Skittish

So I'm a jumpy person. I mean, a really jumpy person. This extends to all aspects of my interactions with people: home life, church life, and at work--especially at work. I sit at a cubicle and often I'm listening to something. (I find that I get extremely bored/distracted if I don't have something I'm listening to. I sit in the middle of our little cube farm. People get chatty.) Often I'll be engrossed in something and will lose my sense of what is going on around me. This leaves me vulnerable to the attacks of my coworkers. Those poor souls that just want to talk to me. They make me jump out of my skin.

My cube neighbor, Spencer, often has questions. He's tried everything to not make me jump. He does the polite "Laura" over the cube wall, which is effective some of the time. He's also tried standing up and trying to get my attention. Almost always, I jump out of my seat. Once, he even tried a loud whisper. That had catastrophic results.

Last week a new guy here, Jay, came by my desk to see me. I have a little false wall that gives me a little bit of privacy. It's great, but it also blocks some of my peripheral vision. Well, I was rocking out to something (I've noticed that my volume goes up throughout the day...) and Jay tried to get my attention. I caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye and I had a sharp intake of breath and cowered in the corner of my desk. (Yes. It's true.) Well, apparently Jay is skittish as well and his scaring me scared him. Poor Jay.

Just now my page refreshed and it made me jump. Ridiculous.

This has got to stop.