Overheard in the Office: Moving Edition

As you may have heard (if you’ve read any of our entries from the past three weeks), we’re getting ready to move away from our childhood homes, the little “city” where we were born and have spent our entire lives. “Finally!”, you might say. “Congratulations, Anya and Paul! What an exciting time for two young people such as yourselves. Making your way in the Big City, moving forward in your careers (hopefully), paying your own bills, learning to use public transportation like pros, beginning the phase of your life where you can scoff at tourists instead of being one. Hooray!”

Look at how much fun I’m having in the great new city! What could possibly go wrong?

Those would be the things you might say if you were a functional person who learned of good news concerning someone you generally like. Other acceptable questions or comments include:
-Are you more excited or more nervous?
-That’s so exciting! Where are you going to be living?
(note: this does not include follow up questions or comments such as “with who” “how much are you paying for that” or “oooh that’s not supposed to be a very safe area”)
-This the best time of your life to do something like that, I’m sure you’ll love it!
-You’ll be fine!
-Everything will be fine.

This is all we want.

Unfortunately, while lots of people are still savvy enough to obey social niceties despite their misgivings on our behalf, and several even seem genuinely happy for us and enthused about the direction our lives are taking, quite a few others missed the boat. As you may have guessed from our ‘Overheard in the Office’ feature, our co-workers are among the top offenders, having missed the decency memo, and instead we have received a motley collection of passive aggressive comments, pointed questions, and what could be called advice if you were stretching the meaning of the word to its utmost.

Enjoy the following transcription of actual things people have actually said to us:

“How will you be able to afford to eat meat?!”

“Well...it’s good to be nervous...if you weren’t...I’d have to think you weren’t....all that bright?”

“I don’t want to pay like $6 a load for laundry as soon as I get there when I can just wash it all here for free!”
“Don’t be so cheap!”

“Are you going to be living in a high-rise?”
“Cardboard boxes are only one floor.”
“Hey now, maybe it’s a refrigerator box!”

“Oh...that’s like one of the most expensive cities in the world, isn’t it? Like how much are you paying for your apartment? So the two of you are living together then? Just the two of you? Oh, how many bedrooms?”

“So...what are you going to do?”

“Oh I lived there many years ago, back when it was safe.”

“Just make sure you know where you’re going. You can turn a corner and suddenly be somewhere you didn’t want to be!” (this one is actually legit, just a little terrifying)

“Ok who wants to serve cake and who wants to serve ice cream? It’ll be good practice for when you have to resort to working in a restaurant! Haha!”

“Well, you’re going to hate it for the first six weeks, and after that it could go either way.”

Here’s hoping it goes the right way?

Wish us luck! And looking forward to an upcoming article “Our Guide to Gracefully Handling Surprise Parties”, followed by “Our Guide to Accepting Compliments (Even the Back Handed Ones) Without Sounding Like an Asshole”. We’re a fount of excellent advice!