Every office has one who listens

I'm not a psychologist, but I have played one at work.

Every office has one -- that "go to" person who will listen to colleagues' problems, and offer the encouragement/advice/sympathy that settles the "patient" for the moment and guarantees return sessions to the resident "doctor."

For me, it started innocently during my first office experience nearly 30 years ago. I was leaving the supply room just as a teary-eyed co-worker was coming in. Although she barely knew me she decided to take the "any port in a storm" approach to comfort and began telling me about her many and varied troubles -- the most painful being a recent fight with her sister. A few trite but tender words later about "blood being thicker than water" and so began my reputation as a good listener and emotional counselor.

I've worked in a number of offices since that initial foray into pseudoanalysis and in each one the "doctor is in" sign has attached itself to my back.

This might be a stretch, but it seemed that every time I asked a simple "how was your weekend," I would get an earful. To be honest, that never stopped me from asking.

I've found over the years that the general age of my colleagues usually dictates the nature of the troubles they bring to me. For example, when I was in my late 20s and married five years already, I worked in a firm where many of my colleagues were even younger and single, making me the de facto expert on relationships.

Most Monday mornings I'd be fresh from a weekend spent cleaning house, running errands, and getting together with likewise young marrieds, in counterpoint to many of my office buddies who paid room and board to their parents and devoted weekends to bar and boyfriend hopping. While some of my colleagues clearly enjoyed their unrestrained days, others envied the stability of marriage, with many of these singles seeking my observations on "what makes a relationship work."

I may have sounded erudite to 20-something ears, but you can't go too wrong doling out tried and true treacle like "make sure you enter a relationship with your mind and heart open."

The stakes on dishing out shallow advice rose over the years. For the better part of my 30s I worked at a metropolitan publication with several well-educated yet financially inept colleagues. They too were in their 30s and marveled at my lack of major financial problems -- positioning me as a small-time authority on how to make a buck stretch.

I was doing pretty well playing that role until one day I detoured from my usual "put a dollar away for every 10 you earn" schtick and offered a stock recommendation to an already deep-in-debt co-worker. Let's just say the tip was not tops and this colleague's financial standing declined further after following my misplaced advice. Not to worry, though. I hear these days he's doing just fine and -- here's an ironic twist -- recently ghost-wrote a book about investment planning.

In my 40s I became an editor and assumed an even loftier title -- office confidant on all things related to children -- this despite me not being a parent. My theory is that I was perceived as incapable of standing in judgment, childless as I was. Sharing their parental fears with me was tantamount to my colleagues going to confession and receiving absolution.

I would like to claim innocence here and say that throughout my years as office advice guru I did no more than impart kind acknowledgment. But I know better. I'm partly to blame for letting things get this way. Heady with my wise guise I have stuck my nose into other people's business. Many times I've said "now if I were you" and offered my "for what it's worth" opinion . . . some without being asked.

And, I concede, sometimes my opinion has been for the birds. In addition to "helping" the colleague with the bad stock tip, I once "advised" a stressed-out office mate to take a little time for herself and hop the next flight to anywhere. She was so charged up by my "go for the gusto" speech that she disappeared for two weeks without telling her boss. Upon her return she had no cubicle to return to.

Otherwise, though, my advice has been pretty benign. I eventually came to realize that people didn't necessarily want me to solve their problems, but rather to listen to them.

Happily, my present office situation offers few of my past challenges. In fact, every one of the people I now work with has at one time in their professional lives been the office Yoda. Problem-solvers by nature, we have finally found a work-home together where the occasional personal problem is raised and dissected in group fashion, and then we go back to work.

Finally, a place where this former "office analyst" can air her own rare private worries to a few attentive ears. It sure beats past days when, if I had a problem at work, I'd have to look into a mirror and say "now, if I were you."

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