The Small Talk Expertease

Clare, our audience tonight is composed mostly of conversationalists. And that's your... Expertise! Spelled wrong? Naturally. You're listening to Expertise, spelled wrong. The podcast where the world's most expert experts discuss their areas of expertise expertly. Expert comedy writer Clare Sera and expert comedy writer Danno Sullivan sharing their expertise to other unrelated expertises. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, podcast listeners around the globe. This is your host, Danno Sullivan, and the podcast is Expertise. My guest today is Clare Sera, an expert in the many think lost art of small talk.

Clare Sera, welcome to the program. Give us a quick hello. Good afternoon to you, Mr. Danno Sullivan. Be set this day upon your head in well-tufted good feelings, for you do look like a jolly gentleman of a happy nature, ready to engage in some natural back and forth words. Clare, I've got to say, I just feel roped in to the conversational pit. I want to expand and open up to you. You've got a magic, not just in the words you say, but in your personality and the way you present those words. Now, it was pretty loquacious. I think of small talk as the little pleasantries of everyday life.

Are you always so ornate and flowery in your speech? Nice weather today we're having. See, even there you got me. You pulled me right in. See, Danno, here is one of the secrets to the art of small talk. The bigger it is, the smaller you feel. The bigger the talk is? Yes. The bigger the talk, the bigger the words, the smaller you make the person opposite you feel. Small talk calls for small words. I see. Oh, I just did it, I think. You did. You did very well. That was about four letters that you used, and that was part of our conversation. Now, right there, you're starting to condescend to me a little bit with a big word like conversation.

And maybe I was condescending to you by using a word like condescending. And what do both of those words start with? Con. That is what conversation is. It's a game of con. It's a big con. It's a game of con that once you realize that you are participating in the con. So a conversation, Claire, is not two people trying to communicate to reach an understanding between themselves. No. It's each person trying to come out ahead above the other person. That's exactly right, because it's not conversation, as in communicate, or calm your friend. It's conversation.

How do I get out on top at the end of these paragraphs that we have thrown at each other? So I think that a lot of people are going to want to apply this strategy right away. And probably the easiest place for folks to meet people and have small talk is at the office. Just up and down the hallways, around the water cooler, as they say. Yes. Are there any strategies that the typical office goer can use to either con the other party? Yes. To always con. To always con. To always con. All right. I have to undercut my own question right now. Because if each person is always conning, then one person, each person cannot always be on top.

No, but you can con poorly. And there's an art to leaving the con having been conned. Oh. So intentionally allowing the other person to win the con and get the upper hand, so that you, by having the underhand, in an underhanded way, come back around. Because everyone has sympathy for the underdog, right? And then that's how you ultimately get on top. Oh. So you look at the tiers of an office. And I'm not talking about the physical tiers. I'm talking about the tiers of people. You have your low-lifes. Oh. Then your low-class people. Okay. Yeah. So those would be like the boy that comes in and licks the carpet.

And then there's... Exactly. The boy that comes in and licks the carpet. Lowest tier. The woman who has to unbend the paperclips. Yes. Low class. So when it moves up from there. So you've got your person still using a 1960s typewriter. Yes. And that's like low quirk. That's someone who's doing that on purpose. Their con is, I'm quirky. Oh. A con is also a gambit or an angle. It's an angle. And there is a lot of observational skills required to be a good conversationalist. Now the second part, and this is really what I employ at a water cooler situation. There's a reason it's called conversation.

Right. If you speak in verse, people are so thrown that they don't realize they're being conned. Now, in my experience, which granted is a small town boy living in a small town world. Yes. I've never encountered anyone speaking in verse. I've never... The closest I've come is like to see a rhyming bumper sticker. This is a new approach. My book has not yet hit the shelves, as you know, because it has not yet found a publisher. But once it does, the few people that read it first and start to employ the art of conning people through verse at a water cooler specifically, near someone who's licking a carpet and someone who is unbending paperclips, they are going to win the day.

I got to say, Claire, taking a face value with your idea of the tears of workers at a typical office. Right. If you're trying to put yourself above the carpet licker, aren't you probably already there to begin with? Do you need to resort to these sort of cheap tricks? Oh, Daniel, that is, you know, we're talking about the art of small talk, and you have just absolutely encapsulated the art of small thinking. Because it's not that we want to just be above the carpet licker, as I certainly hope to one day, but it is about reaching the top. You know, it is about becoming the assistant to the office manager.

All right. So it's not just about raising yourself above the lowest of the low, but you've got to continue to push that low person even lower so that relatively, you seem higher. That's right. That's right. Because by this point, if you're a water cooler person, you're not going to become the owner of the company through simple conversation. Oh, is there a more advanced gambit? So the art of small talk is the beginning step. As we know, art has many layers, especially latex art. Are you familiar with the form of latex art? No. The only thing I'm familiar with is latex dishwashing gloves.

I sure don't consider that art, although my wife does. Latex art is where you have piles of colored latex, layers upon layer upon layer of different colors, and then you scrape off in different places. So what I am doing is I am scraping off the small talk after I have established it as the winning gambit. You scrape that away, and what do you reveal? The true colors beneath. Mm-hmm. That is what we call big talk. That's when we're talking on a type of spiritual level. Now, Claire, based on the earliest part of our conversation, you do not seem like someone with attractive true colors underneath waiting to come out.

You seem like sort of a hard-nosed, pragmatic pig woman willing to keep anyone down in order to walk all over them to march your way goose-step style to the very top. Thank you. That is absolutely, that is who I am. That is my nature. So those are your true colors. Those are my true colors. So I am actually working from the deepest spiritual level. So your true colors are that you have no colors. My true colors are hard, pig-nosed, forced ambitions in a world of small people in one particular office with filthy carpet that I am just trying to rise above. All right.

So this is really a personal journey for you, isn't it? This is not a self-help book that really applies to anyone except you yourself. You sound like you penned the last rejection letter I got from a publisher. Look, I think that we can all agree that conversation is a lost art. Yes. Clearly, at your office, it has become a lost art. Nobody is talking to me. Not one person talks to me. And what else can a person do, Claire, under those circumstances except write a self-directed self-help book aimed exactly at oneself? Who better to get advice from than someone who really understands the situation?

And who better than that than the person who's in the situation? Well, you sound like the publishing letter of my dreams that I have yet to receive. Well, if I were a publisher, I would not be more inclined to publish, but I would be very inclined to hold up a mirror and say, take a good, long look. Well, until I feel that I have given the art of conversation its full bore, I am not going to give up on trying to talk to people at the water cooler in rhyme while conning them out of feeling good and feeling so happy in themselves and feeling like, oh, because they to go to the afternoon free lunch that's given to everyone who's, you know, tier five and above.

Claire, as I look over the mimeographed rough draft of your book, I am intrigued at chapter four, nasty letters I've received. I know that this book is not purely autobiographical and I don't want to read too much into it, but the chapter is called nasty letters I've received. Yes, but it's not I've with an apostrophe. I've received. I've is the guy that licks the carpet in my office. Oh, so these are nasty letters that the carpet licking boy has received. Yeah. All of them signed Claire Sarah, it says here. I was trying to engage him in conversation by letter.

What was your goal in reaching to him? You know, look, it was a bad day and I just needed someone to talk to me, anyone. And I'll admit that I looked for the lowest tier and thought that certainly, you know, I'm going to get some kind of response from Ive. His name's Ive. Yeah. And sometimes you don't mind the muffled sound of someone with fibers in his teeth. Yeah. Well, apparently I did and took great offense to something I thought that he said, but he had at that time just had gotten a unbent paperclip stuck in his teeth and was really in an amount of pain, which I didn't respond well to at the time because I was there for my needs, not for him.

And to me, that seems like the art of small talk right there. Could at that moment, could he have reached out to you? Could he have done anything differently through his pain? Yes. If he had asked me, you know, it's like, how's the weather? Or if he had said to me, how was your drive? Did you sleep well last night? If he had said anything of that nature, my book would never have been written. Oh, oh. So this is really a direct response to one bad afternoon with Ive. Had you and Ive ever had any interactions prior to this particular afternoon? You mean other than being married?

Oh. I mean, I'm assuming you did your research before having me on your podcast. This is really kind of a shocking turn. I'm sure our listeners, as well as myself, don't know quite what to make of this idea. You and Ive have been married for how long? We were previously married for 14 years. And you're married again? Yes. Yow. Yeah. So divorced and remarried? Yes. Yeah. All right. However, and we work at the same office, obviously. Right. And, you know, office romances, I understand. Yeah, it's very tricky. They're complicated and tricky. And he instituted a policy of us not talking at the office.

Oh. So you really had transgressed the unwritten law. I transgressed. Yeah. So wasn't that Ive completely within his rights to take umbrage with this behavior of yours, which went against the rules that you had agreed upon? This seems like the opposite of small talk, the opposite of the con, that unless he was conning you to such a degree to make you think that he was receptive to your advances, only to snub you and rub you into that carpet he cleaned himself. I have a scoop for your podcast audience. I'm pregnant. And I have to ask, is Ive the father? Yeah.

Of course Ive is my husband. Of course he's the father. Okay. I didn't realize you were strictly religious that way. Well, congratulations then. So who is the winner in this con? I'm a little confused. Well, that's the thing. Ive won, didn't he? You won? Ive won. You mean Ive won? Yes. I mean Ive won. Ive? Ive won the day. You or Ive? Yes. Ive? Yes. Ive won. Ive won. Woohoo! I've won! I've won. And now we are going to have a baby together and I'm going to have someone to talk to for the rest of my life. Oh, this lucky, lucky baby. Thank you. Thank you. Growing up with you talking to her.

Talking at her all the time. Clara, there's something magical about motherhood and at the same time there's something wonderful about the innocence of a baby. I think this is going to be a wonderful, wonderful change in your life. Thank you. And regarding that sweet little baby, may God have mercy on her soul. The Expertise Spelled Wrong podcast is free and, like the Amish, all are welcome. Be sure to sign up for our email announcements at funnypodcast.com and follow us in your favourite podcast app, like the expert podcast listener we know you are.