As an ongoing annoyance to The Geek and my friend The Historian (previously mentioned here and here – sorry, I’m bad at recurring characters), I’m very self-deprecating, most notably about my ability at work.
As The Geek and I were on our way to a coffee date (yes, we’re officially old now), he brought it up suddenly.
The Geek: “You’ve been doing your job for two years now. You must be good at it.”
Me: “Yeah, but I feel like I have a lot more to learn.”
The Geek: “But you got a promotion, you must be good!”
Me: “That job’s mostly making materials, it actually means I get less practice one-to-one with kids.”
The Geek: *big sigh* “Rachel, I swear, if they gave you Employee of the Month you’d say you didn’t deserve it.”
I turned red and started giggling nervously, and then had to explain that after a month with the agency they’d made me Employee of the Month.
The Geek: “What?!” he yelled. “Are you kidding me? This is sitcom levels of absurdity!”
Realizing the depths of my self-deprecation, The Geek now seems to be trying to use reverse psychology on me. He recently made a joke about me being Socially Awkward Penguin, and when I responded that I’m not that bad he said, “Oh good, I thought you’d agree with me.”
Well played, my friend, well played.
Excerpts of Awkwardness 