How Touching
Dec. 14th, 2011 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thessalianI want to put a sign up in this wretched cubicle of mine. I want it to say "PUT A HAND ON ME AND DRAW BACK A STUMP".
Look, it's relatively simple - I don't like people touching me unless I know them really well. I can tolerate it when I have no choice - crowded trains, lifts, incidental brushes when handing over money and taking change while shopping (though even that I'll avoid where I can) - but I don't like it. While I don't assume everyone feels the same way, I generally won't initiate contact with people I don't know well because it's better to not risk them being like me in their antipathy to being touched by near-strangers.
My office apparently has other ideas. If they want my attention so badly, I wish they'd ask. Verbally. Y'know, say "Excuse me?" I know I am generally in the middle of typing a letter when someone wants my attention, but they could at least wait until there's a lull in my typing if they're that worried about not being heard. Tapping me on the shoulder when I am in the middle of typing something just gets me on edge. I do not like it. I partly do not like it because it means that there is someone in my blind spot, deep in my personal space. I partly do not like it because I am fucking busy and would prefer to have people at least wait for a lull instead of stopping me mid-word. But I mostly do not like it because someone I do not know and/or may not actually like is laying hands on me. Maybe I'm oversensitive, but ... this is my body we're talking about and I should at least have some say in who or what comes in contact with it. I just don't like people I don't know well touching me when I don't know it's coming. I want the option to say 'no', even to something as relatively harmless as a touch on the shoulder. (And it generally will be 'no'; I just don't like it.)
Besides, everyone in my office knows that I am plaguemonkey at the moment. I shouldn't think they'd want to be touching me when I might pass on my cold/flu/viral infection/strep throat/whatever the hell it is I have that the doctors didn't care all that much about. And yet...
Maybe I'm just less patient about it today than I would ordinarily be because, despite getting to bed early last night, I am still exhausted, dragged out, aching and miserable right now. Even minor annoyances feel pretty major to me right now. I should be in bed, I know this, but that's not an option. If I'm lucky, I can get home early, but ... probably not. So I'll keep on truckin' and hope I don't fall asleep at my desk. Which seriously feels like an option right now. With my luck, though, I won't have anything but the weekends until the Christmas bank holidays.
Man, I hope they appreciate me...
Look, it's relatively simple - I don't like people touching me unless I know them really well. I can tolerate it when I have no choice - crowded trains, lifts, incidental brushes when handing over money and taking change while shopping (though even that I'll avoid where I can) - but I don't like it. While I don't assume everyone feels the same way, I generally won't initiate contact with people I don't know well because it's better to not risk them being like me in their antipathy to being touched by near-strangers.
My office apparently has other ideas. If they want my attention so badly, I wish they'd ask. Verbally. Y'know, say "Excuse me?" I know I am generally in the middle of typing a letter when someone wants my attention, but they could at least wait until there's a lull in my typing if they're that worried about not being heard. Tapping me on the shoulder when I am in the middle of typing something just gets me on edge. I do not like it. I partly do not like it because it means that there is someone in my blind spot, deep in my personal space. I partly do not like it because I am fucking busy and would prefer to have people at least wait for a lull instead of stopping me mid-word. But I mostly do not like it because someone I do not know and/or may not actually like is laying hands on me. Maybe I'm oversensitive, but ... this is my body we're talking about and I should at least have some say in who or what comes in contact with it. I just don't like people I don't know well touching me when I don't know it's coming. I want the option to say 'no', even to something as relatively harmless as a touch on the shoulder. (And it generally will be 'no'; I just don't like it.)
Besides, everyone in my office knows that I am plaguemonkey at the moment. I shouldn't think they'd want to be touching me when I might pass on my cold/flu/viral infection/strep throat/whatever the hell it is I have that the doctors didn't care all that much about. And yet...
Maybe I'm just less patient about it today than I would ordinarily be because, despite getting to bed early last night, I am still exhausted, dragged out, aching and miserable right now. Even minor annoyances feel pretty major to me right now. I should be in bed, I know this, but that's not an option. If I'm lucky, I can get home early, but ... probably not. So I'll keep on truckin' and hope I don't fall asleep at my desk. Which seriously feels like an option right now. With my luck, though, I won't have anything but the weekends until the Christmas bank holidays.
Man, I hope they appreciate me...
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no subject
Date: 2011-12-15 06:25 am (UTC)Plus, they smell.
Well, some of them anyway.