Thank you very much again for your clarification and patience! Certainly has taken a lot off my mind; I hope others learn from our exchanges, especially all my repeatedly falling flat on my face trying to bolt out the door. =)
Speaking of, I had a small chat with a coworker near the end of our shift and I think I did better (posting for pointers and for those with similar “frivolous talk” concerns; maybe we can pool our experiences and learn from each other?):
We hadn’t exchanged many words most the day because we were both tired and busy. I brought that up, she laughed and we exchanged some words, I mentioned I was tired because I unwisely tried to quit caffeine cold-turkey (gee, wonder why I’ve been so bugged out the past few days) and I caught myself thinking “wait, this is getting egocentric…” so in the hopes of added a self-effacing joke about learning from my mistakes which brought out a belly-laugh. Hooray, I spread a little joy! Later on, after she mentioned she always has sugar or something with coffee that she needs good coffee, so I recommended beans from a local shop (and recommended flavors) so hopefully she gets to know the joy of “real” coffee while a local shop gets a little more business.
Lately it seems like I’m on the lookout to say helpful and kind things. Glad to hear that’s not so frivolous!