When the boss is out of town my coworkers turn up their music, I guess so the whole office can enjoy whatever you call the music that my coworkers listen to. Adult contemporary isn't quite right. It's more like the hold music at a vaginal rejuvenation clinic.

For example, Kim brought the Friends soundtrack. Unfortunately, when it finished nobody else had any other CDs so Kim played the entire Friends soundtrack a second time.

Here's an unfun fact! Did you know that the first and last song on the official album of the hit television series Friends is the Friends theme song, “I'll Be There For You”? The former being the edited version heard during the show's opening credits and the latter being the extended full version. We grew quite strong after eating Kim's heart.

A weird battle ensued when someone figured out that the speakers at our desks could be plugged directly into an iPod. One lady blabbed, "I have really good jazz music on mine. Everyone likes jazz." And some other lady pleaded, "No, we'll hook mine up. I've got Enya."

I take the train to work so everyone knows I enter the office each day wearing headphones. "What about you, Jay? What do you have on your iPod?” I didn't feel like explaining that music is not a competition, so I said, “Rock.” A coworker asked me if I liked the new John Mayer album. These people assume that because we share a network connection, we also share a musical connection. I tiptoed around the question by responding, "I haven't heard it." The next day that coworker brought in the new John Mayer album for me to borrow.

Music is like religion. People should just like what they like and be content leaving everyone else out of it. However, this charade had to end. I told him that I didn't like John Mayer and that I mostly listen to experimental noise stuff. His face looked pained like I told him that I cheated on him with someone else.

He clearly didn't understand and asked, "You mean like Nirvana?"

I had no choice but to make it a clean break. “Yes. I've been seeing Nirvana.”