I just ducked someone at work.
I'm not innocent in this manoeuver. It happens, sometimes, that there is someone you just want to avoid. Or desperately do not want to deal with today, just not today, maybe tomorrow you'll feel up to it. So you close your door, or pretend to be on the phone, or take frequent, long bathroom breaks. These are all acceptable white lies we act out to spare uncomfortable office moments from creeping up and attacking us. It's a sad reality that there's a good chance we spend more time with our coworkers than with our spouses and loved ones. You won't tell her that dress makes her look fat ("It's just not the right cut on you, sweetie") in the same way that you occasionally play the avoidance game to keep from grabbing an industrial sized stapler and braining your colleague.
However, today I was not avoiding the person - who is for all intents and purposes quite pleasant. Whether this is normal for all offices, or just this one, but we seem to have a plethora of fundraisers. The weekly one is a raffle draw for a pot of money, that also raises cash for the end of year christmas lunch (buy a ticket, half the moolah goes to the pot, half goes to christmas food). Every week someone walks off with $60, $70, once it was $90. It's harmless. It's fairly unobtrusive. It gets you food once a year.
I have a problem with this. Actually I have a couple of problems.
First, I walk around as an un-medicated basket case. Most of the time my basket is pretty sturdy, a lifetime of learned coping mechanisms - some good, some bad - are my arsenal against the little bumps that threaten to destabilize my happy equilibrium. Finding myself in an unfamiliar environment still brings on the flop sweat, but I have a better than good chance of making it through alright, without freezing up, crying, vomiting or otherwise being a huge embarrassement. There are, however, a few buttons that still result in nuclear meltdown. I think part of maintaining the healthy is recognizing those buttons and avoiding the crap out of them.
This ticket fundraiser thing is a button. It's not the buying of the tickets or dealing with the woman selling them - who I've said is quite pleasant - it's the winning. The potential for winning. Money isn't just quietly dropped into your office. Oh no. A mass email is sent out. Sometimes it starts a big conversation thread of people laughing at how Mr. So-and-So always wins, or about how the drinks are on you now for the rest of eternity. Then there's the donuts. It's become an unspoken rule that whoever wins must buy baked goods for the rest of the floor. The pot is rarely under $60, so it's not like the baked treats will wipe you out. And it's not that I have any objection to feeding my coworkers warm tasty pastry. I'm a fan of tasty pastry. I'm not a fan of the sudden, abrupt spotlight.
At some point in the day, it will be announced that you won. Then you will be the center of attention for the rest of the day. Unable to even pee in peace without someone stopping to say congrats and laughingly wonder where their bleeding donuts are. Until it is announced, I sit in my office, dripping in flop sweat, watching my email like a hawk with one eyeball twitching, waiting for the moment when the ticket is drawn, the number goes out. The inevitable will happen and it will be my ticket. And I'll not only bring upon me the unwanted attention of a couple of dozen people, I'll have to announce that yes it is in fact my ticket. I'll have to invite this unwated attention into my life, at least for a few hours before I can escape.
Do. Not. Want.
But here's the rub. Try explaining that to your coworkers. See, I've learnt what some of my big red nuclear buttons are, and I avoid them when possible and break down crying when not. But the big red buttons are not always obvious. Hubby dearest used to throw up everytime the phone rang. There is nothing inherently threatening about a phone ringing (provided the voice on the other end isn't whispering about a serial killer being inside the house). Unless you understand the various forms of anxiety, how the brain can latch onto and make associations with the most innocuous of things to cause panic and chaos... it sounds a little crazy. It is a little crazy.
I was lamenting to a friend at work about this whole thing when he saw me duck the ticket lady. He knows about my anxiety, and when it's come up (which isn't often) I try to explain my thinking and what it means, hoping to educate at least one more human being about the intricacies of mental illness and the varying forms it can take. After I'd finished my diatribe about tickets and donuts, he nodded sympathetically. With a hint of wtfcrazy in his eyes. It became clear to me that unless you were in my head, ducking the ticket lady because I was terrified of winning sounded absolutely batshit. And if this person I'd worked with and shared lunch with for the past two years was giving me the wtfcrazy look (while compassionately staying silent and ignoring the fact that I just leaked crazy all over his office), there was no way in hell I was going to be able to explain it to the ticket lady or the office at large.
So when the ticket lady came by today, I was taking a very important phone call with the dial tone.
[Part 2 to follow]
