Office Trip

I’m travelling with my colleagues this week for work. They aren’t friends. They aren’t family. They aren’t all people I’d normally associate with, not because there’s something wrong with them but simply because we don’t share the same tastes, we have different (even conflicting) personalities and we just don’t have many in common other than our job. We just meet at the office every day and now for a week, we’ll meet elsewhere. All day.

Yet, we eat together, we get a chance to see each other’s living quarters. The way people treat their personal spaces says a lot about them. I find, people aren’t all that different when it comes to their workstations or their rooms. Some thrive on clutter, some suffocate in it. Some over-pack and some could live their lives out of a suitcase. These are natural personality traits I guess.

However, there are other small things that you discover about the people you see every day but never outside the confines of the professional space. There are world travellers and there are homebodies. There are explorers, there are followers. What do people look for in a new country? A place that feels familiar? A new experience? What interests them the most? Shopping? Local culture? Natural wonders? Tourist destinations?

There are, I suppose some people to whom the rest of the world is just one big maze that they have to get through to find the end. But I guess most of us like to dawdle and see the sights. Most of my colleagues are out shopping every free moment. I like it too. But I also like the experience of just being alone, watching unfamiliar faces, speaking an unknown language, dressing, and eating differently. I am an observer. Who would believe it?