Lurking vs Working

He wanders the halls, stopping as he can to chat about the weather, movies, or a new video game. He’s the first to respond to any email with a joke (albeit never a funny one) and if you should happen to wander into the kitchen, you’ll doubtless find him there, getting a cup of tea. The one place you’ll never find him, though, is seated at his desk. Yesterday, I was working on something and looked up to find him standing in my doorway. I didn’t hear his approach and he didn’t even announce his presence with a courtesy throat clearing. Instead, he stood there, waiting for me to look up. Eventually, I did. “I’m going to be sending you an email later today” he said. “Okay, great” I responded. What else was there to say? Apparently, a lot. The nature of the email, the expected result of sending it, and the estimated time of arrival of said email also had to be discussed. I got the email, I responded and that was the end of that. Or so I thought. I went to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. He was there. “Thanks for getting back to me so quickly” he said before he went on to explain the thought process behind the reply he’d sent to my response. As I made my way back to my desk, harrowed by the 1000 items on my task list, it occurred to me that I might like his job.