Introduction
This is for the Social Science and Liberal Arts majors. Anthropology, Political Science, Comparative Literature, Communications, Ethnic Studies – if you have a piece of paper announcing the completion of a degree that uses any combination of these words, I am writing this for you.

We were all so smug once. Whenever some smartass inquiring about our major had the gall to ask, “What are you going do with that?”, it was so easy to defend our choices with some line about our academic interest in social ills and economic injustice. We had too much intellectual integrity to slog to meaningless calculus classes like those soulless engineering students! We were learning about highly relevant subjects like Electoral Systems in 19th Century Japan and the Competition for Hegemony in the Soviet Successor States! We were perfecting the Prisoner’s Dilemma! Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Not us! Who cared if we weren’t going to be making 50K right out of college? We were learning about things that mattered. And drinking. Lots.

If we had known the answer to the “What are you going to do with that?” question was, “Keep getting degrees or gratefully accept an entry-level position at an office in a totally unrelated field”, maybe we would have made different choices. But no use dwelling in missed opportunities. We didn’t really think we were going to be political pundits in Washington did we? And the Peace Corps, that was a nice idea, but Africa is just so…far. Also, it has to be hard to find a Starbucks there, but there are four on the way to my office.

When you think about it, working at a corporation is not that different from being a Social Science or Liberal Arts student. You still enjoy long periods of laziness followed by a flurry of activity just in time to save your ass. The assortment of fancy slide transitions you incorporate into your Power Point presentation can still make up for its lack of substance. You still don’t need to read the book to pull buzz words out of your ass and BS your way toward a profound thought when you are unexpectedly called upon or faced with an unfamiliar midterm prompt. Just substitute “efficient”, “opportunity” and “process” for “decentralization”, “sovereignty” and “bureaucracy” and you find that actually your life hasn’t changed much since college at all! The only difference is that now you have a paycheck to support your binge drinking as opposed to just student loans.

Sure, when you really consider your life, you may feel a little nostalgic about a time when your vision of the future involved solving problems like homelessness and inequality rather than Excel equation errors, but on the other hand, it’s so nice to have dental. Just accept it. Let the warm, comforting tide of mediocrity flow over you like tepid bathwater; snuggle into its familiar embrace like it’s the bad-for-you ex that you just can’t stop getting drunk and sleeping with. Settle, settle, settle. Welcome to your adult life. This manual is here to help.

Chapter 1: Combating Office Awkwardness
Offices, specifically large corporate offices, are inherently awkward environments because they force strangers into shared spaces and put pressure on them to act as if they have a relationship that extends beyond function. This is not to say that coworkers can’t be good friends – I genuinely like many of my fellow employees – but in an office it is not at all strange to ask the person with whom you are uncomfortably sharing an elevator how their weekend was when your only prior interaction consisted of a brief discussion via instant messenger about a form that wasn’t completely filled out. Maintaining such an act can be quite a strain on the unseasoned corporate employee. This chapter discusses some of my favorite awkward office encounters and how to cope.

The Hallway Approach
When you and a coworker are walking down a long hallway from opposite directions, you may have to approach each other from quite a distance before you actually pass. This can create a very uncomfortable few seconds in which you are too close to pretend like you don’t yet see each other, but too far to acknowledge each other’s presence with a nod, smile, good-natured mumble or another acceptable office greeting. Most people combat the awkwardness by feigning great interest in the sites along the way, such as the grey, cloth-colored cube exteriors or, in the case of my office, the same poster-sized pictures of enthusiastic endurance athletes that have adorned the walls for the last five years. Then, just as they pass you, they make eye contact, raise their eyebrows and say “Hi there” as if seeing you for the first time.

My suggestion? Take the awkwardness head-on and attempt to engage in eye contact as early as possible – stare down the oncomer like you’re in an alley and you’re about to punk that motha’ fucka’. I attempt to peer intently into the eyes of my coworkers even before I can fully make out their facial features, and try to maintain this gaze all the way down the hall as if hypnotized by their beauty.

Not the actions speak louder than words type? Then literally just speak loudly! When you spot a coworker approaching you, yell to them and wave aggressively like you’ve just spotted them in a crowd of thousands at a football game.

“Hey Mike! MIKE! Remember me? I once sent you an email thinking you were a different Mike and we shared a confused, embarrassing email correspondence for a few hours before I figured out who you actually were!”

Feeling sporty? Run and high five them like you’re an NBA starter and they’re the tunnel of subs during pre-game introductions, or race toward them and leap into their arms Dirty Dancing style.

When you think about it, all of these options are far less awkward than pretending to not notice someone twenty steps away from you in a four foot wide enclosure, or pretending that you find the exterior of the prison cell you inhabit all day so captivating that you must physically turn your head in order to admire it. That’s just silly and sad.

The Duo Hallway Walk
Sometimes even worse than an approaching coworker is a coworker unexpectedly going the same direction as you. You’re making your way toward the kitchen to refill your tea cup when all of a sudden, BAM…someone careens into the hall from a nearby cubicle entrance and cuts you off, and now you’re lurking a few steps behind them like their prison bitch. Most people handle this awkward situation by slowing their pace and taking an extra second to admire those cube walls (what IS that stain?), until the gap between their fellow hallway meanderer reaches an acceptable size. If they’re the front walker, getting their Southwest boarding pass off the printer (why else would you use the work printer?) takes on a new level of urgency.

My suggestion? If you’re the back walker, don’t just saunter behind the fucker who cut you off like a LOSER. Flat tire that son of a bitch and swerve around. If necessary, body check them into the nearest cube wall, preferably while yelling “too slow!” and continue on your way. If you’re in front, zig zag across the hall so they can’t pass, if possible, pulling down obstacles to block their path as if reenacting the sweet chase scene from Sandlot.

You’ll notice that a lot of office awkwardness can be combated by turning uncomfortable situations into a competition. Winners NEVER feel awkward.

Awkward Bathroom Encounters
Given their sensitive nature, bathroom encounters can be the most uncomfortable of all awkward office situations, and must be handled with extreme care. The worst scenario is when an awkward bathroom encounter is coupled with the duo hallway walk described above. When you are caught in a duo walk down the bathroom hallway it is unmistakable where you are both heading and there is no turning back. You will enter the restroom within seconds of each other and then be under the extreme pressure situation of peeing in a silent room that echoes like a cavern, where the only physical obstacle preventing you and your coworker from tenderly interlocking fingers is a thin sheet of plastic that hovers several feet above the floor. Sitting in silence in a bathroom stall, trying to produce the only acceptable sound in that situation – urine hitting toilet water – is like realizing you’re out of things to say on a blind dinner date before you’ve finished appetizers. You immediately try to come up with “small talk” before the enormity of the silence settles over you, highlighting your failure; you clear your throat, you extract an extra seat cover, you noisily equip yourself with an excessive amount of toilet paper before it’s needed; anything to combat the stage fright.

Damn you bladder! You were dying for this minutes ago when I was trying to get through that meeting, and now you’ve got nothing to say! But YOU, colon, you’re never at a loss for words are you? I can depend on you to produce a noise to fill the silence before bladder can muster enough of a stream to drown out your unwanted opinion!

You and your pissing companion inevitably finish at the same time and avoid eye contact at the sink, either basking in the glory of your success (Ha! I peed!), or burning with your failure (Why am I even washing my hands? Nothing even happened in there except unwanted flatulence!)

My suggestion? Fight the expectation that pee hitting water is the only acceptable sound when you are caught in duo bathroom performance. Whistle! Call someone on your cell phone, preferably to break up with them. Try to get your pee partner to harmonize with you – bathroom acoustics are AMAZING. Tap your foot under then stall as if you’re soliciting sex like a Minnesota senator. If they don’t think it’s funny, fuck em’! They’re probably not worth your time. I like to start laughing uncontrollably at nothing like they do in 90s movies with their friends when they’re trying to get the class hottie to notice them. Then I just sigh and say, “Oh Geoffrey”, as if remembering something very witty that was recently said.

The Awkward Office Birthday Celebration
Office parties are awkward because an office is not an environment that in any way fosters genuine celebration. You can be well-liked by your coworkers, but if your birthday celebration is taking place at the workplace, they will be physically unable to gather in your honor for any reason other than a desire to consume the sheet cake purchased for the occasion. It’s like trying to get people to enjoy a good hip-hop album at a WASP funeral; it could be really good music, it’s just the wrong venue.

Let’s face it, if you are working on your birthday, the crumpled crepe paper and confetti your manager pulled from her emergency stash and hurriedly scattered around your cubicle when her Outlook reminder alerted her of the occasion are not so much festive as a sad reminder that your special day was spent amidst the dull buzz of central air, quickly minimizing Facebook birthday wall postings from distant acquaintances when equally distant work acquaintances, noticing your cube is decorated, pop in to wish you a good one. A sad reminder that remains jammed in your keyboard or adhered with layers of scotch tape to the uppermost corners of your workspace as paper nubbins for weeks to come.

When you think it can’t get sadder, around 2:00 Captain Obvious comes by to casually lure you to a top-secret gathering that was coordinated earlier that day via email. Soon you must feign surprise and gratitude, listen to an unenthusiastic rendition of “Happy Birthday”, appear visibly touched or amused by the notes in the group card that even the new hires were instructed to sign, and then clumsily cut and distribute the food item to the salivating crowd that has been anticipating this late afternoon sugar rush all day.

Such a façade cannot help but be awkward, and your average cubicle monkey copes by playing his or her appropriate role. The celebratee puts on a strained smile, shmoozes and repeats their best authentically slow “thaaannnkkk youuu” to all the celebrators. The celebrators, in turn, all wait patiently for someone else to make the first move at the cake and then refuse a piece until it is insisted upon, as if they showed up only to ensure the proper recognition of your birth. “Oh no no, I don’t want any, I just wanted to stop by and give my best. Okay, maybe just a small slice…”

My suggestion? Shatter the façade. I personally queue up for an office snack like it’s my welfare check. Cake, hummus, leftover breakfast treats discarded in the kitchen; if it’s free and edible, I’m first in line. Everyone is hungry. Don’t delay the suffering. The birthday honoree will not be offended; they will be relieved that the forced attention has been taken off them and refocused on the fat girl who is shamelessly digging in before the last note of the birthday song has been tonelessly sung.

Chapter Summary:
1) Offices are inherently awkward
2) Office awkwardness can be alleviated by:
a. Being competitive, even if you are the only one competing
b. Keeping it real
3) Be the first to eat office snacks. That shit goes fast.