:: Tea time ::

Thursday, March 13, 2003

I have no tolerance for caffeine. It gives me cramps, throws my brain into an anxiety spiral, and makes me jittery and nauseated. I should know this by now - I've had plenty of immediate negative conditioning over the years to help dissuade me from ever having anything stronger than the occasional, very mild, cup of decaf tea (so, "nuts" to you, B.F. Skinner). Once, in college, I drank a half-gallon of Arizona's Green Tea with Honey - a really tasty product which I had consumed in limited quantities in high school and could tolerate as such because the caffeine was fairly diluted - and had to stay in for the night, shaking, laying horizontally on a beat-up bright-blue couch, perched on the precarious physical and mental precipice overhanging the imminent threat of vomiting. Modesty and some modicum of pride prevent me from even starting to describe how I react to coffee.

Maybe it's psychosomatic... everybody needs some outlet for their hypochondria.

So you'd think I'd have learned by now. You (and I do mean you, dear reader) would think that the last thing I would do after attending a company-wide meeting in which everybody was informed that we had (as a result of cost-cutting measures) to let a couple of employees go would be to run down to Starbucks in the pouring rain and purchase a grande, alto, ginormiosio (that's Italian for "ginormous") cup of stimulant-laden chai tea.

Yes, it's chai tea, and not a seizure-inducing, midnight-black shot of espresso, but we're talking about someone who hasn't even had a Coke... ever. Factor in the complete lack of tolerance here.

Besides, now I can concentrate on writing a rant on C8-H10-N4-O2 despite the shaking hands it produced instead of letting my mind drift to other, less immediate, and far more troublesome topics.

Like:

Ever been in a fairly small room with 27 other people when it's totally silent? I mean, absolutely dead silent - a complete vacuum of any sound whatsoever, wracked with terror at the mere prospect that someone might clear their throat or shuffle just a trifle in their seat, against the better judgment of a fairly significant part of you that wishes that someone would, because every second of additional silence just compounds upon itself and makes everyone exponentially more uncomfortable? The answer's probably a "yes"... everyone has at some point or another, but that doesn't diminish the punch in the chest you feel when it happens. Visceral is visceral, even if you've been there before.

Quid pro quo for working at a small company I guess: we use double-edged swords like they were chopsticks. One upside is that you know everyone, and one downside is, as I found out today, also that you know everyone - there's not just a face to every name, but a personality, maybe a spouse, and a track record of shared conversations and experiences.

It's not like there's been a death in the family, and we've had far worse before, but it's still well beyond the realm of the uncomfortable. If things turn out as they should, we can all just chalk it up to growing pains, speed bumps, hurdles, or whatever other corporate metaphor you prefer.

Evil, wretched caffeine. I don't know what I ever saw in you. You always make things worse.

Posted by morland @ 06:12 PM

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