Busted!!

I have this reputation at work as a gruff and churlish misanthrope. Not quite as crazy and aggressive as the dog in the video, although I also cannot stand myself sometimes.

Taking the elevator with other people every morning has always been an unpleasant chore. Most of them are way too chirpy, sunshiny and chattative for my taste: hello, how are you, hot/cold enough for you, and then they insist on telling me what they did last evening, which is usually watching something uninteresting on TV. Normally I pretend to be claustrophobic, to avoid getting into the same elevator with them. I realize that it can look very rude sometimes, but I'm too curmudgeonish to really care.

Taking the elevator down in the evening is just as unpleasant. That's when your co-passengers would talk about what they did today and/or what they will do tonight, usually in loud, high-pitch voice, laughing at each others' lame jokes, as I smile weakly and nod while invisibly rolling my eyes.

Yesterday though, one of my co-workers busted me. I found an empty elevator going down and was looking forward to a nice quiet ride when three of my colleagues squeezed in at the last minute. A cry of despair escaped my lips before I could stop it: «Tchaaah!». The colleagues laughed and joked: You thought you could go without us? How nasty of you to try to close the elevator doors before we could get in. Then, as the elevator stopped to pick up more passengers, one of them said loudly: «You know L. (that's me), she doesn't like to share elevators. Why, she'd rather use the freight elevator than be with us.» And another passenger piped in: «That's true, I've seen her near the freight elevator every morning!». By that time, we've reached the ground floor and everybody started rushing out as I growled impotently at them.