The Other Day I Heard...
...a colleague who teaches at the college where I work say some thing peculiar to me. It may not be to you so here it goes.
Most of the evening instructors work only part time because they are retired or work full-time jobs in the morning. The woman who works in the classroom that adjoins mine works elsewhere during the day. Yesterday the weather was behaving strangely, starting out at a pleasant 50-something degrees and ending in the windy 30s by the time we came to work that night.
We were both commenting on the weather as people who are just getting to know each other do when she said told me about her lunch. She said, that around 11 o'clock, her cubemate and she went out to get something for lunch and enjoyed the weather so much that they sat outside to eat. As I was driving home last night, my mind started spinning and was still whirring away this morning at the grocery store. I was pondering the word - CUBEMATE.
It's not that I have never heard this term before, having worked in an office briefly where there were cubicles. What puzzled me was why she called her co-worker her cubemate. Does that imply that the two women are closer than coworkers but not close enough to be called friends? There are so many other things she could have said:
Just askin'.
Most of the evening instructors work only part time because they are retired or work full-time jobs in the morning. The woman who works in the classroom that adjoins mine works elsewhere during the day. Yesterday the weather was behaving strangely, starting out at a pleasant 50-something degrees and ending in the windy 30s by the time we came to work that night.
We were both commenting on the weather as people who are just getting to know each other do when she said told me about her lunch. She said, that around 11 o'clock, her cubemate and she went out to get something for lunch and enjoyed the weather so much that they sat outside to eat. As I was driving home last night, my mind started spinning and was still whirring away this morning at the grocery store. I was pondering the word - CUBEMATE.
It's not that I have never heard this term before, having worked in an office briefly where there were cubicles. What puzzled me was why she called her co-worker her cubemate. Does that imply that the two women are closer than coworkers but not close enough to be called friends? There are so many other things she could have said:
- coworker
- colleague
- friend
- mate (for my Aussie pals)
- acquaintance (probably not if they work side by side)
- she could have left the person out of the story since she had no bearing on the weather comment
Just askin'.
Comments
Annemarie I think this person is her friend. "Cubemate" has the word "mate" included in the word so according to this Aussie they are probably good buddies.
Take care and big hugs
Pegs xxxxxx
PS I am still in the "land of the long white cloud"