I realised that I have a tendency to ignore our receptionist. I give a little smile when passing by in the morning, but our office layout requires walking past several times in the day. I don’t want to say hi every time I pass, but I don’t want to look like I ignore her either. I try to carry something with me so I can pretend I’m reading it every time I walk past.

It’s not that I don’t like the receptionist. She is very nice. I hear people visiting the building stopping and flirting and making cute comments about this and that with her. They have a laugh, talk about nothing in particular, and pretend they got something out of the human interaction. I suppose this doesn’t make much sense.

I used to work at a Super 8 motel in rural Missouri for about a year while I was attending university. I was the night clerk. I ran the motel from 11pm to 7am by myself and attended school after work (I didn’t sleep much in those days). During my shift, I’d sit there behind the front desk and watch people walk back and forth to their car to carry their bags into their room. Each time they passed me, they felt they had to say something—“Just getting my suitcases”, “Just a couple more trips”, “Just one more now”. Like I care! They didn’t have to say something EVERY time they passed by. But, I think they felt rude if they didn’t—like I would somehow feel under appreciated.

So, I mostly ignore the receptionist. I walk while examining some papers that are obviously so important that I don’t have time to make eye contact and say something useless like “just off to the loo.”