Realisation

For the past couple of weeks since the Trainee got back from holidays I have been trying to put my finger on exactly what it is about her that bothers me slightly. Annoys me slightly. Aside from being a bit to chatty before I�ve had my caffeine hit in the morning.

This afternoon, during a birthday cake break for one of the guys in the office, I finally realised what it was. It was the singing of �Happy Birthday� that did it.

We do have cake for birthdays in the office, but generally we don�t sing, or do candles or anything. We just all have a piece of cake and sit around in the boardroom for a chat for half an hour or so. Very relaxed.

Not so today, the Trainee and the flaky receptionist started signing and kept going despite being somewhat surprised that nobody really wanted to join in. That�s when I realised that the Trainee is quite possible a clone of my mother.

Always chatty, always interested, always asking questions and wanting to know what�s going on with everyone. Friendly, outgoing, but just slightly too much. To the point when you�re sometimes a bit embarrassed that she�s not noticing that whoever she�s chatting to obviously wants, or needs, to be somewhere else, and that conversation has gone on slightly longer than it should have.

But friendly! Pleasant! Generous and giving! Just a little too much. So that it verges on imposition.

Especially for me. I need to ease into the day, and I need my periods of quiet, especially when there�s not really that much to say.

Certainly, being able to talk to anyone anywhere with confidence is a skill, and I�m the first to admit I don�t have it. I tend to talk too much with people I know and not enough with people I don�t. But there are ways of doing it that don�t seem like an imposition. Both the Boss and Nathan are great at this. And very natural. Maybe its that the Trainee and my mother don�t naturally have the skill but have driven themselves to be able to do it. I�m not sure, but they�re definitely the same.

Now that this realisation has hit me the parallels just keep becoming more apparent. Down to their style of dress � definitely the same. And never forgetting anything you tell them, even as an off-hand comment, and then asking you about it later, long after you�ve forgotten if you�d even remembered in the first place. Naturopathy, new age medicine without being fully new age-y (that�s the flaky receptionist), giving out too much information about the state of their health and ailments.

She�s a nice person and she�s starting to get on top of the job, but now that I�ve realised what it is about her, I�m not sure how I�m going to go working with my mother!