By Sarah Lazarovic

Streeter from TOist Molly:
The blessed return to work after the holidays. Like returning to school after a summer, the small talk is usually predictable and redundant:
You: How was your Christmas/Holiday?
Coworker: Great thanks, how was yours?
You: Great as well, ate too much turkey, drank too much eggnog. You know, the usual.
Perhaps you’ll move on to what you got for Christmas, perhaps it will end there. In consideration of the recent natural disaster that has literally rocked the world, it was refreshing and inspiring to hear the following go down at one of the CBC’s watercoolers yesterday (when we’d moved past the first stage of generic small talk):
Me: So? Was Santa good to you or what?
Familiar Coworker: Santa was great, he didn’t shop, just gave me cash.
Me: Awesome! Santa knows best. What are you gonna buy? I’m jealous.
Familiar Coworker: I actually spent all my money already?
Me: WOW, good work! Good stuff?
Familiar Coworker: No man, I donated all the money to the Red Cross. Kinda decided the dying and homeless and diseased needed it a bit more than I need new clothes.
If only we were all so smart.