Office Politics

Well, the area I’m working in has not had a Manager for nine months, and the four people who work there have become dis-enfranchised and fragmented.  I was redeployed to this area, and found myself the “filling in the sandwich”, as the expression goes. I had just left one work-place with complaining and fearful people, and now I walked straight into a place that was a level or a notch higher in the “fear” stakes.  It was stressful for me to be subject to someone complaining all week about someone else, with my consciously not stopping her - because I was new to the area, and thus I didn’t want to appear un-gracious or un-friendly toward her by telling her not to complain so much.

Furthermore, the following “tit for tat” scenarios un-folded, although in the statements below I have used fictitious names.

John says that Alice, the previous Manager, left because of Mary

Mary says that Alice, the previous Manager, left because of John

John says that Mary and Sally hate each other

Sally says that Mary and John hate each other

Well, I came to the conclusion that possibly Alice left because of both Mary and John.

I also teased out the beliefs of John and Sally in pairs, and applied “True” or “False” according to my shrewd observations – see following please.

Now, anyone can see from the above, that Mary is the one who is doing the most hating, according to the others in the group.  Two people have kindly pointed out to me that Mary hates someone else, which makes me a little concerned about the attitude of Mary. 

Let’s assume that what John and Sally have said is indeed TRUE, as it is obviously in their eyes or beliefs.   THEN  …..  if John said that Sally hates Mary and if Sally said that Mary hates John, or in other words if Sally hates Mary who hates John, then does that mean that Sally hates John??   If so, then surely we have :-

Mary hates Sally  

Mary hates John  

Sally hates Mary
  
Sally hates John
  
John hates Mary 

Mary hates Sally and John 

Wait, now we see for sure that Sally said John hates Mary and John said that Mary hates Sally, so it follows therefore that John hates Mary who hates Sally, and a sane person would say that it is certainly not debatable then that John hates Sally, resulting in ---

Mary hates Sally  

Mary hates John  

Sally hates Mary
  
Sally hates John
  
John hates Mary

John hates Sally 

Mary hates Sally and John 

Sally hates Mary and John

John hates Mary and Sally

Did I mention my observations or experiences?  I can tell you that I did try to investigate the entire situation and I nicely tried to un-ravel the truths, but I only got as far as Mary saying straight to my face (about Sally), “I hate her”, to which I calmly replied “Don’t say that Mary, you’ll go to hell” (spoken “tongue-in-cheek).  To which she replied, “Well, okay then, I don’t hate her then, but I extremely dis-like her”.

Mary has never said that she hates John, but I can definitely see that hate-ful look, which she has for Sally, hovering madly in her eyes whenever I mention John’s name, so we can with 80 percent probability, say that my False for the statement “Mary hates John” can be converted to a TRUE.   

Although John advised me that Mary and Sally hate each other, Sally does not seem the hating sort to me, but then again she has confessed to me that Mary is a nasty person, and what’s more she has told me that she doesn’t like people in general, so we can probably convert the FALSE ? statement of “Sally hates Mary” to a True statement.

I must honestly say that John seems (to me) to be gentlemanly and intelligent, as though he would not hurt anyone, or de-base himself by hating anyone, but I can report that I do feel greatly disturbed by his claiming that Mary and Sally hate each other, when only Mary has said that she hates Sally and Sally has not said that she hates Mary.   Furthermore, he may be a confused individual because he said that Alice left because of Sally, when it is plainly clear that Alice left because of the whole jolly lot of them – Mary, Sally and John !!!

I rest my case.

This is a true story, and the moral of this story is if you’re going to hate someone, make it easy on yourself and hate everyone.  That way, you can just blindly blunder through your work, with a death look on your face, in a zombie like fashion, while conserving your energy for other de-meaning behaviours, instead of tiring yourself out expending vast amounts of energy on picking out things you don’t like about yourself which are reflected / mirrored in your work mates!!!

Or …..

there is an alternative, of course, ……

Treat your neighbour as you want them to treat you  

and …

Let by-gones be by-gones   

 If you won’t beat them into submission, HUMOUR them !!!