Quote: (08-22-2014 04:31 AM)americanInEurope Wrote:
For me the most depressing part of work has always been the people and the office politics. The actual work was fun and easy, and there's always ways to avoid actually having to drive a shitty commute (public transit, carpool, etc). The hard part was dealing with gossip and politics and clicks and passive aggressive bitches (male and female). The constant judging and testing and prodding and probing and whispering and challenging that comes with being 1) younger than everyone else, 2) a different race than everyone else, 3) the only network guy in a shop full of server guys, 4) the only contractor in a shop full of permanent guys, or 5) a single guy in an office full of miserable married people, is so daunting that you end up spending most of your time worrying about who not to piss off just to keep your job than you do the actual nuts and bolts of the job. You end up preparing for the next "challenge" or mind-fuck from an old grizzled miserable married guy, instead of preparing for work so you can do your job, to prove your worth to a bunch of assholes in a shop who think you don't deserve to be here anyway.
And this is always the bullshit that either makes you or breaks you. I'll add that I've been a non-military guy in a company with a bunch of ex-military assholes.
But politics is good and bad only in relation to how much people like or don't like their jobs. If people like their jobs, they will tend to like the people.
In my current situation, I work a different shift from most people. I was dumb enough to think I could handle this. I can't handle it because it creates an extra barrier to getting things done.
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Forget what they say about it being ok to make mistakes or ask questions. Every stupid question or mistake is ammunition for guys that don't want you to be there. Eventually I got good enough to where they can't challenge me anymore, because I've been in the game for a while and can cut them pieces with actual fact and experience, but it leaves a mark for sure.
I've never gotten to place where I do respectable IT work.