If you chose Option 2 [confrontation], you did well. People will be less likely to engage you in office small talk of any kind, but that’s likely a benefit when you consider the fact that...

A sofa on an elevator would be like a slow roller coaster where you get to work on your small talk skills. Oh yes, I am an adrenaline junky.

The topic of weather isn’t small talk, when you’re conversing with a meteorologist.

Mrs. P.? Oh no. She’s the help. Bosnian, you know. Or is it Serbian? An absolute treasure, anyway. As I always say to Bel, if there’s one good thing to come out of all this...

Thomas’s mistake, like most of the behavior he leaked into the world, had been avoidable: to join another human being in a situation that virtually demanded unscripted, spontaneous conversation, and thus to risk total moral...