profile of an office neighbor

I tend to observe people. I even have a kind of game that I play in the elevator on my way into work, in which I try to guess where everyone will get off. Since the elevator bank I use goes to floors 22 through 30, and my work is on the 30th floor, I get a glimpse of the office spaces and the types of people who work on each floor. All of the offices have a distinct personality with the exception of the 23rd floor, which has a number of small offices.

Let's start from the "bottom." There's floor 22, home to Click Commerce. Their staff members are often toting a backpack with a laptop in it and they tend to be less stylish. Floor 23 is where you'll find the fitness center, an architecture firm, a media company and other offices I don't know much about. Floor 24 is unoccupied at the moment. Floor 25 houses a law office and these fellows--yes, mostly men--tend to have a more buttoned-up look, have briefcases in-hand and have a predilection for polo shirts. Then there's the ever so distinctive floor 26 where Motorola's "moto city" resides. This is where all the edgy telecommunications design folks stop off. Almost all of them have the hipster eyeglass frames, trendy clothes and are also often carrying a laptop case. Floors 27 and 28 are taken up by Clear Channel. I gather that 27 has the actual radio station sound booths and 28 is where their advertising sales staff works. All of the chatty, Juicy Couture bag-clutching girls get off on 27. The sometimes snobby, suit-clad executives get off on 28.

We're almost at the top, I promise. Burrell, a public relations firm, resides on floor 29. Their employees are also usually trendy, but are distinguished from the Motorola crew because of their ethnicity. Strangely enough, most of Burrell's staff is African American while the Motorola staff is made up of a lot of Europeans and Asians.

Congratulations! You made it to the 30th floor, where I work and where my office shares half of the floor with an architecture firm. Generally, the only interaction I ever have with the office neighbors is in the hallway or in the women's bathroom. You can think of it as talking to your neighbor while taking out the trash. I like my office neighbors. They're all pretty nice, except for one woman who seems so serious all of the time. I'll call her Megan. Megan never smiles or says anything, even when I smile at her in passing or say hello, or hold the door for her. No thank you. Nothing. So yes, I've made it my mission to get her to smile.

Another fellow who I'll call Giles likes to chat it up. One day he inquired about my heritage as he returned to his office. Another day he offered me fruit, which his wife had given him and he couldn't finish (there were several pieces). Yesterday he shared that our receptionist "saved his life" by letting him use our fax machine (there's was broken).

Then there are my two favorite office neighbors. Let's name them Brian and Matt. Matt is your tall, mid-western city lad. He's always smiling, always well dressed and always polite, saying hello and holding the elevator doors for everyone. I think he has a thing for soup because whenever I go to Fresh Choice for lunch, I see him in their line or sitting at one of their few tables. I think he also had a thing for a friend of mine. When they were both eating lunch outside one day, he walked over and asked her if she wanted to come sit at the table with his friends. So cute. Brian, who is friends with Matt, is what I picture as an architect. On the surface, at least, he seems punctual, always arriving at work before 8AM, stylish, open and honest. Oh, and he wears a cooler version of one of those '80s calculator watches. I have one word for that: awesome.