Some Things Never Change

When I was in high school, I could not wait to graduate not necessarily because I'd be considered grown and eventually go off to college, it was because I could finally leave behind the cattiness and those stupid cliques. You know "cliques" the caste system that unfairly labels people and pigeon holes them into particular groups? They were the popular people, of course, then there were the jocks, the nerds, the freaks and so on and so on. When I graduated, I was glad that I could leave this behind me. So, I thought...

Flash forward to over ten years later and I encounter the same behaivor out of all places--at work! Now, I am not naive that I didn't realize cliques could not exist in the work place, but it annoys me how adults can act so damn juvenile and refuse to leave the the High School Mentality behind. It looks as though the High School Mentality evolves into Office Politics and like most people I witness this at work everyday.

I see the popular crowd constantly schmoozes the higher ups and, of course, they enjoy the perks of being total brown nosers. They get promoted, head committees, and decides who can be apart of them. This is not fair because everybody should have a chance, but the incrowd turns it into a popularity contest and this is total bullshit for a lack of better words. When they need a room to hold a function, they get cart blanche of which rooms they can reserve, whereas if another coworker who happends to be on the lower tier of the social totem pole will get a shitty room located in the back of the building in bumblefuck.

Another example of Office Politics is how people are treated when they leave our company. Case in point, weeks ago there was an employee who was apart of the incrowd and was leaving. They literally had two going away gatherings including cake in the break room! On the other hand, there were other employees who were pretty cool, but, not, how can I put this, well liked, who only received an email sent to the rest of the staff that read more like a notice that they were leaving than a heartfelt goodbye.

So, you wonder how I fit into to all this. The thing is I don't. All through elementary and high school I was the outsider looking in. I wanted to be accepted like everybody else, but I never was. I had a few friends, some acquaintences and a handful of enemies who made life hell from time to time. As I got older, I vowed to never looked down on anybody. That is why at work I try not to be in a group, a crowd, or a clique, whatever. So, I speak to everybody. You can call me a mingler, I guess. I steer clear of the High School Mentality/Office Politics. There are too many people, in fact, interesting people to be confined into one group. I just find that limiting myself to one specific social circle is, well, boring.