I always began with the assumption that anyone who talked with me and spent time with me was a potential friend, which was rather naive. In the corporate world, friendship is a rarity, neutral indifference is the general rule, and hostility quite common. This should not be the way of things, because it's anti-human, but it is. The reason is that, in most offices, people are in direct competition with one another. There is little to be gained by teamwork. If someone looks bad, then you look good by comparison. You could gain approval from management.
Now the right-wingers think that all of this competition is always a good thing. They don't scrutinize it. I disagree and feel that teamwork and cooperation have far more advantages, but that's because I'm a liberal Democrat. I dislike working in a cutthroat environment, despite the fact that I have been rather successful at it. I do not gain any satisfaction in watching others fail. I also don't find any pleasure in pointless conflict that has no basis other than this irrational competitive nonsense. By working together as a team, where there is trust between people, much more can be accomplished than alone.
At work, I was pretty good at my job. There wasn't much that could be said about me other than I worked quietly in solitude and got the job done. However, the minute I let slide that I had any liberal sympathies, Old Man Judgment came a-callin', except she was wearing a skirt. One day, an erstwhile friend began dumping phone books in my cubicle. I asked her why she was doing that, because I honestly thought that she had lost her mind. Up until this point, I had thought of her as a friend. She said, "So you can go recycle them. You're for the environment, right?" She grinned with malice and waited for my response.
When I put the phone books in the aisle for the janitor to pick up, she walked off to tell others what a hypocrite I was. I saw that it was all a ploy she had planned in advance. She wasn't really my friend or anyone's friend. The people she cozied up to were the ones that had power or popularity--the senior ones in line for promotion, and the lesser bosses, who were within reach of her attempts to socialize. I had no power and not many connections in the department. The only way for her to gain was to make me look bad somehow. She couldn't make me look bad based upon my work. Instead, she focused upon other things, like my minority political beliefs. This was back in the day when being conservative Republican was cool.
People like that, engaged in petty competition over petty rewards, are so transparent that once you recognize them for what they are, you're safe. You know what their motivation will be in any given situation. What they care about is personal advancement and personal gain. Anything else does not have much substance for them.
She was the same one that complained because I didn't put a flag on my car or cubicle wall. "What's wrong with you? Why don't you have a flag too?" Of course, she went away to complain to others about my not having a flag on my cubicle wall. I expected that and was not in the least surprised. Actually, this is the only thing she ever said to me that made me reflect. I think she brought up an interesting issue, although I'd never discuss it with her.
In the past, I hadn't bought flags, despite their being fashionable following 9-11, but I hadn't really considered why that was. I'm not the type to follow fashions, for one, and seldom buy anything, because I dislike shopping. I'd rather write or read than shop. But there seems a philosophical reason not to buy a flag and plant it on one's car, cubicle wall, face, et cetera. I just hadn't thought of all the reasons before.
To my understanding, there are not separate nations within the territory of the United States. The entire land area is U.S. soil. Everyone already understands what country we are standing in. Therefore, sticking a flag on my cubicle wall is rather redundant.
What are the possible reasons someone might stick a flag on a cubicle wall? Does this show patriotism? Is patriotism a good thing? It says more about your desire for approval than about who you are as a person. What about waving a flag that says, "Solve World Hunger Now!" I don't see anyone doing that. It just wouldn't be popular, for whatever reason.
What's wrong about flag-waving is that it's part of an "us-versus-them" mentality that leads to war. If they lose, we win. If we win, they have to lose. What about a scenario where both can win? All countries can win. This is the ideal scenario.
One day, the world is going to have to move past the idea that we have to harm other nations in order to be a stronger nation. But that day probably won't arrive until after my time on this earth is over.
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