It's hard being a personable introvert. I am one. I will help you however I can when you're a customer or coworker. I joke that I don't get paid enough to be nice but I do it anyway. Want repeat customers? Hire people who are nice or are really amazing at faking it. I'm far from outgoing and yet I love doing things. I always want to be doing something and yet I sit on my arse a hell of a lot more often than I want to. A lot of this has to do with weather, time of year, exhaustion {either from lack of sleep or extra long work day} and sometimes because I want to crawl back under the blankets and never come out again.
There are days I get to work and after covering the front desk for a short period I go back to my desk, boot up my system, get water or cocoa and sit back down to start working. All of a sudden I feel exhausted. I haven't even done one thing yet, but all of my energy is gone. Perhaps too many people called that morning. It could have been there were a handful of voicemails and a ton of faxes, plus phone calls on top of that. Even for such a short period it's a lot of work. I would rather have things to do than sit there with nothing to do however.
There are, of course, good days and bad days. The days I am quiet, focused and hard at work, people think that I'm upset or depressed. Neither are true. Well, there's always the anger, but it has it's quiet days as well. I just focus on getting things done and I want to keep to myself, so I do. It doesn't have anything to do with other people in any way.
Here's an example for you. As I am writing this I decided it looks quite nice outside and thought to myself "I'll go sit on the front steps and finish writing it." However, my neighbor across the street is mowing the lawn and her kids are outside. So I immediately revoked the idea after {of course} walking to do the door and looking like I was going to walk out. I turned around and headed for the back patio instead. But it seems colder back here somehow. The sun is setting on the other side of the house... So there's more light, and in my mind, warmth there. I'll be headed back in any moment to keep from freezing to death in 66 degree weather. Not only was I avoiding the neighbors, but then I ended up back inside because like I said, in my mind it was cooler in the back of the house than the front.
A lot of people are shocked when they find out that I tend to sit at home, read and pretty much keep to myself. Being around so many people each day and there are those who are a bit more hard to handle than others, it tends to tire me out when things get overemotional and overexcited. People slam doors and yell over the phone, sometimes speakerphone, and then slam it down if they are using the handset and my little tiny bit of stored energy from the few hours of sleep goes into maintaining my emotional well-being. Of not crawling under someone's desk and hiding there for the rest of the day.
So if you work in an office setting, or whatever type of setting where you have close neighbors, please be mindful of the quiet people in the office. Just because they don't speak up to you doesn't mean they aren't {mentally} repeatedly stabbing you in the face with their pen for overwhelming them with your extreme lack of control.
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