"We must be on the same schedule! Ha ha!"

Depending on who it happens with, one of the most weird and/or awkward things that can happen at work is when you get on the same schedule as someone else.

What this means is whenever you walk to the kitchen or bathroom, you see them in the hall. If it's someone you know, then inevitably one of you will say, "We must be on the same schedule!" and then you both laugh mildly, even though it's like the oldest most boring thing you could possibly say. It's just expected. You don't say it every time you see them; you only say it once, after you've run into each other a certain number of times in a limited period. Say, 5 times in 3 days. Enough to have established that you're on the same schedule. It all depends.

Sometimes you get on the same schedule as someone you know. This can be good or bad. Is it someone you like? Is it someone you owe an email answer to? Is it someone you'd rather avoid? Is it someone who might trap you into agreeing to do something you don't have time to do?

But the weirdest thing is when you are on the same schedule with someone you don't know. Someone you have never met and probably never will meet. And you just see them again and again and again and well, depending on who it is, I just don't like it. I'm not sure why.

Once a few weeks ago I was on the same schedule as a modern cowboy. I'm not sure if you know any of these -I only do because we had two in our high school in Omaha. These modern cowboys are very tidy, and wear Wrangler jeans, brightly colored / patterned shirts, and cowboy boots.*

Sometimes you will be on the same schedule as someone and be really annoyed that you are seeing them again and again. In the case of the cowboy, I wasn't annoyed about seeing him, because one time I saw him in the kitchen and we were both getting coffee and we both said "excuse me" and he smiled kindly at me and the corners of his eyes wrinkled up. From then on I felt that he was a nice guy (possibly in an unfortunate situation where he's forced to write code to pay off his tractor) and I was happy to see him in the hall and we would smile (standard, never-met-you, no-teeth hallway smile). But I haven't seen him recently so we must be on different schedules now. He probably changed his to get away from me!

For the past couple weeks I have been on the same schedule as someone I dread seeing. As for why, there's nothing that I can really put my finger on. It's just a feeling I have. One thing that freaks me out is that whenever I see him, his shirt is in various states of being tucked or untucked - generally wopperjawed. Half tucked in one moment, not tucked in at all another moment. I'm just like, I don't want to know about you and your crazy shirt business!

And with this fellow, sometimes I even see him when I'm walking to the cafeteria to get lunch! I can't get away.

I have never purposely changed my schedule to stop seeing someone. I don't know how I could. I am not on an official schedule - I only get up to visit the kitchen or restroom when I need to.

Maybe for the purposes of this blog, I'll start keeping track of how many times I see that one person each day.

* I think this is what cowboys wear when they go out, not when they are doing their cowboy work, roping cattle, getting dusty, etc. Actually now that I think about it, maybe this is what a farmer wears when they go out? It's possible this gentleman is either a modern cowboy or modern farmer. Except that...he works at a large technology company for his day job.