For the most part, I am a pretty pleasant guy to be around. Seriously, I am. People like me. I am easy going. I make people laugh with wry observations and subtle jokes. I can converse on a variety of topics. I give good advice. I am humble. All in all, I am a decent person to be around. You wouldn't know it if you worked with me, though.
To be perfectly honest, work turns me into kind of a prick. I rarely engage coworkers in conversations about outside work stuff; when they engage me, I become argumentative and dismissive. They learned not to talk to me before 11am, since I am grumpy in the morning. As one of my few work confidants put it, I am grumpy in the afternoon too, just less so. I don't participate in the stupid workplace games; I routinely turn down invitations to lunch; and ten months into my tenure, there are still people in my department with whom I have never conversed. I am sure most people think I am an asshole, but I can't help it. It's a defense mechanism. (For more on my defense mechanisms in unpleasant situations, see this post.)
In my mind, I know I need to improve upon this. I can't go through my work life so obviously unhappy about being at work that people notice it. It's one of those things I intend to work on at some point, just like I intend to lose weight and get in shape. But my improvement is only potential energy now; I have yet to move into into the kinetic rhelm. So when I sat down for my quarterly review this afternoon, it came as no surprise when my boss told me that I earned an "Excellent" rating in every category except for Interpersonal Relationships, in which I got a "Needs Improvement". This is the work equivalent to getting a bad mark under "Plays Well With Others" on a grade school report card.
I expected my boss to give a half-hearted lecture on how to improve this category, but instead he said, "Frankly, I don't give a shit about that. You come in, you do your job, you do it well, and you leave. You don't waste time socializing or playing politics. I wish more people were like you." And with that, he ended the meeting. So much for self improvement.
