“I called your desk twice, you didn’t answer. Where were you?” -Ime

I was, most of the time, AFK (Away From Keyboard) at work these last few days – rarely provided support to others.

Then all of a sudden, I requested to take the day off due to “family emergency”. Day-off was granted.

While I shouldn’t be at work, I decided to come in any way (for an hour). I felt the need to wrap things up and let others finish off some of the work I started.

As I was coming in, I saw one of my supervisors – with a WTF look on her face, “Thought you weren’t coming in?”

She’s obviously wondering “What the fuck is going on?”. But I answered her indirectly, “family emergency”.

I kept it vague. I prefer to keep my personal life away from work.

And if I do share something, I only limit it to people that I trust and really care about.

But some people at work just don’t get it. Some try to pry the story out of you. They don’t sense the fact that you don’t want to share. I find that annoying.

Some of us don’t like attention or recognition and yet everyone thinks we need recognition – whether that’s a birthday, a celebration of citizenship, a life milestone – doesn’t matter.

This explains why some of us feel awkward when given the attention we desperately try to avoid.

A lot of us don’t understand the fact that how we see things may not be necessarily the same as how others see it – regardless if it’s common knowledge.

Empathy is a tricky thing. Social norms screwed it up for most of us.