You'd Better Have a Good Morning. Or ELSE.

I have to say that I find the social obligation to greet everyone you meet first thing in the day with a cheery "Good Morning!" is a bit oppressive for me. Even after specific formal training I have undergone that has helped me understand the logic and value of being a smiling, friendly, font of joy, I still cannot force myself to manufacture enthusiasm for at least a couple hours after I wake up. Never have. What can I say? I’ve never been a morning person. I just can’t seem to get excited about leaving my warm comfy bed before I’m good and ready, which I assure you is almost never at the time of the morning that I have to get up for work. For whatever reason, once I’m physically out of bed, I need an hour or two to become Socially Awake. My interpersonal coffee needs time to brew, if you will. And I’m not alone! I know lots of people who aren’t shot out of a cannon in the morning, and if I know so many non-morning-people, I’m sure everyone else must be aware of their existence as well.  So why is it then, that people in a workplace cannot seem to live and let live in the AM? It’s like, We know that not everybody is super-enthusiastic in the morning, but people better fake it or there’s going to be an interrogation, right here in the breakroom. And if I can struggle past the obligatory Good Morning, some people even feel the need to take it one step further, and want to also know How I’m Doing. And you’d better not come back with a simple “Fine” either. You’d better be Great! “How are you this morning?” “Fine.” Disapproving tone: “Well that doesn’t sound good.” You can almost hear the tisk-tisking, the implication hanging there, heavy with disgust, like Why can't you just get your shit together and just be theme-park-ecstatic like everyone else? Why is it unacceptable to be having just an average day? Why are you made to feel like something is wrong with you if you aren’t singing and dancing at the crack of dawn? No one wants a real answer to the How Are You Doing question anyway. “How are you this morning?” “Meh. I’d rather be home asleep in my beat-up sweatpants and green furry socks that make my feet look like a Muppet's, but I’m here anyway because I’ve got to pay the bills and the boss won't just let me stroll in at whatever time I feel I've had enough sleep and am ready to tackle the day.” Just chew on the reaction you’d get to that one. One of my favorite responses is “I’m alive.” That's my go-to expression for days when I'm just not in the mood to play the False Enthusiasm Game. Somehow this always gets taken as a negative, rather than what it really means, which is, hey, things are humming along at about the normal rate; the needle is not jumping around that much on the seismometer of my life. Not bad. Just average. Nothing wrong with that, in my opinion. There is a much lower tolerance for honesty in our daily lives than one would expect. If you want me to put on an act for you right after I wake up, then I’m gonna need you to pay me Scale.