You know in those movies where the geeky main character is put in a location where they don't fit in but through sheer hard work and determination they manage to gain the respect of all their peers and the admiration of their boss but then they realise that this is not the life for them so they sacrifice everything in a heartbeat and quit (wait, isn't that "The Devil Wears Prada")? Er yeah, that NEVER happens in real life.
My boss is a temperamental guy - I really respect and like him but it's often hard for me to judge how he feels about me. Sometimes he'll pat me on the shoulder and tell me what a good job I'm doing and then often, I'll say hi to him in the morning and he'll completely ignore me. A big fat rejection. Silence. Nothing.
The past few days he has been especially cold. I'm not sure what I've done - it could be the new glasses I'm sporting, or perhaps he overheard something I had said. Anyway, he's been giving me the cold shoulder treatment. So I tried to be all friendly and conversational but I think I somehow managed to make it even worse. Then at lunch time, my friend and I were talking in the canteen and basically were about 10 minutes late getting back to work. My boss SUBTLEY goes into the canteen and asks my friend whether she can order lunch for a client and then without saying a word to me, manages to communicate the fact that he thinks I should be back at my desk. How he did that, i still don't know but maybe that's why he's the boss and I'm not.
This annoyed me a bit. On my floor I'm always the first into work and I work hard and often leave late. Plus, I don't even take that 5 minutes rest after an hour's work that Human Resources are always harping on about and now he makes me feel worthless just because I'm 10 minutes late from lunch? My friend immediately left to get lunch while I cleaned up my plate. My boss then walks into the canteen again, possibly to make a coffee but most likely to check why I hadn't made it back to my desk yet. He stood next to me with his mug but I refused to make any social plesantaries. After a few awkard huffs and sighs (possibly in a lame attempt to cut the tension) he hurried back to his desk.
I really thought that I had exacebated the situation but actually when the time came for us to go home, out of the blue, he cheerfully said goodbye to me. Perhaps it human nature to be hurtful to the ones that are kind to us and kind to the ones who are hurtful towards us?
I'm not JD from Scrubs (although ironically I am narrating my own life at the moment). I don't need a mentor and I don't constantly seek the approval of my boss but I would like to know that my boss atleast doesn't hate me or think I'm lazy. Actually in hindsight, perhaps the reason he said goodbye to me was because I was staying late (unnecessarily I'd like to add) to finish some work. I actually told my friend (yes, THAT one) to not talk to me because i wanted to finish my work and I made sure my boss could hear me. Coming to think of it, after my boss had left, he came back again after about 2 minutes to "collect something" but I bet it was just to check whether I was still there. I bet he thought that i was only staying to impress him (which I was) and that i would leave as soon as he had gone (which I did).
Ok, so maybe the Ugly Betty/Devil Wears Prada model does occur in some work places but very rarely. We live in a different age now. The only way to get a boost up is to tread on the person below. Modern offices aren't about working hard at all - it's about running the gauntlet of office politics.
