Do you avoid people at work in elevators, hallways, restrooms?
Is it just me? I work in a corporate environment. High rise building, have to take 2 different elevators. One bathroom on my floor. There's enough people in my building that I don't know peoples names. It's a lot of smiling and "how are you?" "Good. How are you?" "Good" repeated until I wanna die. I'm only 6 months into this job, and I've never worked in corporate before. It has this veneer of bullshit positivity where everyone starts emails with crap like "I hope this email finds you well" or "I hope you had a nice weekend." Also makes me 🤮. Instead of taking the opportunities to chat in the elevator, restroom, etc, I find myself avoiding the awkwardness. I'll take the stairs if it looks like I'll be on the elevator with someone. I'll walk by the restroom if it sounds like there is someone in there.
I'm not particularly an awkward person (although I certainly can be, and I definitely have been at this job. The silent cube farm has made my skin crawl). I'm technically an extrovert, but can be quiet at times.
This corporate world seems to be cut out for the socially smooth and attractive people, and I feel like a fish out of water. Does everyone actually enjoy talking about the weather all the time?? I really don't know where I fall on the scale of the corporate social chit chat scale. I'm 41f, BTW.