People who know me tend to be very sensitive to my sighs. My coworkers recognize my sighs as signs of frustration or anger. I sigh instead of saying something sarcastic that may hurt somebody's feelings. However, since I've been working with most of these people for over ten years, they are able to interpret my sighs for what they really are: nonverbal ways of saying, "Kiss my ass" or "This is a pain in the ass."
I come from a family of sighers. My sister, with whom I interact on a daily basis, has a sigh that could stop a charging rhino in its tracks. When she employs her sigh on me, I feel myself suddenly become a six year old again. I know I shouldn't let her sighs have that kind of power over me, but, after forty-plus years of hearing them, I am still not immune.
Sometimes, though, a sigh is simply a way of relieving stress. It's like taking a deep breath after receiving bad news. Inhale--this really sucks--exhale--OK, let's deal with it. That's the kind of sighing I've been doing at work recently. As I move from one pile of work to another, I sigh. It's not that I think I'm surrounded by idiots. It's not that I resent the task (alright, it might be a little of that). It's just my way of saying, "Time to conquer another mind-numbing task," without actually saying the words "conquer" or "mind" or "numbing."
So if you run into Saint Marty these days, and you hear him breathe out loudly, don't be offended. Sometimes a sigh is just a sigh.
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