Children of a pretend revolution

Both of my parents are psychologists. Dear God!, I hear you cry. Both of them? By way of background information, I did not spend my childhood in group therapy. Yes, I had an awful lot of ‘educational’ toys and yes, my family talks an awful lot and yes, it’s all rather liberal and democratic.

So far, so good. But one thing I was always encouraged to do is speak my mind. And that it’s perfectly acceptable to talk back at people if they say something you don’t agree with. Or if they do something you don’t like. And yes, the latter did get me into an awful lot of trouble at school.

Another thing I learned is that injustice is not something to be tolerated. Which is why I did give that guy a primary school a black eye because he picked on my friend for being shit at basketball.

Fastforward twenty years. I am beginning to realise that the world does not work like that any more. Particularly not in a working environment. It seems to be ‘put up and shut up!’. But what if you think something is fundamentally wrong. You KNOW it’s wrong. You KNOW it’s not fair and you would really like to throw a mean left hook at the offending party. Only that you’re not allowed to. Because you’re at work. Some people are higher up than others. And you happen to sit somewhere at the bottom of the pile, ready to be dumped upon from a variety of angles. Last time I checked, ‘doormat’ was not part of my job description. And if I wanted to b part of a group email bunfight, I would join an debate group for masochists. I certainly don’t need this kind of activity at work.

You try to speak up and get duly brushed under the carpet. Take the moral high ground! Yeah right, the moral swamp, more like. And I am tiring of sitting in said swamp. I really am. And why can’t I rise from the swamp? Because ‘you can’t do that!’. I know this may sound pompous, but I was under the impression I was an individual of free will and could do what I want, as long as I don’t hurt anyone. That doesn’t seem to be the case. Somebody somewhere along the lines lied to me big time. Doing the right thing does not get you anywhere. Neither does trying to be helpful. And what’s all this bollocks about ‘going the extra mile’ about? You go the extra mile, somebody will lay out another three miles of broken glass you can then crawl over in your own time. Thanks, guys, really appreciate it.

This leaves me and my naïve believe that all you got to do is be nice to people and they’ll be nice also out in the cold. And the theory that working hard will be rewarded doesn’t rung true either any more. If you happen to the in the civil service, you can’t have any sort of payrise, so instead they bleed you dry. Particularly, if you foolishly agree to do every last task someone is trying to foist upon you. Sorry, I don’t live to work, I work to live. I do not want to be loosing sleep over work matters, thank you very much.

So change jobs! Hm, but somehow I suspect it wont be any different anywhere else. Because everything in the working world seems to be upside down these days. Or maybe it’s just me and I am being stupid for seriously believing what my parents drummed into me for all these years was nothing but a big fat lie.