A New Job

New jobs are like new cars. They are bright and shiny...they have that "new job" smell. You are so excited you have it that you potentially overlook certain things that will come back to haunt you in the end. You are so enamored with it and you have yet to discover all those little things you could def. do without or what you really wished you had. You haven't yet begun to settle in to occasionally complaining about what you wish were different or what you will be sure to do next time. Or, as a means of compensation you talk about the good points while the bad ones nag at you in the back of your mind. Then soon that subconscious nagging comes to the for front and you begin to search for people who feel the same way you do.

...By the way we are strictly talking about jobs now...though you could continue to draw a car parallel, but this conversion is much slower with a car than with a job so I figured it best to drop the comparison before you begin to be dis-interested with my thought...

Anyway, so you then find people who get annoyed with the same things you do and then you all interact with a bit of light complaining and commiserating on a break or lunch period. Soon you have a group of like minded complainers who talk about everyone else and how they don't do their job right or how your supervisor shouldn't have his job and the list goes on and on.

I started a new job this week, but as an individual who starts lots of new jobs(not because I get fired I just move a lot) I have observed this metamorphosis quite often. Most of the time one has to have stealth reflexes in order to avoid getting sucked into the great vortex of dis-contentedness. However, there are those few occasions when you get directly confronted with a "can you believe(insert name of annoying person) they are so lazy"...and then what are you supposed to do. I for one just give a slight nod and a half smile and say "yup" and then quickly walk away or return to my computer and appear to be very engrossed in what I am doing.

Perhaps you might think it would be better to confront the issue head on. I am glad you brought this up, because I have done this very thing before. Most of the time when you respond with a positive statement the complaining individual just continues to work to persuade you to their negative perspective and the situation spirals rather quickly. No for once in my life I believe in being a passivist. So LET'S GO MEDIOCRITY IN THE WORK PLACE! and you enjoy that new job smell while it lasts.