How To Survive Office Small Talk Without Punching Janet In The Face.
A guide for exhausted women who would rather be dead than hear “Happy Friday Eve” one more time.
https://medium.com/the-haven/how-to-survive-office-small-talk-without-punching-janet-in-the-face-0c4ed224c48b
Welcome to your quick-reference survival manual for navigating the soul-shredding mundanity of daily conversation. If you’ve ever wanted to punch yourself in the face whenever a coworker says, “Happy Friday Eve,” this guide is for you.
Below are categorized examples of Things People Say That Did Not Need to Be Said, alongside the barely restrained internal responses of a woman teetering on the edge of pretending a straitjacket is fashionable.
Step 1: Morning News Channel Rejects
“Nice weather we’re having.”
Yes. I know. I’m outside too. You don’t need to narrate the simulation.
“Traffic is awful in the city!”
Incredible. A metropolitan area? With cars? During rush hour? Revolutionary.
“The cost of eggs, right?”
Yes, I am also aware of the chicken-based inflation index. Please stop.
Step 2: Forced Festivity Phrases
It’s the obligatory cheerfulness that really makes me want to sprint into the ocean wearing Doc Martens full of bees.
“Happy Friday Eve!”
The fuck? It’s Thursday, Janet. You’re not clever. You’re just tired from running the hamster wheel.
“Have a great weekend!”
Don’t tell me what to do. You don’t know my weekend plans, Janet. Maybe I’m going to stare at the wall while drinking vodka from a Ted Lasso mug and watching Yellowjackets. Maybe I’m communing with my darkness.
If you ask me how my weekend was on Monday, I will eat your face off. Yellowjackets-style (i.e., feral and face-eating).
“Happy second Monday!”
It’s fucking Tuesday.
Step 3: The Workplace Flu Whisperer
There’s always that one guy in a meeting when a sneeze or cough is emitted:
“Oh no, you must be getting sick!”
Sick — the fuck? No, John, I’m not getting sick. I’m allergic to corporate synergy and the haunting mildew smell of this carpeted hellhole.
I had a booger tickling my soul.
The cough is from choking back the primal scream of attending the exact same meeting we had yesterday. The numbers haven’t changed, John. We are still selling zero telephone hardlines in the year of our lord, 2025.
Step 4: The Guac Oracle
But nothing — nothing — raises my blood pressure like this final moment of madness.
I go to my beloved fast-food place to grab a quick lunch before returning to the office small talk offenders. I build a burrito bowl that could make a grown man weep. They get to the guacamole. And I hear it:
“Guacamole is extra.”
No shit guacamole is extra. It says so in 84-point font on the overhead menu.
It’s been extra since 1993, when the first Chipotle opened and summoned the avocado gods from their slumber.
What happened to make this a required phrase?
Did someone sue because they were shocked by the $1.95 charge?
Is the avocado hand-picked by Peruvian shamans who whisper daily affirmations into its pit?
Does it come with a handwritten poem and a therapy dog?
You know what else is extra?
Me.
I’m extra.
Extra loud.
Extra exhausted.
Extra banned from all tri-state area Chipotle locations for screaming about fruit-based upcharges.
But I’d do it all again — guac in hand, Doc Martens full of bees — stomping into the abyss like it’s open mic night in hell.
And I swear to God, Janet, if you say “Happy Hump Day” on my way down, I’m taking you with me.