My Biggest Pet Peeve at Work.....

So I work with a lot of women....I mean a lot, 56 to be exact. And that's just in my department alone. Other departments are dominated by women as well. Needless to say, this company is dominated by estrogen.

I'm sure everyone that knows me knows that I am not at all a girly girl. In fact, I would rather hang out with a bunch of guys than girls. But I do enjoy hanging out with women, just on a small scale and ones that match my personality.

I said all that to give background to my point. Women in general do this a lot (and so do men) but at my work they do it A LOT..... You're just walking around doing whatever: turning paperwork in, talking to your friends, going to the restroom or whatever and sometimes you happen to be in your own world not paying attention very well. In my world, I'm thinking funny thoughts or stories so I never venture out to the hallway-at-work world. Anyway, you're walking down the hallway doing your thing when all a sudden you hear "SMILE!" which bolts you back to the annoying person screaming it at you.

I don't like this for 3 reasons: 1) I feel that everyone saying it to me is judging me for not always smiling at every single creature that walks by me in the hallway, 2) Who are you to tell me to smile?? What if I didn't feel like my smiling? What if I just found out that I had to go to class for 4 1/2 hours instead of the normal 3 that night because some of my fellow group members were gay?? That would definitely keep me from wanting to smile, and 3) What reaction do people expect to happen from this command??? Every time I hear someone say it to someone else all they get in return is a VERY fake smile! Really?? Did you really want that??

So for all you "SMILE!" people, please stop. You are not changing the world 1 smile at a time unless the world needs more fake smiles. You are just making people feel guilty (or in my case, annoyed) that they are not smiling enough.