I've been struggling with the appropriate way to do this for some time now. Surely I'm not the only one... You know when you're at the office, and you have to go to the bathroom or to the soda machine or something, and there's like 50 or 100 feet between you and your destination, and you see someone in the distance... It's a co-worker. What do you do? Do you:
- Keep your eyes straight ahead the entire time and not acknowledge their presence?
- Act interested in your surroundings all of a sudden. And keep acting interested, moving your head and eyes about, until you've passed the co-worker? ("Hey, I never noticed that picture there before! Fascinating!").
- Say "Hi" to them as soon as the two of you make eye contact (waving is an acceptable substitute), and then do one of A. or B.?
- Start with A., then go to C. after about 2/3 of the distance, and then back to A. or B.?
- Be a coward and dart into the nearest doorway, office or cubicle, waiting for that person to pass so you don't have to deal with this situation?
- None of the above? (Something I have yet to think of.)
The other option is, of course, that I'm insanely neurotic and need to stop thinking about this?
What I've come up with so far is that "D." is the best solution if you have yet to say "Hi" to that person today. Otherwise, if you've already greeted them, then "A." is the best solution. This seems to go over the most favorably with the co-workers, so I assume they've all gone over this scenario themselves.