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Gotta be careful with that. I shared an office with an old guy once and had to bring headphones. We wouldn’t talk, but he would constantly make old man noises. Coughs, grunts, snorts, etc. If I didn’t block them out, they would drive me crazy like nails on a chalkboard. That said, the guy himself was really cool and I loved working with him otherwise.
‘Best friend I ever had. We still never talk sometimes.’
Never shuts up about how the country has gone to hell, complaining about “the queers”, etc, etc, etc.
He could be a union supporter though - in my experience of doing labor organizing, the younger folks are usually more pro-union, then there’s a dead zone of support from the Boomers, and then the really old folks are much more supportive because they grew up when unions were more of an active force.
If Wallace is down to organize, then I’d pick him and just take the risk that he’s got some shitty opinions that I’ll have to work through and re-educate him on.
Alternatively, may have a shitload of good jokes and all around pleasant person to work with. Its a mix with the elderly. The sharp ones are awesome sometimes
Alternatively, he’s the type of old fart that constantly makes calls when they could’ve been emails.
And when it’s a message I bet it would be just Hi and nothing after that until you reply
AAAAAAAH
“Anything longer than a sentence deserves a phone call”
Had a supervisor that if you texted back and forth with him more than twice for something, he’d call you
The answer is Wallace. Every old dude with a desk near me has been a solid guy who shuts the fuck up and always makes coffee before I get in.
There is always an exception. One of my older coworkers once came in to work with a sprained ankle. I asked why and he said he got it from kicking a dog, with zero remorse in his expression. I wish I had not asked. I knew he was weird but that detail cemented my opinion of him.
Maybe the dog was about to attack a small child.
I’ve seen someone poke a dog in the ass with a stick. They were a hero. Dog was latched on to someone’s leg.
Yeah it’s possible it was a defensive move. But I don’t think he framed it that way, and I would absolutely be sure to clarify why I kicked a dog if that were the truth. Honestly I would probably lie to avoid having to explain that.
Sadly this was a while ago and I don’t remember if I asked for more details. I just remember it was super awkward.
A stereotype … but why do old people wake up so early and go to bed so early?
People have different circadian rhythms on average as they age. We simply associate the pattern of those middle aged and older with virtue. Middle age and old people raise children, and they teach children that the sleep patterns of the elders are wise and just, while the sleep patterns of the youth are slovenly and sinful. Our entire concept of “early” is defined by what middle age and older people simply adapt to naturally without force or effort. Older folks tend to wake up at a certain hour, so we just declare that the hour everyone is expected to wake at.
The most insidious form of this temporal bigotry is how we typically force high school students to start school at the earliest time of day of any school students, even though high school students have the latest natural waking time of any age group. We value “teaching lessons” to our youth more than we do actually teaching them. So we drag them out of bed at an unnaturally early hour so that they can make class at 7 AM. We then berate and shame them for being sleepy and inattentive in the unnaturally early classes we require them by law to attend.
And I say all this as someone in their late 30s who naturally wakes up pretty early. From an evolutionary perspective, it makes a great deal of sense why we have people with different natural sleep and wake times, and for those preferences to shift with age. We spent several hundred thousand years living as small groups huddled around campfires. Part of warding off predators is having people on watch through the night. Having people who don’t have to fight to stay awake late into the night makes that guard duty so much easier. In prehistory, I imagine the young adults staying up late into the night after the adults are asleep, enjoying some time to themselves, tending the fire, and watching for predators. The last of the youth to go to sleep would trade off with the earliest rising of the elders. We are a social species. We are evolved to live in groups. And a group is more effective with a diversity across many characteristics, including sleep/wake times.
But we’ve forgotten this fact and turned a simple consequence of evolution into a moral issue. And for that, we as a society abuse our youth and force them to wake at unnaturally early hours for the sake of puffing up the sense of moral superiority of the middle aged and older. Collectively, our relation to early waking times, and especially how we use it to collectively abuse our children, is one of our greatest sins as a culture.
You put the “L” in “LLM”.
(/s if needed - I absolutely thrive on extensive word jamborees)
Well the getting up early is because we go to bed early. And we go to bed early because we can and no one can stop us.
My favorite old guy I worked with, I was around 25 at the time, he was early 70s.
We used to joke that I’d call him with a wake up call when I was getting home from the bar, and he could return the favor when he took his morning break. He was in the office every day at 5:30.
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Because we have to get up to pee a bunch of times during the night and eventually can’t sleep at all so we get up for the day. Which results in our being tired AF and having to go to bed early.
It’s more go to bed late and still wake up early. I was up to 4am (at home) and still woke up about 9:30am
You start to lose endurance. Your body becomes less efficient at recovery, and while you’re not pushing as hard and you don’t need as much sleep, you find that kicking it off earlier is advantageous. Your eyesight starts to deteriorate, you start finding that doing work in bright light affords you better focus through the pinhole effect.
Shiloh, i like Radiohead
I was gonna say, what’s the downside?
Yeah, it might just be we have a lot to talk if she’s not fixated on only on Creep.
Shiloh, I have earbuds and like Emma Roberts.
Wallace.
Dude just wants to shut up and work, make it to retirement. You could probably engage him about his grandkids or his fishing trip if you wanted.
All the rest of them are gonna want to bother you with their problems or hobbies.
“Natural deodorant” is usually just a block of an aluminum salt crystal, which’ll work just fine since that’s the kind of stuff in “industrial” deodorants too. Stains more and dries out your skin though since you usually end up with way more of the stuff in your pits, which is sorta ironic I guess.
So I think I’d go with Shiloh or Dayzie?
Weird, here natural deodorant means it doesn’t contain any aluminum.
But I’d gift Shiloh high end headphones, and hopefully Walter is one of those spry 100 year olds with tons of interesting stories and anecdotes about life.
with tons of interesting stories and anecdotes about life
…which he will find ways to clumsily segue into again and again, regardless of how many times you’ve heard them
Well if he’s 100 hopefully he’ll die before the repeats start.
You know how kids with thousand of Disney and outcast movies available at all time, will watch Frozen on a loop anyway? Old people are the same with amazing stories, they pick a favorite one and stick to it.
Weird, here natural deodorant means it doesn’t contain any aluminum.
My guess would be that’d depend on who’s calling it “natural”. You definitely do see that meaning here as well, even in the same store
So the salt crystal deodorants are potassium alum, which has been used for thousands of years for various things. It’s a naturally occurring rock, and people found it has mild antiseptic properties and stop small cuts from bleeding. It’s a popular aftershave for that reason, commonly available for purchase as an “alum block”.
When used as a deodorant, what’s actually happening is you’re creating a salty layer on your skin that bacteria can’t form on. (No idea how that works out in practice, I use actual deodorant lol). And indeed it is used in many actual deodorants for that exact purpose
HOWEVER, and I want to mention this not because you said anything wrong but because I have found it to be a source of confusion for many people, it is not the same as the aluminum salts used in antiperspirants. Namely aluminum zirconium and aluminum chlorohydrate. Different chemicals. They function by blocking your pores so the sweat doesn’t release in the first place.
Many people are concerned, whether or not the concerns are founded, that the antiperspirant aluminums are mired in health risks such as cancer. The alum blocks are not wrapped up in that in any way, other than the fact that they are also used in (and used alone as) deodorant. It’s an interesting little piece of nuance that doesn’t come up much due to the relative non-popularity of the alum blocks
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Good comments! I just want to add that in case any folks are concerned about the aluminum, it’s not present in most deodorants but rather only in antiperspirants.
Also I found this article about the whole subject which I found interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/should-i-switch-to-aluminum-free-deodorant/
I tried switching to an alum block for those exact concerns. Didn’t work for me and made me actually smell worse than when I forget to put on antiperspirant. I think I’d rather risk cancer and not smell like a pair of used gym shorts.
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Huh, interesting. I could have sworn that the “block of crystal” thing I had N years ago was an antiperspirant and not just a deodorant, but it’s been a while and I can barely remember what happened last week. I just remember that it was some aluminum salt or another, but thought it specifically wasn’t alum (which I still use for small nicks and cuts)
Natural deodorant = sweat
Wallace. In a heartbeat. Cause if someday he doesn’t have one, I’ve got my own office!
Finally the voice of reason. And until then I got an extra cool Grandpa figure in my life to tell me goofy stories.
Monkey paw: he’s a raging maga
Shiloh all the way.
If he only listens to radiohead, why’s he got a gary numan shirt on?
Poser
I find it very funny that there’s like a 50/50 split between people who see Shiloh as male vs female
Women don’t listen to radiohead /s
Good point, I didn’t catch that
On a somewhat related note, does anyone else find Radiohead a bit insufferable? Their entire discography seems to be aimed at angsty 14 year olds with first world problems:
Creep - Oh no, my love interest finds me weird.
No surprises - Boo hoo I live a comfortable middle class existence, woe is me.
Wolf At The Door and Knives Out get a pass for cool music videos and genuinely disturbing lyrics.
Wallace.
Torn between Wallace and Lewis. They’re both farters, but one wears headphones. Maybe Wallace will take me to steak at lunch.
I’ll go with Lewis. Him and I can do a great duet with our farting generator.
Shiloh. Radiohead isn’t terrible, and they’d probably be open to other interesting music, and so may make for better conversation than Crossfit Bro or Engaged Lady.
Shiloh won’t listen to you it clearly says Shiloh only listens to radiohead…
Only listens to Radiohead right now
She can listen to whatever she wants with her headphones on.
Have you ever tried speaking to a hardcore Radiohead fan about music? They’re great and all, but I swear if Thom York recorded himself taking a shit and released it they’d be telling you how it was the most revolutionary shit ever taken.
Hannah, because in a few months she won’t be just engaged so she will turn less annoying.
Also Wallace. I generally don’t mind old people. Maybe I’m getting old myself but stay off my lawn!
Plot twist, her fiancee refuses to commit to a date and she will be engaged for years, constantly planning a wedding that will never come. Growing more and more frustrated and vocal about her upcoming wedding.
It’s against my morals to use another persons mental anguish for my own amusement, but if she annoys me for years even after I’ve brought it up with Susan from HR I would eventually do that.
Same picks for the same reasons.
… although I’m less proud to admit that I read it as “Known Father” the first time, didn’t catch it until I came to the comments, and he still didn’t make the top 2.
I just kinda figured that “Known Father” meant he was always talking about his kids and experiences with parenthood, and that was enough to eliminate him.
Lewis. I fart a lot too and have very little to no sense of smell. Open up the window and we’ll fart together all day.
smart plan. And you could actually leave the window closed and ensure that no other co workers bother you. Who is going to walk into a methane chamber
I’ve had Hannah, Caleb, Wallace and Susan.
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Hannah is annoying at first, but it will blow over.
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Caleb will talk about sports and that will be all he talks about. You can tune him out, but he will learn to hate you, because you don’t value his feats of manliness.
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Wallace is ok at first, but becomes really tiresome. His worldview is from 1920s, blatantly racist and doesn’t realize it, judges you constantly according to some stereotype that is based on some guy he knew 100 years ago and gives you occasional corrective sermons that make no sense, because they are for that guy he once knew.
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Susan appears to be ok, but is a psycho. Will try to manipulate you and delegate stuff to you, even though doesn’t even work in for the same department. Everything is a thing that will be decisive to your career and soon marks you down as a looser, because you don’t listen to her. Will leave the company, because everyone is a looser.
Edit: so anyone in the top four. Office already stinks and on music is allowed.
The last two guys in my team that got retired were 65, but excellent people, and taught me lots, so my first instinct was Wallace. But reading your report, it occurs to me that maybe the description “Is like 100” actually implies a certain oldness of mind that I didn’t consider.
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I’ve been sharing an office with a Wallace. It can be tiresome. But one can occasionally learn things and ignoring the annoying parts can be part of what you can learn. I’d certainly chose Wallace of these options.
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Hannah: Get her to invite me to the wedding, meet her friends and all the social circle. Very helpful to grind that social experience
Caleb: dude is probably shredded and knows not only how to eat healthy, but, by comparison, will force you to eat healthy as well. Probably can help with grinding the social experience as well
Wallace: if you get him to open up and share his work experience, this could be the teaching of a lifetime. Also helps to grind the social experience as he probably has young nephews, and family gatherings to invite you
These 3 are my best choices
Aww, probably Hannah. As much as I would want to be surly or jealous of someone else finding their person, I could use some positivity in my life.
Yeah, Hannah wouldn’t be bad. If that’s the worst thing about her, she would be okay.
… bit of a roll of the dice. You don’t want to hear the minutia of wedding planning every day.
