Office Atmosphere

[Shaka_Khan]

What's your take on this?

I noticed a lot of hostility and mistrust amongst the workers. They don't express it much to each other. They talk behind each others' backs. There's a worker who's jealous because another one got promoted. They were good friends before and ate together. Now I don't see them talk to each other. The woman who got promoted sensed the hostility from her "friend" and so they started to talk behind each others' back and betray each other. Then there are managers and CEOs who get paranoid about getting voted off. They don't want to take responsibility for the mistakes and blame it on others instead. Fortunately, this isn't the case where I work because it's not owned by shareholders and it's a family-run business. The owners don't have to worry about being voted off. It's the manager whom we worry about. I heard my client talking about his own paranoid manager, and I read books on large companies that had paranoid CEOs. If a lower ranking worker does a good job and gains credit for it, the manager could feel threatened by it.

I know that not all businesses are like this, but too many businesses that I know of have worker relationship problems. This is the case with the office that I work at (although not with the owners). It's a very uncomfortable atmosphere in which the workers pretend to like each other but talk behind each others' back. There are arguments once in a while. These arguments are intense because it's from anger that has been built up for a long time. Most of the time, the office is totally silent. I have to see this five days a week and it's making me want to get away from this place. I believe that they feel the same because I can tell that they can't stand each other.