

“That’s not good. You’re invisible. It’s like you’re not here.” She begged to differ.

“Oh it’s good” I assured her. And she went on to chat with the receptionist.

.
.
.
Well how about that! Now there’s one person who’s not afraid to ask, and she’s only been here three weeks! Very thoughtful indeed.

As usual, I didn’t give it a rest. I continued to ponder the reason that justifies my silent behavior.

The office is a place where work dominates the conversation. When work scopes don’t collide, silence is golden. When my time is not occupied with work, the internet satisfies me with good education; whatever I need to learn, it’s bound to be there. From curing a lethally infected PC to the best nasi lemak recipe, everything is there if you know how and where to look. If I have loads of spare time, I blog.

Sometimes you’ll see me walk around the office rearranging stuff, improvising the way things work; be it the jammed toilet door, the cluttered store in the pantry or the choked toner vessel in the copy machine. When that doesn’t work, I’ll snake out to the nearest mall, mostly having lunch with a friend or two.

Unlike friends, workmates and their life stories are a daily encounter. All I need to do is ask, and if I don’t, it means I’m not interested. But if you really want to share, by all means, start the discussion thread. You’ll be surprised with what I have to share about the things I deem worthwhile. And it’s quite different when we have functions out of the office.

Yes, we do have our own in-house chatterboxes. Make that the one-and-only chatterbox. Throw anything at him and he will chat you silly. Have a napkin ready for your melted earwax. Even when you start to hint boredom and time out, he would go on and on, until you finally walk away. It’s a good thing he’s not always in the office. Working for sales in billboard advertising warrants him to go places and meet people. Come to think of it, he is in the right business. But don’t get me wrong, he does deliver.

And deliver I do as well. The only difference is I often do it quietly. It’s really not too much if I claim to be the unseen force quietly making things happen in the background, things that are expected of me. But that doesn’t make me a lonesome cowboy either. I fiercely believe in teamwork.

Seriously, nothing pisses people off like a huge empty can tumbling down fleets of bare concrete stairs. It’s noisy and achieves absolutely nothing, well, except for destructive relocation.

“So Mr. Agus, what do you do during weekends?” she continued asking, obviously trying to start a conversation, from one cubicle away no less.

“Oh, not much. If no one calls me to hang out and I’ve not planned anything with friends, I’ll be at home watching Astro”

“What channel? Vaan?” she chuckled.

Huh? What was that about? She’s Indian; was that meant to be a joke? Society and television taught me that racist jokes are only acceptable internally, or when it is told by a person of the race in reference, i.e. only blacks can tell black jokes. Or maybe I misunderstood.

I played it safe and said “Nah, now I fancy channel 78, Discovery Real Time. Loads of stuff about cars”

After a long pause and clicks on her pc, she was at it again.

“Guess what Mr. Agus. I saw your picture from our accounts exec’s wedding pictures.”

“Yeah, that was two years ago I think.”

“You look so cute, with that chubby face. You look so different now” she remarked.

“What do you mean cute? Chubby is not cute on me.”

“It is. You look so cute and chubby. Why so different now?” she asked.

“I lost a lot of weight, that’s why”

“But why?” she just had to ask.

“Because I thought I needed to” I said and she dropped it. We continued whatever we were doing till lunch. I seriously wanted to point her to my earlier blog entry, my detailed weight loss adventure but that would bring her here. Not that this entry trashes her up or anything. It’s just not the time yet, or ever. And I don’t think she blogs, yet.