Small Talk

So everytime I need to get some work done by someone else, I am always stressed out by the dilemna - to make small talk before asking for the work or not. Personally I prefer not to be asked various questions about my life and the weather in Bangalore before the real conversation actually begins. Maybe people feel like they need to warm up. Someone should break it to them (albeit, gently) that this is not physical exercise and the brain really does not need much warming up once its awake. In fact, if anything the small talk probably kills a bit of the brain, or such is my theory. So meanwhile, going by the "do-unto-others-as-you-would-have-them-do-unto-you' rule I try to follow in my life, I usually skip the small talk really fast. A typical conversation when I am about to ask about work looks like this:

N: Hey x
X: Hey.. hows it going?
N: Pretty good. Needed to know if.... (blah blah)

Once the work is done with then I usually progress to the small talk if the individual gives the impression he/she would like to get over the trauma of the skipped small talk by talking about various things like the coffee vending machine (and how it sucks) and the weather in various cities.. maybe even global warming for good measure if the person seems to have a lot of free time on his/her hands.

However, here is what the usual conversation when someone else needs some work done by me looks like:

X: Hey N! How are you doing?
N: Doing well and you? (this my cue for the person to ask me about the work they require - instead I have described what I hear next)
X: I am doing very well, thank you. My kids are now in pre-school/I am really (not) looking forward to the summer/Looks like Bangalore is the hot place to be in now..
N: Yeah.. how cool (not). *Some question vaguely connected to previous remark*
X: Blah blah...
N: Alternating between Hmmm... Oh really?.. Hmmm... yes me too..
X: So basically I wanted to ask you....

After all this small talk about small talk though, I must return to my original objective of coming to work - coffee breaks!