Profunksticated

Profunksticated is preparing to celebrate Christmas here at home, more than two hours north of the D.C. area. It’s nice to be back home for a few days.

I’ve begun to reflect on life in the workplace and have come to finally realize no matter what a brother does, no matter how civil or nice he tries to be, no matter how good a job he does, there’s always gonna be someone who wants to serve up a nice tall glass of ice-cold Haterade.

The sister (who I’ll call “D”) for whom I’ve been working in this temp gig has told me that others in the office have complained that I talk too much. In one instance, she and I had a long after-hours conversation about writing and other related matters shortly after I started.

D’s boss was in the next office and could hear us. Later during a managers’ meeting she attended, her boss apparently called me out in front of these managers during a conference call — including those in another office — for talking a lot.

D later had to explain to her boss that she staying late waiting for a document, came to my desk and started the convo. And why not, she said. The guy has an interesting background, and after all, it was after hours.

And just a couple of days ago, D came into the office I’m using, closed the door, and told me another manager had said I was again the subject of complaints that I’ve engaged folk in long talks. And they were too nice to tell me “buzz off, I’ve got work to do.”

I wracked my brains trying to figure out who I could have disturbed. The only person I could recall having had a long conversation with was another woman I spoke to on my way out to lunch. But she was only too happy to give me a bunch of details of her personal life, including acting as a stepmom to the son of a former boyfriend years after their breakup.

The upshot, my supervisor told me, was folks likely see me as this temporary consultant being paid by the hour who spends time talking and not doing work. OK, fair enough. But there’s a reason for that. There is currently a lull in the workload. Proposal work has those peaks and valleys.

I’ve addressed that with the manager who brought me in (the Ethiopian guy), telling him I don’t want to be getting paid for doing little work. He tells me I need to be there “in case” some project drops for his team, so in the meantime continue working for D’s team.

So now I know. The pettiness is there no matter where you go. And now especially as a temp, I’ve found I have to deal with folks’ perceptions. Being overly social at work has been a longstanding habit of mine, but I figured nothing was wrong with that as long as the work got done. Still, I’ve been criticized for such behavior in past gigs.

Now I know I must attempt to keep a low profile, and maintain a balance between being friendly, but also staying busy (or appearing to be busy). The funny thing is, I used to take shit like this personally and stew over it, but this time I found myself laughing about it. I even sang under my breath my own version of Stetsasonic’s “Sally Walks:”

Some folk don’t like the way Profunk talks. One-Two-Three- Four-Hit it!

The behavior of folks on most corporate plantations doesn’t change. They just grow different crops.

Peace.