A square peg
Yesterday was a bit of a surreal day, during which I was transported back to junior high school. I think I've mentioned before that I've been concerned about fitting in with the people I encounter in my new-ish job (can one still call "newbie" past the three-month mark?). For the most part, it's been much better than I expected; although some of my assumptions and stereotypes have been right on the mark, I'd been pleasantly surprised by the people and the work.
And then yesterday, the balance shifted considerably, and although I realize it could just be an anomaly and not a sign of awful things to come, I'm having a hard time getting away from this doomsday attitude.
Without going too much into it, the bulk of our daylong meeting yesterday featured discussions that were just...wifty. Is that how it's spelled? Kumbaya-y and totally lacking substance. There was a lot of quoting of Confucius and Lewis & Clark and Bob Dylan. There were bad metaphors about trains and planes. There was a woman wearing a red pleather leopard-print jacket (which reminded me of how grateful I am that I did not give into my unfathomable desire to buy pleather pants following my break-up with my boyfriend in 2000). There was a discussion of how people work better together when they can understand each other, and in order for that to happen we all need to understand ourselves better, which we can do by developing a "life map" -- with illustrations, of course! -- that could then be hung on the walls of our organization so that we can all hold hands and get along because we understand each other's "truth."
Which nearly made me die from stifling my giggles, because sometimes I'm 12 and seriously, the only things I can think of when someone uses the word "truth" that way are (1) Britney Spears and, of course, (2) Jim McGreevey. There were a lot of Jerseyans in the room, but no one else seemed to find this funny; they were all frantically making notes about developing truth maps. Seriously. This is a scary bunch, and I spent most of the morning feeling pretty superior and unimpressed, but trying hard to keep an open mind and not wear my considerable lack of enthusiasm on my sleeve.
Anyway, during lunch time, I asked to join a mostly-full table of meeting participants, who sort of half-looked at me and mumbled that it was okay to sit there. And then? They completely ignored me. And truly, it was awful. It was worse than being banished from the Queen Bee lunch table for wearing sweatpants on the wrong day; had I been banished, I could've eaten at another table, or taken my lunch outside or back to my office (not quite as pathetic as the bathroom stall). I was trying to join in their conversation, even just as an active listener, and they turned their backs to me, and then one of them started knitting a scarf rather than engage in conversation with me.
Was it because they hadn't seen my life map, and therefore couldn't understand my truth? Wasn't this just a tiny bit hypocritical? Were they just playing the roles expected of them during the formal meeting, and showing their true colors in the dining room? Could they somehow sense that I thought they were selling a bill of goods and shutting me out as a non-believer?
And why did I care so much? I'd spent the whole morning thinking these people were a little bit wacko, and all of a sudden their acceptance meant a whole lot to me.
I somehow ended up on the tennis team (it was a "building year") in ninth grade, and we started practice before the school year even started. I made fast friends with one of my teammates who was beautiful and funny and sophisticated and definitely a cool kid, which I definitely was not. Once school started, I naturally fell in with people who were more my type -- bookish, quiet, dorky -- and although I continued my one-on-one friendship with the popular girl, I had no interest in sitting at her lunch table, and she seemed sort of startled when I told her that. It was like I was Veronica Sawyer and she was Heather Red -- "We're going to a party at Remington University tonight, and we're brushing up our conversational skills with the scum of the school!"
But I was never a good clique person -- I've always done better with individual friendships rather than being part of a big set group -- and, frankly, I just didn't really like her popular friends that much. And although I don't think they thought anything at all of me, were they just as offended that I didn't sit at their lunch table as I was that these women yesterday ignored me at theirs? Can we really never escape the drama of our adolescence?
Wait.
Does that suggest that I kind of support this "life map" thing? That is so depressing.
And then yesterday, the balance shifted considerably, and although I realize it could just be an anomaly and not a sign of awful things to come, I'm having a hard time getting away from this doomsday attitude.
Without going too much into it, the bulk of our daylong meeting yesterday featured discussions that were just...wifty. Is that how it's spelled? Kumbaya-y and totally lacking substance. There was a lot of quoting of Confucius and Lewis & Clark and Bob Dylan. There were bad metaphors about trains and planes. There was a woman wearing a red pleather leopard-print jacket (which reminded me of how grateful I am that I did not give into my unfathomable desire to buy pleather pants following my break-up with my boyfriend in 2000). There was a discussion of how people work better together when they can understand each other, and in order for that to happen we all need to understand ourselves better, which we can do by developing a "life map" -- with illustrations, of course! -- that could then be hung on the walls of our organization so that we can all hold hands and get along because we understand each other's "truth."
Which nearly made me die from stifling my giggles, because sometimes I'm 12 and seriously, the only things I can think of when someone uses the word "truth" that way are (1) Britney Spears and, of course, (2) Jim McGreevey. There were a lot of Jerseyans in the room, but no one else seemed to find this funny; they were all frantically making notes about developing truth maps. Seriously. This is a scary bunch, and I spent most of the morning feeling pretty superior and unimpressed, but trying hard to keep an open mind and not wear my considerable lack of enthusiasm on my sleeve.
Anyway, during lunch time, I asked to join a mostly-full table of meeting participants, who sort of half-looked at me and mumbled that it was okay to sit there. And then? They completely ignored me. And truly, it was awful. It was worse than being banished from the Queen Bee lunch table for wearing sweatpants on the wrong day; had I been banished, I could've eaten at another table, or taken my lunch outside or back to my office (not quite as pathetic as the bathroom stall). I was trying to join in their conversation, even just as an active listener, and they turned their backs to me, and then one of them started knitting a scarf rather than engage in conversation with me.
Was it because they hadn't seen my life map, and therefore couldn't understand my truth? Wasn't this just a tiny bit hypocritical? Were they just playing the roles expected of them during the formal meeting, and showing their true colors in the dining room? Could they somehow sense that I thought they were selling a bill of goods and shutting me out as a non-believer?
And why did I care so much? I'd spent the whole morning thinking these people were a little bit wacko, and all of a sudden their acceptance meant a whole lot to me.
I somehow ended up on the tennis team (it was a "building year") in ninth grade, and we started practice before the school year even started. I made fast friends with one of my teammates who was beautiful and funny and sophisticated and definitely a cool kid, which I definitely was not. Once school started, I naturally fell in with people who were more my type -- bookish, quiet, dorky -- and although I continued my one-on-one friendship with the popular girl, I had no interest in sitting at her lunch table, and she seemed sort of startled when I told her that. It was like I was Veronica Sawyer and she was Heather Red -- "We're going to a party at Remington University tonight, and we're brushing up our conversational skills with the scum of the school!"
But I was never a good clique person -- I've always done better with individual friendships rather than being part of a big set group -- and, frankly, I just didn't really like her popular friends that much. And although I don't think they thought anything at all of me, were they just as offended that I didn't sit at their lunch table as I was that these women yesterday ignored me at theirs? Can we really never escape the drama of our adolescence?
Wait.
Does that suggest that I kind of support this "life map" thing? That is so depressing.
1 Comments:
When I was in 8th grade, I actually sat at the lunch table of the popular girls for about a week--until they asked me to leave and informed me that I had been replaced by my friend Anne. I got slapped right in the face by the truth map, and it sucked!
-Shari
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Anonymous, at 12:14 PM
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