The end of saying hello

The post-coronavirus world has made unwanted small talk with bosses and colleagues a thing of the past

Covid19, virus, health and medicine concept. Portrait of friendly young girl in medical face mask saying hi, hello waving hand and grinning with eyes, keep safe during pandemia, quarantine.

In this new, post COVID-19 world, we don’t have to worry about saying hello anymore, and that’s a good thing. Of course, COVID-19 has been bad as well, and many are living in fear. But we can’t just live in fear, and it’s important to look on the bright side. Saying hello has always been a big source of stress, especially in the office.

Big offices with many co-workers are the worst. Not all of your colleagues are your best friends, but you can’t ignore them. What do you do when you meet your vaguely familiar approximately equal ranked co-worker in the corridor for the third time in the day? The first time you said a cheery hello, conveying how tremendously happy you were to see them, even if you weren’t sure of their name.

The second time you were less effusive but still upbeat, to show that the thrill was not totally gone, but you saw no point in overdoing things. But the third time? That’s when it got tricky. You could smile uncertainly. You could pretend not to see them. You could sidle across the wall like a crab with your face turned away. You could pretend to see someone else just behind them and shout out, hoping they didn’t turn around and discover that the corridor is, in fact, empty. It was a tough one.

Chance encounters with bosses were equally fraught with peril. You wanted to register your presence, but you didn’t want to be too familiar. It was also an opportunity to showcase how hard working you were. One of my friends, frequently promoted, used to look very thoughtful and walk with an extreme sense of purpose, even if he was just headed to the bathroom.

It all depended on the nature of the boss. Sometimes it was just safer to keep your head down and slink past. But what if that made you come across as too timid? How did you convey that you were worthy in those few fleeting moments? This is where the mobile phone has been such a boon to society. I used to pretend to have imaginary conversations, where I provided insights and dominated the narrative. It was extremely impressive, and worked like a charm.

Now COVID-19 has freed us from all of this. Saying hello has become simple. There’s nothing much to decide at your average Zoom meeting. You just say hello or wave and get on with it. Since you’re mostly wearing a mask, the quality of your smile and the extent to which you are happy to see your colleagues no longer matters.

Poor internet connections are an additional plus. Taking advantage of this, in the majority of meetings that I attend, most people don’t even turn their video on, so there’s no way to tell whether they’ve shaved, or they’re wearing pants. Hair care has become irrelevant. Executives used to be marked out for promotion based on the quality of their hair, but this is no longer the case. Now only true merit can shine, instead of hair gel.

There is much to fear about COVID-19, and we all have to take precautions. But one thing it has definitely done is free us from the tyranny of saying hello, and brought us all closer to a kinder, gentler, more meritorious world. For this, we must be thankful.

In Shovon Chowdhury’s most recent novel, Murder With Bengali Characteristics , the hero has no social skills whatsoever, and it does not seem to bother him.