The Workplace as Highschool; or We Never Grow Up

[Mlle. Zabzie]

For context:  We are mid-recruiting season here.  (Large law firms, for truly stupid historic reasons, hire law students for a (very well paid) summer internship right before the beginning of their 2nd year in law school, which, basically leads to a full time job after their 3rd year).  I have sat on our recruiting committee for many years.  Yesterday we were discussing a candidate who had excellent grades and otherwise good reviews.  A younger person piped up to say that they knew the candidate from childhood (sleepaway camp, to be specific).  This was not a good thing.  The candidate was described as "weird" because they "liked bugs and stuff like that and no one else did"; also was mentioned that candidate probably wouldn't accept the offer because of the presence of the younger person.  The resulting subtext made me want to give the candidate an offer on the spot (and never work with the younger person, who fortunately is not in my department).  Because the world is a better place that I sometimes think it is, candidate did get an offer, but still, why did I have to listen to this?

Because all that BS still exists.  It never stops.  There will always be poisonous people out there that think like 13 year old bouncers, policing the bounds of who is cool enough to play.  And though the result here ended up ok, we probably will lose out on a talented person because of this past.  It sort of infects everything.  Which makes me think that really might be how some human communities build.  Which is like ugh.  

So anyhow, this is a thread discuss how grade school/highschool type shenanigans continue to infect your professional/social/volunteer/sacred/whatever lives.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

While it's harsh to hold some childhood 'weirdness' against anyone, I think if someone was universally disliked in undergrad, or beyond, that's a red flag. Especially if that person leaves a good first impression. At least voters in Texas should have paid attention.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 minutes ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

While it's harsh to hold some childhood 'weirdness' against anyone, I think if someone was universally disliked in undergrad, or beyond, that's a red flag. Especially if that person leaves a good first impression. At least voters in Texas should have paid attention.

Hahaha. After I read the first sentence the first thing that popped into my head was Cruz. 

[SkynJay]

Mine is not a work place issue but I do have a social one. 

I play rec center pick-up basketball many Sundays.  It's a good group, mixed skill and age and usually a lot of fun.

Unless two specific people show up in which case it's Junior High.  Suddenly they stack a team, start bickering over who is next, excluding people (oh you get next game).  And then they bring out the same out of another group of regulars who are normally fine with the rotation but suddenly feel the need to catch up and start doing the same.  

I've walked off the court rather than bicker with these fools, including once giving up my spot on their team to the kid who should be next (saddling them with a player they absolutely didn't want) and just waiting for the next game.

Luckily they only show up about once a month anymore.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

1 hour ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

While it's harsh to hold some childhood 'weirdness' against anyone, I think if someone was universally disliked in undergrad, or beyond, that's a red flag. Especially if that person leaves a good first impression. At least voters in Texas should have paid attention.

Hah!  Well, thinking someone is weird who likes bugs (and I don't like to be gendered, but this was a gendered comment originally) was more a reflection on the person making the comment than the 12 year old liker of bugs, at least for me.  It's not like they said the candidate pulled wings off of flies!

 

Skynjay - it's exactly that kind of crap.  There are just some people out there who bring that sort of behavior every where they go.  I'm sure they are like that at work too.  And there is not really much to be done about it other than walk away and playing with others.  Ugh.

[Ramsay B.]

My workplace is definitely worse than a high school at times. While it is funny most of the time to see guys older than myself(I'm mid-30's) act like kids it can get tiresome. 

There is basically 2 groups of people who really hate each other over some b.s. that happened years ago. It involved the one group going to h.r. and reporting the "leader" of the other group which got him temporarily moved. Well the leader was moved back and has been on a complete tear ratting on the others and just spreading absurd lies about everyone who did him wrong.

I don't get involved in any of this and I am friendly with both groups so I do get both sides of the stories. I must say that it is entertaining but these are all married guys with families and respected jobs, and hearing and seeing the petty crap they do on a daily basis(unplugging phone chargers, messing with tools, reporting "offensive" tattoos, etc) gets exhausting. It's just constant mind game with these guys and it's weird and sad.

[Iskaral Pust]

Zabzie -- you should have shot down that objection at the time and said the firm should only consider relevant professional reasons to hire or not. 

There are weirdo/oddball applicants who people are reluctant to hire and sometimes for good reasons -- a team may not want to deal with probable behavioral problems.  But senior colleagues should take responsibility for any immature clique building by juniors.  Otherwise you could end up with douchey bro culture like so many i-banks.

I had a colleague once who rushed to my office to tell me breathlessly that the applicant I was about to interview was super hot and I needed to hire her no matter what.  She was completely underwhelming and I passed on her.  And I told him afterward that hot girls won't like the creepy guy who stalks them in the office; if you can't get a hot girl outside the office, there's no magical transformation when you walk in the door, but there is a lot of uncomfortable stalking. 

[Ravenhair]

MZ, at the last firm where I was partner, I always attended the obligatory meeting to vote on which of our summer law clerks should be extended permanent offers.  One year, the recruiting partner at the firm, who was also an employment lawyer(!), objected vehemently to extending an offer to a summer clerk on the basis that said clerk had taken off her bra at a bar outing with a number of male lawyers from our office.  In my opinion, the behavior of our lawyers, not that of the clerk, was questionable and perhaps violative of several statutes, titles, and regulations. The only pertinent factors were that the clerk did excellent work and got along well with most everyone.  Ultimately, though, the recruiting partner raised so much hell that the offer was not extended by our firm.  

In an unlike-high-school-but-like-a-high-school-movie turn of events, the recruiting partner's husband was also a lawyer at another large firm in town, where, in fact, he was the recruiting partner as well. The clerk in question had split her summer and clerked at that firm the second half of the summer.  The recruiting partner's husband did not share the qualms of his wife regarding this clerk, and she was offered a position at that firm.  

As to your specific situation, I'd rather work with the person curious about bugs than the rat's ass who would repeat puerile ponderings that could have a direct impact on another person's employment or lack thereof.  

[Mlle. Zabzie]

7 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Zabzie -- you should have shot down that objection at the time and said the firm should only consider relevant professional reasons to hire or not. 

There are weirdo/oddball applicants who people are reluctant to hire and sometimes for good reasons -- a team may not want to deal with probable behavioral problems.  But senior colleagues should take responsibility for any immature clique building by juniors.  Otherwise you could end up with douchey bro culture like so many i-banks.

I had a colleague once who rushed to my office to tell me breathlessly that the applicant I was about to interview was super hot and I needed to hire her no matter what.  She was completely underwhelming and I passed on her.  And I told him afterward that hot girls won't like the creepy guy who stalks them in the office; if you can't get a hot girl outside the office, there's no magical transformation when you walk in the door, but there is a lot of uncomfortable stalking. 

It's a 20 person committee.  It's fairly chaotic and a rebuke at the time would not have worked/gone over well.  The candidate got an offer.  I've let people in her department know about this outside the meeting.  She was described back to me as "poisonous".  I think it will catch up with her eventually.

[Datepalm]

I've had some weird personal shenanigans at a few jobs. I don't mind - well, I mind, but it's not something I think is solvable - genuine clashes of personality or people going through stuff. I think the attempt to pretend like we can separate individuals with all their peculiarities from workplace automatons is probably counterproductive professionally and unpleasant ideologically. I've been part of some fairly nasty workplace disputes, and while I don't exactly recall them fondly, well, it was just part of life. 

THIS ONE TIME THOUGH...there's one place that still annoys me whenever I remember it for any reason, because that was just pettiness and immaturity and cliques and playing favourites, a project coordinator who was in charge of logistics who would undercut everyone's projects and not balance assignments out of some kind of power trip or jealousy or something. Navigating through her was just exhausting and endlessly complicated. I thought it was me - either because I was the lone Jew on a Palestinian team, or even that we were the only two women and there was some cool-girl competition going on, or my sense that I was just failing to fulfill some social obligation, or IDEK - but I caught up with someone else who worked on the same project recently and he affirmed that she was a piece of work. Apparently she toyed with the whole thing like some kind of popularity game, putting together cliques of cool kids (leading to all the teams being unbalanced in terms of skills), giving herself the 'fun' assignments (she wasn't supposed to be doing any field work - it was in a field she had no background in at all,) not inviting people to meetings, ignoring any requests for changes, etc, etc. There were other things that led to that project tanking, but she might have been a big part of it. 

[sperry]

On 8/25/2016 at 1:43 PM, Mlle. Zabzie said:

For context:  We are mid-recruiting season here.  (Large law firms, for truly stupid historic reasons, hire law students for a (very well paid) summer internship right before the beginning of their 2nd year in law school, which, basically leads to a full time job after their 3rd year).  I have sat on our recruiting committee for many years.  Yesterday we were discussing a candidate who had excellent grades and otherwise good reviews.  A younger person piped up to say that they knew the candidate from childhood (sleepaway camp, to be specific).  This was not a good thing.  The candidate was described as "weird" because they "liked bugs and stuff like that and no one else did"; also was mentioned that candidate probably wouldn't accept the offer because of the presence of the younger person.  The resulting subtext made me want to give the candidate an offer on the spot (and never work with the younger person, who fortunately is not in my department).  Because the world is a better place that I sometimes think it is, candidate did get an offer, but still, why did I have to listen to this?

Because all that BS still exists.  It never stops.  There will always be poisonous people out there that think like 13 year old bouncers, policing the bounds of who is cool enough to play.  And though the result here ended up ok, we probably will lose out on a talented person because of this past.  It sort of infects everything.  Which makes me think that really might be how some human communities build.  Which is like ugh.  

So anyhow, this is a thread discuss how grade school/highschool type shenanigans continue to infect your professional/social/volunteer/sacred/whatever lives.

 

The entire big law firm hiring process is a complete farce anyway, so why not include childhood gossip in the fray? It certainly wouldn't be a less reliable predictive metric than what's actually used.

[Theda Baratheon]

I'd hate to hear what some people from school would say about me, but fuck it, I was an ugly weirdo in school, but I was kind at least, and friendly when given the chance. I cared for a long time and it made me so depressed, but I can honestly say I have been living in my home town for the last 6 months and do not care and haven't been depressed in the whole time, or self conscious. I'm a nice person, socially competent, friendly and I get along with most people, honestly if someone insulted me now i'm sure they would be the one looked on not too fondly and not me. But for a long time, my place in the bullshit social hierarchy clouded my life and made me so scared of meeting new people and making new friends. 

[Lily Valley]

Jesus, Zabz.  I am SO GLAD I got out of corporate work.  Your post took me back.  I am very lucky that all of this kind of immature behavior is done by the students.  Since I have authority over them, I can shut that shit down if I see it.  It does happen sometimes on the team projects.   Because my colleagues are all responsible and lead by example, it rarely happens.  

The team projects I lead occasionally wind up with all "Alpha" male types on one team, they shout down all of the other students.  This has been my biggest management problem.  I try to make sure the quieter kids either have a team of their own or break up the loudmouths when they try to clump.  The latter solution is harder than trying to whisk flour into cold water.  The traditional engineer's creative process involves arguing.  I find it unbearable to be around, but they thrive on it.

[sperry]

5 hours ago, Lily Valley said:

Jesus, Zabz.  I am SO GLAD I got out of corporate work.  Your post took me back.  I am very lucky that all of this kind of immature behavior is done by the students.  Since I have authority over them, I can shut that shit down if I see it.  It does happen sometimes on the team projects.   Because my colleagues are all responsible and lead by example, it rarely happens.  

The team projects I lead occasionally wind up with all "Alpha" male types on one team, they shout down all of the other students.  This has been my biggest management problem.  I try to make sure the quieter kids either have a team of their own or break up the loudmouths when they try to clump.  The latter solution is harder than trying to whisk flour into cold water.  The traditional engineer's creative process involves arguing.  I find it unbearable to be around, but they thrive on it.

 

Big law hiring practices are just bizarre, and the profession attracts a lot of people who are a little "off." Every profession has it's flaws, but sociability is not high on the list of a profession where essentially the only factors determining your first job are the school you went to (which in turn is almost entirely decided on your LSAT score) and the grades you made in the first year at that school, which is a sample size of 7 or 8 courses depending on school. Also, every single one of those grades is determined entirely by one exam, and those exams are graded subjectively (i.e. it's not a math problem, there is no "right" answer.)

[Xray the Enforcer]

Zabz -- that sounds awful, and I hope that the toxic person gets bounced out on his/her ass soonest.

 

[Iskaral Pust]

On August 25, 2016 at 11:21 PM, Mlle. Zabzie said:

It's a 20 person committee.  It's fairly chaotic and a rebuke at the time would not have worked/gone over well.  The candidate got an offer.  I've let people in her department know about this outside the meeting.  She was described back to me as "poisonous".  I think it will catch up with her eventually.

Good outcome.  Perhaps find an alternate for her role in the recruiting process next year. 

[TerraPrime]

Oh small-minded vindictiveness and clique-forming is endemic to any human gatherings with more than 10 people, imo.

 

When I joined my department, the clique that ran the department was just in the process of dissolving. It was a group of 5 faculty, all male, running the department like it's their tree house club. People they like (i.e. agrees with them or go hunt with them) got good assignments and those who disagreed with them or who argued with them, did not. Not all their decisions were bad, but many were. And there was basically no transparency and no accountability. It was a two-tier system in the department - you're part of the in-group or you're marginalized.

 

Thankfully, that ended within the first 2 years of me starting. Between retirement, job transfers, and vote-of-no-confidence, we got rid of all of them in due time. We are more a team department now and everyone who wants to contribute has a chance to do so.

[Elder Sister]

1 hour ago, TerraPrime said:

Oh small-minded vindictiveness and clique-forming is endemic to any human gatherings with more than 10 people, imo.

This is my experience.  I work with a (mostly) kind, professional group of people, but there are occasions when this group resembles a pack of wild dogs.  Let someone show a trace of weakness and it's all over but the shoutin'.  I have seen grown-ass people act like mean girls/evil frat boys, and it's extremely discouraging.

Zabz, I like how you handled this.  I'm going to try and be more tactful...I generally wind up saying something like, "Would you please stop acting like an ass??"  It usually puts a stop to the random bully who is picking on the weaker member of the group, but I wind up looking like the prickly, cantankerous grouch of the group because I don't want to play "high school lunchroom".

I am not proud of how cliquish and exclusive I and my friends were in high school.  My goal as an adult is to be inclusive and kind.  The only time I make an exception to this is when I geniunely feel that someone is toxic/mean spirited, in which case, I avoid them like the plague.

[Starkess]

My manager is a total gossip. I told him that I was moving so he could help me find a new internal position and I found out he basically told everyone immediately (with the caveat to them not to say anything since it wasn't public knowledge yet). He's also told me things about other employees that were probably not things he should have been sharing (and I didn't ask!). It's definitely a weird high-school vibe when he starts trying to dish.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Sperry - BigLaw hiring practices are, in fact, illogical.  I had some hope that the last recession would break them.  However, all it did was to push recruiting even earlier.  I'm basically waiting for the day when we hire based on LSAT scores and some kind of American Ninja Warrior endurance test.