Pleasantries?
"the day-to-day pleasantries that add some spice to our otherwise mundane lives"
Although severance with these 'pleasantries' predates lockdown by about 15 years, 'pleasantries' I definitely wouldn't miss about the place I used to work if lockdown had've stopped me from experiencing them:
1) The open-plan offices with virtually unrelated functions able to see and hear other (thanks to reducing the cubicle wall from 1.5m to 1m as part of the teamworking push).
2) The woman who was a buyer, and whose job was 80% on the telephone, who conducted every single call on speakerphone at full volume. Sometimes, she'd make a call, and it would ring, and ring, and ring because no one was at the other end. When it terminated, she'd hit redial, and it would ring, and ring again.
3) The same woman, who - if she left the open-plan area to attend a meeting - would empty a full canister of 'Impulse' deodorant on herself, most of which would get sucked into the air handling system and get recirculated every fifteen minutes for the next three hours.
4) The guy next to me (my manager), who licked out his cup and anything else he was eating from once it was empty.
5) The guy opposite me who had a nervous habit of humming at a frequency similar to that of male elephants, and which I was able to pick up.
6) The guy who spoke quietly at another frequency that I was apparently immune to that meant it looked like he was miming whenever he spoke to you.
7) The guy next to me on the other side, who ate copiously at his desk, in spite of being built like a weasel, and made sandwiches out of fish roe and sardines, and who would think nothing of eating a whole home-grown lettuce (so quite small), bell pepper, or even an onion by cramming the entire thing into his mouth in front of a visiting customer he was entertaining. He also didn't wash his hands, and food was stuck all over his desk and keyboard.
8) The woman who I had deliberately chosen a desk as far away from as possible in my own department because of her clumsiness, who slammed drawers and cupboards, then did it even more (simpering glance mandatory after) once she realise how much it annoyed me. Annoyed? I used to shit myself sometimes when she did it!
9) The senior manager who frequently sent printouts to the networked laser involving car prices, holidays, and other personal stuff, and who regularly reminded us not to use the printer for personal stuff because of 'the budget'.
10) The people who brought in food to microwave at lunchtime in a container that, once rotating, had a clearance of about 2mm from any wall of the microwave chamber, and so took most of the lunch hour to heat up, even though the burritos or pies the rest of us had only took 3 minutes. Incidentally, the single 650W microwave was for the entire floor of about 60 people.
11) The people who didn't flush when they'd been in one of the stalls.
12) The same people who didn't wash their hands when they had not flushed either.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
