Years ago I started a new job. It was in a cosy (small) office with about 15 other people. All of my fellow staff seemed nice and welcoming, apart from the Manager who seemed a little resentful of me being there. I had got the job after getting through the worst possible interview with him, and I later found out that the only reason he offered me the job was because the HR guy suggested it. Thats a story for another time.
After a few weeks of being there I noticed that one of the ladies seemed to have taken a slight dislike to me. For the purposes of this story, let’s call her Ella. I hadn’t spotted it at first, because Ella was always nice and smiley to my face. I caught her out one time – I was having a chat to her and she was all smiles, but I turned away from her and turned back a second later, and Ella, thinking the conversation was over was already looking at another colleague and rolling her eyes. So I knew her niceness was pretend quite early on.
After my first few weeks there, there was a work party. It was in a pub in Bolton and colleagues and partners of colleagues were invited. I went with my wife. I only knew a handful of people at the party, only those who I worked in the same room as.
I went to the bar to get two drinks and, as is customary when in a Bolton pub, got chatting to random blokes while queuing for drinks. I can’t remember what the conversations were about, but I do remember chatting to one guy for a couple of minutes and we both made the other one laugh a lot. Then I got served, said something polite to the bloke at the bar, took my drinks and we back to sit with my wife.
The following Monday when back in work, Ella asked me if I enjoyed the evening. I told her it had been good, and then we had the following conversation:
“Were you chatting to a man at the bar?”
“Yep, I had a quick chat. No idea who to, but he seemed friendly!”
“That was my husband.”
“Was it?! He seemed like a good laugh.”
“Yeah… He said you’re actually quite nice.”
In my head I’m suddenly thinking “…actually? …I’m ACTUALLY nice? What does that mean?”
Ella wasn’t too good at a few things. One of the things she had no skill at was being able to anticipate where conversations that were being subtly steered were going. So I continued…
“When you say actually quite nice, I guess it must have been a nice surprise for him!”
“Well, yeah…”
“So did he expect me to not be as nice?”
“…Yeah…”
“What made him first think I wouldn’t be nice?”
“Erm… What do you mean?”
“Well I’ve never met him before, so if he expected me not to be nice he must have got that opinion from somewhere. It sounds like someone might have told him I wasn’t nice.”
Ella just sat there and started shaking her head, as though she was partly trying to prevent herself answering the question and partly as though she was trying to unscramble how the conversation had got to this point.
One of the other things that Ella wasn’t too good at was talking.