It starts innocently. A head appears over your monitor, or a chair rolls a little too close, and you hear the most dangerous sentence in any workplace: "Got a second? Just one quick question."
You do not have a second. You have a deadline, three tabs open, and a coffee that went cold while you were actually working. But you are polite, so you say sure. That is your first mistake. There is no quick question. There never was. The question was just the cover charge.
Within two minutes, the question about a file has become a story about a manager, a weekend, a car repair, and a feeling about the office thermostat that apparently needed a full hearing. You nod. You make the understanding noises. You glance, very obviously, at your screen, hoping body language will do what courage will not. It will not. Energy vampires are immune to hints. A ringing phone is not an exit to them. It is background music.
The truly impressive part is the transfer. They arrived restless and vaguely annoyed about everything, and they leave lighter, cheerier, almost refreshed. You, meanwhile, feel like someone unplugged you and forgot to plug you back in. Your original task is still sitting there, untouched, now with less time to do it in. Somehow you also know three new grievances, one rumor you did not ask for, and the entire plot of a show you will never watch.
Every office has one. Sometimes it is the hallway ambush, where a trip to get water becomes a standing conference. Sometimes it is the meeting-after-the-meeting, where the real agenda is just more talking. And sometimes it is the message that should have been one sentence but arrives as a voice note long enough to need chapter breaks.
To be clear, normal conversation is not the crime. Asking for help is not the crime. The crime is the bait and switch: advertising a ten-second exchange and delivering a hostage situation with small talk. If your question needs a backstory, a subplot, and a dramatic reenactment of something Dave said on Tuesday, it is not a quick question. It is a presentation.
So we develop defenses. Headphones worn as a Do Not Disturb sign, even with nothing playing. The urgent fake glance at a calendar. The slow stand-up that says this conversation is ending because my legs have decided for me. The classic "I have a call in five" — said at 9:12, about a call that does not exist, to a person who will absolutely ask about the call later.
None of it feels great, because most of us do not want to be rude. We just want our afternoon back. We want "quick question" to mean what it says, the way "some assembly required" should mean some, and "we should get lunch sometime" should occasionally lead to lunch.
Until that glorious day, guard your seconds. Smile, answer the actual question, and start typing again like your keyboard is a life raft. Because the energy vampire will be back tomorrow, with another quick one. It will not be quick. It never is.