Gossip.
Cliques.
Name calling.
Appeals to authority.
Cattiness.
Bitching.
Backstabbing.
Snarky, passive agressive comments.
And I thought I graduated high school a year and a half ago. You got it. This is not a day in the life of your average middle-Canadian 15-year-old highschooler, but an average middle-aged cubicle worker!
In the last two days alone I have witness a what can be equated with a school yard spat settled by the principal and pleasant conversation dumped on it's head with an unwanted, snarky comment.
I am a summer student in a government office witnessing grown adults behave like children! This is a female dominated atmosphere and the estrogen is unbearable. At 19 years old, I still remember the days of my parents teaching to be well mannered and nice. I was taught that gossip was mean, especially when it involves spreading rumours about others. Yet here I am bearing witness to exactly that. Not necessarily the rumours, because here it isn't gossip if someone is pregnant or sleeping with someone new - people here are adults and SHOULD be having babies as a result of healthy sexual relationships. This gossip takes the form of being perfectly friendly to a coworker's face and then 5 minutes later insulting her repeated during a rant to another.
I have learned I can only trust the other summer students working with me here. For all I know these women who have welcomed me so warmly could very well be backstabbing me without my knowledge.
One godsend is the fact that a new - male - employee is coming soon. Maybe he will add the needed dose of testosterone... but in the words of Mr T: "I pity the fool!" I am only imagine that this 'cowboy' as he is already being described, will take up the current vacancy of Official 3rd Floor Man-Meat.
Cliques.
Name calling.
Appeals to authority.
Cattiness.
Bitching.
Backstabbing.
Snarky, passive agressive comments.
And I thought I graduated high school a year and a half ago. You got it. This is not a day in the life of your average middle-Canadian 15-year-old highschooler, but an average middle-aged cubicle worker!
In the last two days alone I have witness a what can be equated with a school yard spat settled by the principal and pleasant conversation dumped on it's head with an unwanted, snarky comment.
I am a summer student in a government office witnessing grown adults behave like children! This is a female dominated atmosphere and the estrogen is unbearable. At 19 years old, I still remember the days of my parents teaching to be well mannered and nice. I was taught that gossip was mean, especially when it involves spreading rumours about others. Yet here I am bearing witness to exactly that. Not necessarily the rumours, because here it isn't gossip if someone is pregnant or sleeping with someone new - people here are adults and SHOULD be having babies as a result of healthy sexual relationships. This gossip takes the form of being perfectly friendly to a coworker's face and then 5 minutes later insulting her repeated during a rant to another.
I have learned I can only trust the other summer students working with me here. For all I know these women who have welcomed me so warmly could very well be backstabbing me without my knowledge.
One godsend is the fact that a new - male - employee is coming soon. Maybe he will add the needed dose of testosterone... but in the words of Mr T: "I pity the fool!" I am only imagine that this 'cowboy' as he is already being described, will take up the current vacancy of Official 3rd Floor Man-Meat.
