I don’t know all of my colleagues that worked with me in the same company, but one thing for sure that is I’ll greet or smile or nod my head just to acknowledge their present within the office, or even within the same office building.
No particular reason for doing this, but one thing I found strange is, where I had experienced many times, that people looked away or avoid greeting their colleague in office. I understand if you are out on the street, it would be best not to talk to stranger, or even smile at stranger.
Once in the office, I was walking towards the pantry/photocopy machine/washroom, on coming is one of the colleague that I have seen many times, despite not knowing the name, I look straight into this person’s eyes as I’m walking and smile/greet/nod my head.
This person sees my eye contact and quickly looked down and dashed away!
I don’t feel disrespectful or stupid, I was wondering do I have anything weird on my appearance, so immediately I went to the washroom and first thing I check on myself the zip on my pants, did I left it unzipped and something left hanging there? No. No giant spider on my head, negative ink stained on my shirt’s pocket. A quick check ran from head to toes and I was completely fine by appearance.
I still left with no answer why was this person react in this way when met me. Maybe I have a face that got rejected by beautifulpeople.com. Ok, I admit.
If anybody smile and greet me, I’ll do the same in return. In my opinion, it is always good to smile and greet your colleagues, because this shows that you are an open to social, friendly and cheerful.
Let’s put this into some situation, you smiled at people, people think that you are friendly, you win! If you are good looking, cheerful and friendly, another plus point!
If people smiled at you, you ignored, people think that you are ego, you lose! If you are good looking, this projected bad image to people think that good looking people are often egoistic and unfriendly, you lose it all!
Remember, your social life begins with a smile!