How I Met My Baby-Daddy

Back when I was just a wee facilitator in the grinding corporate machine of training, I decided I was going to try to network. I really didn’t decide, in all honesty, I was told I needed to network which means “make friends” with people or something - no one in management could explain what it was or how I would know if I was doing it right. Being that I mostly refer to people by color of their shirt, this was a bit of a leap.

I submit this typical conversation as proof:

Maddie: Hey, green-polo, what's going on?
Green Polo: ...uh....
Maddie: Great. Thanks for asking!

Also, I know I’m freaking annoying.

What am I going to do? Annoy someone into being productive and happy so they continue grinding out work or do favors for me? Networking is a mystery to me.

So, anyhow, I decided I would give it a try because I love failure. It's how I feel alive.

Besides, humans are social creatures, we live in families and packs, how hard could it be to strike up a conversation with someone? I spent a good two weeks with these trainees as part of my water-hose-of-information-to-the-face training methodology and the least I could do was try to remain friendly with them – even if most of my brain was on autopilot for those two weeks...

I'm on auto-pilot about 85% of the day at work.

There is this guy who I trained. He seemed fun and I remembered his name – super rare. Let's call him...Leandro. I was going to MAKE AN EFFORT. Not just for networking and because someone who doesn't know how to pronounce my last name told me to...but for HUMANITY.

Maddie: Hi.
Leandro: Hi.
Maddie: How are you?
Leandro: Good. How are you?
Maddie: Good, as well.

I knew he was married for a couple years maybe, ring-check, yep, so I said to myself: Listen, you want to make this conversation sparkle like a diamond in the sky?! You want to be a hero - you want to rock his world like no conversation ever has: ask him how his kids are. Parents love that sh**. You are going to be the networking boss! DO IT!

My brain-thoughts have always been wrong so I said:

Maddie: How are your kids?
Leandro:…What are you talking about? I don’t have kids.

[Add awkward silence]

Maddie: I thought you had kids.
Leandro: I don’t have no kids.
Maddie: …what about our kids?
Leandro: ...
Maddie: ...
Leandro: ...
Maddie: ...
Leandro: Yeah, how have out kids been doing?

We had a conversation about our fake kids. In fact, our entire relationship of 5+ years is currently based on this conversation.

So we now have three fictional kids. One is pretty dumb, I don't know much about the other ones. I harass him for child support in the form of office candy and chips mostly through Twitter.

I get neither chips nor candy, which is really a critical fact here.

To be fair, he never sees his kids so he can't provide them much support as a father-figure. He has a strong fictional argument, there.

Let's just say, I never attempted this sh** again. I don't need more fake kids. This is a lot of work, people. A lot.

As a fun addition to the start of this story about networking, I was later told the type of networking I needed to do was with what I call the "titled class" not the trench workers. I needed to pop into the offices of directors and vice presidents to be seen and heard rather then the gen-pop.