Is Your Workplace Like School?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

...insofar as everyone has their little gang whom they hang out with?

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I know there are a fair number of freelance writers on ILX for whom this won't apply, but I suspect that there are quite a few who work in huge sprawling offices with literally hundreds of ppl, like mine. This office was deliberately designed to be ultra- ultra- open plan with the aim of getting ppl in different departments to talk to each other. But of course the inevitable happens - you get most ppl hanging out with ppl in their own department, the odd loner or two and then the handful of "radicals" who actually do live up to the expectations of those who chose the building design.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I was describing the above to a friend who said "It's like school", hence the thread title.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:04 (twenty-two years ago)

No, my workplace is like a school quite literally. It's a private dyslexia clinic. We have lots of people coming by for lessons and loads of kids milling around in the waiting room. So it's somewhere between a school and a doctor's office, really.

― Apostrophe Catastrophe (kate), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:04 (twenty-two years ago)

my workplace is a school (well, college)

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:04 (twenty-two years ago)

insofar it' s boring too?

― erik, Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:05 (twenty-two years ago)

As ever, I am on my own at work as I never make friends with my colleagues because I'm some kind of retard. :(

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:08 (twenty-two years ago)

My workplace is not at all like school, because now I actually get to hang out with the fun people instead of sitting in a corner alternately being invisible and ducking away from flying erasers...

― Hanna (Hanna), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Our place is like school, insofar as so long as you do your best, it doesn't matter if you're not very good. Also, learning > work, which is, I would imagine, very odd these days.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:08 (twenty-two years ago)

totally. the gang in the cubes near me never shut the fuck up, frequently have little competitions of "guess what tune i'm whistling" (oh yeah those days make me happy to be alive) and never offer to get me a coffee when they go to the shop.

― gem (trisk), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I can never understand the American office with its cubes. It sounds like prison.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:14 (twenty-two years ago)

interestingly, i'm australian as it happens. but we are following our pm's lead and trying to copy everything the yanks do.

― gem (trisk), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:15 (twenty-two years ago)

oops, sorry *runs away embarrassed*

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Veal Fattening Pens. Oh, how I miss them. I would rather have one to myself than share a tiny office with a very noisy phone addict!

― Apostrophe Catastrophe (kate), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:16 (twenty-two years ago)

hehe you weren't to know. don't let it happen again though!

― gem (trisk), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm sure for ppl who like peace and quiet as much as you do and do not work as part of a team where verbal communication is an integral part of the job, the cubes can be a quite a good idea. But in terms of symbolism, they are like the England flags everywhere to someone who hates football. They just make the employees seem like identical worker drones in the big corporate machine.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:19 (twenty-two years ago)

ours is in that I rob the placement students of their dinner money on the way in.

― chris (chris), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:20 (twenty-two years ago)

hmmm well i work for the government. the office is open plan through the middle of the floor, with offices all around the outside. the offices are a mark of position in the divisional hierarchy - in which i'm pretty low down! i work much better with peace and quiet and my job involves heaps of research, reading and writing, so the cubicle/open plan thing is really not ideal for me. especially since the dick behind me listens to parliament sitting constantly! i am going to go over the edge and kill him with great violence in the very near future.

― gem (trisk), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Have you ever actually experienced the degree of personalisation to which most "corporate worker drones" actually personalise their cubes?

I see your point, and many companies (including some I've worked for) have actually tried to enforce the uniform conformity. But individuality usually finds a way of persevering, especially with sympathetic bosses who understand that a happy employee is a productive employee.

― Apostrophe Catastrophe (kate), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:23 (twenty-two years ago)

I have a pretty small company, like 80 people, and I really do get along with everyone pretty well, but there's a lot of people who spend time with each other outside of work--usually in the form of softball and poker games, although there is a float trip planned for a couple of weeks away that's an annual event too. I don't really get that, but then again I'm not athletic or outdoorsy at all. It's not like I'm spending my free time with my other friends; I'm just going home to see my boy.

― teeny (teeny), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:24 (twenty-two years ago)

There aren't enough of us for there to be a school-like environment. There are only around 30 people in the office, and the heirachy is extremely flat (2 or 3 managers, total) so there's not even the boss/employee : teacher/student thing going on.

― Andrew (enneff), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:33 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm on the Social Committee at work. There are some ppl who don't like corporate events but are quite happy to organise the *exact same activities* amongst work ppl they lik off their own bat. I don't have a problem with this - it would be an utter nightmare if someone on the committee were to go round saying "you don't go to corporate events. It's JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH!" or somesuch.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:40 (twenty-two years ago)

The number of cliques where I work is disappointing - however, I work with a lot of recent graduates, and the school-style mentality (and hierarchy) is difficult to shake off.

However, I'm not longer quite as scared of the bigger boys and girls now - the ones who were drinking, smoking and having sex by age 13 or whatever. Plus my lunchbox isn't as embarassing as it was back in the day.

― clive (Clive), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:42 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm nowhere near as rude to my bosses as i was to my teachers

― gem (trisk), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:47 (twenty-two years ago)

My workplace is like a daycare and I've been in Time Out for two and a half years.

― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 12:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Since I work at a store where the entire staff is female, there are a number of complicated interwoven cliques, and alliances that can shift depending on the particular configuration of staff that day, which is very much like high school. But it's different in that no one is really evil or tries to hurt anyone. I mean, I'm 23 and the next youngest person is 30 so I would goddamn hope that people had outgrown being catty.

Or maybe they're being secretly catty and I'm just oblivious?

― Laura E (laurae55), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 12:55 (twenty-two years ago)

1500 people in this place, far from school. I have no friends in my department. There are about 3 friends of mine who work here but work in a department where they are not allowed to leave the desks. this place sucks donkeys ass.

― Velveteen Bingo (Chris V), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 13:11 (twenty-two years ago)

My workplace is exactly like school, I come to get out of the house and because I have to, I talk to the same people every day and nobody else, I learn nothing, I hate every minute I have to waste sitting here and then I go home and DON'T have rehearsals or studying to do which is the only difference, that and the fact school did not pay money. But somehow I did not feel as poor, WTF is that about?

Haha my school didn't have any windows either! Wow and the cafeteria sucks too, they just doubled the prices. Holy shit. Why didn't anybody tell me it was going to all be like this?

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 16 June 2004 13:14 (twenty-two years ago)

I wonder if there is some kind of correlary between the kind of school you went to and the kind of workplace you feel comfortable. If people from large schools tend to do better in large workplaces, with their anonymity and cliques and things. I went to a very small school, and I feel much more comfortable in small companies. Cliques are far less stratified because there is a far smaller pool to draw from. Your worst enemy of last week might end up being your accomplice of this week because there is no other figurative lunch table to sit at!

― Apostrophe Catastrophe (kate), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 13:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes, it's like school -- my boss reminds me of a certain nun who did nothing but get on my case and insult me and think I'll amount to nothing when I grow up. Though I want to beat the blood out of my boss more than the nun.

― Je4nne ƒury (Jeanne Fury), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 13:17 (twenty-two years ago)

my work is a lot like the small private schools I went to. Small, filled with nerds, pretty fun. Only difference is we don't get paid shit, whereas you had to pay too much to go to the schools I went to.

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 14:35 (twenty-two years ago)

worse than school

― kephm, Wednesday, 16 June 2004 14:46 (twenty-two years ago)

I had friends at school. Also, I could ditch way easier.

― Huk-El (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 14:50 (twenty-two years ago)

yes. yes, it is.

― Ask For Samantha (thatgirl), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 14:51 (twenty-two years ago)

In high school I spent most of my time reading non-school books and letting the buzz of class go past with me paying enough attention to know what's going on. No parallel at all with work! Now back to browsing these threads.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 14:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Mine's just like high school..and i continue to be the popular one who everyone wants to talk to, hang around with, be nice to, and sit with at lunch...ahhh...

― kelly, Wednesday, 16 June 2004 16:46 (twenty-two years ago)

my work is like school inasmuch as there are some cliques of secretary bitches (ie: the popular girls) who terrorize all the other secretaries not in their spheres (ie: the nerds). its funny how when youre in school you assume 'one day, people will grow up and this is gonna stop.' but you'd be wrong..

― bill stevens (bscrubbins), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 16:49 (twenty-two years ago)

my work is like school inasmuch as I am a schoolteacher.

― x Jeremy (Atila the Honeybun), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 17:42 (twenty-two years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.