Office Politics
 

For the last 3 years I've been contracting for a large company and completely unaffected by office politics. This afternoon, it has reared its ugly head and I'm a bit p'd off to say the least.

Whilst the issue in question was "formally" against company policy, absolutely no-one objected to my face, as I would have been totally mindful of the issues and dealt with the issue as I am not a tit and respectful of other people's points of view. The fact that "emails have been sent" and "people have said things" blah blah, which in turn caused my point of contact to have a word with me to say the situation could not continue, really disappoints me. I thought I worked with adults and grown up people but obviously not.

It's a very two-faced manipulative world, Puff. This echoes in every sector of the life. May it be office, friends or personal relationships.

The people who didn't object to your face and now they are making you look bad are horrible people, not to be trusted. Lesson learnt, so trust yourself, though, about this whole thing, to whoever you need to clarify it to. Hopefully, it will all settle well at the end.

It's a primative pack instinct.

If your face doesn't fit you become the target. That's putting it real simple. However its a lot deeper than that as to most it happens subconsciously. Couple that with those in that group being unhappy or frustrated about their own job/life they subconsciously seek to vent that on people outside the group through underhand means with varying levels of severity; from idle gossip to passive aggressive actions to undermine your own work. I have found only a few people have the ability to step back and realise it is happening and its not right or justifiable.

In my old air-con job I spent many days in various client's offices and factory floors as a fly on the wall (well, on a ladder poking around through a false ceiling) watching the office-cubicle life below. And what was amusing is what I saw in one workplace I saw repeated in countless others across the UK; customer resentment (bad mouthing as soon as the customer hung up on the phone or walked out), the self important loner who has their own office or a big corner/window cubical and no authority but will try and undermine and get you in trouble you at every opportunity. The pretty ladies (or pretty boys) that use their image to get where they need and the resentment by other workers who seemed be doing all the graft. The shop-floor workers who consider office staff as lazy and out of touch with what's really going on in the business, and the office staff that sees them as mindless minions. I could go on; It was the highlight of my job...I had a lot of idle time whilst I was recovering gas, pressure testing, vac'ing down, or regassing, this could take hours of waiting so on a big job people watching became a past-time sport :lol1:

Point being its not something you are going to avoid, essentially you have a few options, fight fire with fire which could get ugly and make it worse, or cover your arse in absolutely everything you do in such manner that if it is ever questioned you can show with proof what you have done with full transparency; That's not easy.

What was the severity of your transgression - I once helped myself to a coffee in a communal kitchen, unaware there was a requirement to pay a weekly subscription. This warranted someone complaining in an email to a senior manager. On foot of that email a departmental head called me to his office to ask if I had been using tea and coffee supplies and to use his words "who do you think pays for those?".

The upshot of his stupidity and lack of professional courtesy was that my coffee from that point was bought from and consumed in the company canteen, which took about 15 minutes out of my working day, at my chargeable day rate at the time each cup of coffee cost them around £25.

It is stupid, petty, pointless but regrettably it has existed in every office environment in which I have worked.

Agreed, having spent time in countless companies as part of my job, nothing surprises me.

Constant bitching, bickering and moaning - especially by women in my experience.

The crux of it is that (for reasons i don't understand) the vast majority of people who work in offices simply do not understand how to deal with other people.

I've worked for all sorts of companies over the years. Unfortunately you have to work with those types of people wherever you go.
However one company I worked at had more that it's fair share and have since proven my theory about a certain kind of firm where being an utter cock womble is a prerequisite. Law firms.

Being an IT Contractor I've had to work in a few now but seeing how those people behave and the superiority complex 95% of them have is unreal. Arrogant ar5eholes that will stitch you up at any opportunity for a few brownie points with senior partners.