Waterford Office Bans Awkward Small Talk In Office Kitchen

IN AN EFFORT to boost employee morale by some 700%, one Waterford company has taken the unprecedented step of banning all excruciating attempts at making small talk while in the office kitchen, WWN can reveal.

An area responsible for a serious amount of foot traffic in the offices of Hanlahan Recruitment Solutions, the office kitchen has become the primary location for awkward and skin crawling small talk, something hated by almost 100% of office workers nationwide.

With staff returning from a bank holiday weekend, MD at Hanlahan Recruitment, Peter Hanlahan, took the courageous decision to ban all small talk in order to save staff from having to ask someone they don’t know, like or care for, all about their boring trip to the beach.

“We knew we had to do something when Sinead from accounts was talking about the jumper she knitted for her cats. No individual should be subjected to that sort of stuff when they’ve just popped in to heat up some soup in the microwave,” explained MD at Hanlahan Recruitment Peter Hanlahan.

The Waterford firm, which employs 17, is not unlike other offices up and down the country which has seen some terrifying instances of small talk being eked out by employees who have had the misfortune of running into one another in the office kitchen or canteen.

“All the careful trip-to-the-kitchen planning in the world, and you can still bump into Tom from sales, and Christ can he shite on. I’m so thankful I can just keep the head down and not even bother with that half-hearted head nod routine, I sometimes do,” shared one employee, who has had his fill of stories of how one of his coworkers’ kids did something gas.

Hanlahan’s decision will spare his employees from an estimated 4800 hours worth of awkwardly staring at their feet while thinking of something, anything to say to their coworker who is horsing into a Yakult while sitting at the communal kitchen table.