Monday, June 04, 2007
Naked Shop Talk
I’ve noticed that my forays to the gym have become much more treacherous as my professional life develops. I am unequivocally convinced that the reason for this is because as I get more involved and more experienced at my post, my professional relationships expand in quality and quantity. As a result, the chances of seeing these colleagues naked in the gym locker room increase exponentially.
Allow me to illustrate to the best of my ability the precarious situation that I seem to find myself in no less than three times a week. I prefer to unwind from a long day in the office of attending numerous meetings, creating various documents, and preparing an assortment of presentations by seeking the warm and moist respite of the local gymnasium. It is the same facility that is frequented by most of the other members of my current organization on a daily basis. I don’t know about other gym-goers, but I want to be able to get in there, burn some calories, get a little swoll, work up some endorphins for a nice evening respite, and close the shop down for the night.
Unfortunately such a place doesn’t exist in my world because more times than I can count on the legs of a centipede does it occur when I walk in the locker room before my workout and catch the site of one of my many co-workers…in his birthday suit. Of course it never happens that he’s in the final stages of pulling up his britches no less than two inches above his bellybutton before heading out the door. No, he just finished undressing and is hopping on one foot, pulling his socks off while bent over at the ideal angle for you to witness the eternal glory of his haunches while his fanny forest blows gracefully in the breeze coming from the solitary fan for the entire room. Furthermore, at calamitous times like the one described above, the locker room is seldom empty enough so that you can ostracize yourself to the opposite corner of the room and effectively wedge yourself in the corner to forget a sight that not even your associate’s wife has ever seen. Instead the locker room is completely packed so that the one place for you to unattire is right next to him while he’s so dangerously close to tipping over that you will certainly meet his unborn children when he eventually buckles.
Despite his awkward doffing ritual, this man does eventually manage to fully disrobe, turns around and sees you. Several things can happen at this point to make this situation a little less uncomfortable. First, he could continue to nonchalantly turn the same way he was turning to face his locker and pretend that he didn’t notice you by grabbing his comb, deodorant, or another such hygienic product, if you will. This is especially easy with me because I’m usually avoiding eye contact as if my life depended on it so the casual turn and stuff your face in the locker move is a given success. If Plan A is not possible and he does catch your eye, he could grab a towel, loincloth, or sarong to cover himself up. I don’t care what it is, life at the office is just better if I haven’t seen this guy’s oingo boingo.
Regrettably, the worst case is the usual case. He whips right around, sees me there, and lets out a resounded “Hi!” I turn, he’s naked, and I stare at his eyeballs as if I’m trying to burn holes in his retinal foveas and do my best “I’m trying not to act awkward so I’m going to sit here and talk about anything you wanna talk about guy,” impression, but I know that he knows that I know we’re both feeling weird and the best thing he could think of was initiating a conversation with me so I wouldn’t think he felt weird about me possibly seeing him in the nude and didn’t want to just leave it out there when in fact a person of sound judgment would have covered themselves up by now no matter what the circumstance.
And of course the only things he can think to talk about are those stupid presentation slides I left on his desk to take a look at before the day was over. I’m thinking that he just wants to say something like, “Let’s get together sometime tomorrow and we’ll go through them,” or, “good job on those charts skippy, just a few changes, but we’ll get to those later.” Nope, guess again. You have a suspicious feeling that is hiding a hardcopy no less than 100 slides in length in the flap of fat that normal hangs over his belt but is now hanging at mid-thigh level. Nevertheless, the very slides he just mentioned magically appear in his hand and he wants to go through them while a slight mixture of water and sweat inconspicuously drips from his brow on his pen marks effectively washing away any coherent thought he might have had while commenting on my juvenile attempts at a budget presentation.
This is a situation that I can normally cope with because it usually doesn’t get much worse from there. Lamentably, there are some analogous situations that although are much rarer an occurrence, have a much more adverse effect on the mental state of a young, budding professional like myself:
1 – Talking shop in the shower while your co-worker copiously lathers his nethers as if Mr. Miyagi has given him this familiar task to accomplish while secretly giving him hidden training methods to battle Johnny and the Cobra Kai in the All-Valley Tournament.
2 – Talking shop with a co-worker right after he just backed his behemoth, sweaty, and candy-apple red derriere into the side of your head while he turns to comb his back hair.
3 – Taking a pre-shower leak and having your co-worker notice you as he exits the shower and proceeds to stand directly behind you while he towels himself off thus instigating an immense level of stage fright so that immediate stoppage of your flow occurs until the conversation ends. [please note that the conversation doesn’t end until you enter said shower, in which case relief of previously halted urination happens in the shower drain]
4 – Naked shop talk with a superior.
5 – And last but not least…shop talk that commences after your co-worker has just slapped you on your bare ass with a full and open hand and comments on your rock-hard glutes. ¶ 8:18 AM
I’ve noticed that my forays to the gym have become much more treacherous as my professional life develops. I am unequivocally convinced that the reason for this is because as I get more involved and more experienced at my post, my professional relationships expand in quality and quantity. As a result, the chances of seeing these colleagues naked in the gym locker room increase exponentially.
Allow me to illustrate to the best of my ability the precarious situation that I seem to find myself in no less than three times a week. I prefer to unwind from a long day in the office of attending numerous meetings, creating various documents, and preparing an assortment of presentations by seeking the warm and moist respite of the local gymnasium. It is the same facility that is frequented by most of the other members of my current organization on a daily basis. I don’t know about other gym-goers, but I want to be able to get in there, burn some calories, get a little swoll, work up some endorphins for a nice evening respite, and close the shop down for the night.
Unfortunately such a place doesn’t exist in my world because more times than I can count on the legs of a centipede does it occur when I walk in the locker room before my workout and catch the site of one of my many co-workers…in his birthday suit. Of course it never happens that he’s in the final stages of pulling up his britches no less than two inches above his bellybutton before heading out the door. No, he just finished undressing and is hopping on one foot, pulling his socks off while bent over at the ideal angle for you to witness the eternal glory of his haunches while his fanny forest blows gracefully in the breeze coming from the solitary fan for the entire room. Furthermore, at calamitous times like the one described above, the locker room is seldom empty enough so that you can ostracize yourself to the opposite corner of the room and effectively wedge yourself in the corner to forget a sight that not even your associate’s wife has ever seen. Instead the locker room is completely packed so that the one place for you to unattire is right next to him while he’s so dangerously close to tipping over that you will certainly meet his unborn children when he eventually buckles.
Despite his awkward doffing ritual, this man does eventually manage to fully disrobe, turns around and sees you. Several things can happen at this point to make this situation a little less uncomfortable. First, he could continue to nonchalantly turn the same way he was turning to face his locker and pretend that he didn’t notice you by grabbing his comb, deodorant, or another such hygienic product, if you will. This is especially easy with me because I’m usually avoiding eye contact as if my life depended on it so the casual turn and stuff your face in the locker move is a given success. If Plan A is not possible and he does catch your eye, he could grab a towel, loincloth, or sarong to cover himself up. I don’t care what it is, life at the office is just better if I haven’t seen this guy’s oingo boingo.
Regrettably, the worst case is the usual case. He whips right around, sees me there, and lets out a resounded “Hi!” I turn, he’s naked, and I stare at his eyeballs as if I’m trying to burn holes in his retinal foveas and do my best “I’m trying not to act awkward so I’m going to sit here and talk about anything you wanna talk about guy,” impression, but I know that he knows that I know we’re both feeling weird and the best thing he could think of was initiating a conversation with me so I wouldn’t think he felt weird about me possibly seeing him in the nude and didn’t want to just leave it out there when in fact a person of sound judgment would have covered themselves up by now no matter what the circumstance.
And of course the only things he can think to talk about are those stupid presentation slides I left on his desk to take a look at before the day was over. I’m thinking that he just wants to say something like, “Let’s get together sometime tomorrow and we’ll go through them,” or, “good job on those charts skippy, just a few changes, but we’ll get to those later.” Nope, guess again. You have a suspicious feeling that is hiding a hardcopy no less than 100 slides in length in the flap of fat that normal hangs over his belt but is now hanging at mid-thigh level. Nevertheless, the very slides he just mentioned magically appear in his hand and he wants to go through them while a slight mixture of water and sweat inconspicuously drips from his brow on his pen marks effectively washing away any coherent thought he might have had while commenting on my juvenile attempts at a budget presentation.
This is a situation that I can normally cope with because it usually doesn’t get much worse from there. Lamentably, there are some analogous situations that although are much rarer an occurrence, have a much more adverse effect on the mental state of a young, budding professional like myself:
1 – Talking shop in the shower while your co-worker copiously lathers his nethers as if Mr. Miyagi has given him this familiar task to accomplish while secretly giving him hidden training methods to battle Johnny and the Cobra Kai in the All-Valley Tournament.
2 – Talking shop with a co-worker right after he just backed his behemoth, sweaty, and candy-apple red derriere into the side of your head while he turns to comb his back hair.
3 – Taking a pre-shower leak and having your co-worker notice you as he exits the shower and proceeds to stand directly behind you while he towels himself off thus instigating an immense level of stage fright so that immediate stoppage of your flow occurs until the conversation ends. [please note that the conversation doesn’t end until you enter said shower, in which case relief of previously halted urination happens in the shower drain]
4 – Naked shop talk with a superior.
5 – And last but not least…shop talk that commences after your co-worker has just slapped you on your bare ass with a full and open hand and comments on your rock-hard glutes. ¶ 8:18 AM
