[Turkish Pickle]

Originally Posted by Rmtt

Unfortunately it is.

Our production teams are like this. We have 9 different teams that alternate shifts.

And lucky me....since I keep such strange hours, I get to interact with all of them and have become the "sounding board" for all of their complaints against each other. For some reason they trust me implicitly. It's because they know I will keep anything they ask in confidence.

But I also tell them that if the matter pertains to the "health" of the company, they have no anonymity as I will bring something to light personally...so they need to "tread lightly" when they confide in me.

But most of the time it's just them needing to get petty stuff off of their shoulders without worrying about repercussions if it were to get back to someone else.

I tell them if they have legitimate concerns, they need to go to their manager, and if that doesn't get anything done...go to the next step.

But we also work with some very dangerous stuff...so no one can afford to be off of their game in this place or someone will get hurt very quickly!

For us its not slacking off or not being on their A game - it's stuff like this. The architects design something (its pretty too) but it's out of budget for the owner. Then at the owner's meeting they show it without telling us, and then the owner wants it (completely understandable). But no one tells them they cant afford it, so after the meeting the construction vs design war breaks out. It's annoying because if we coordinate before these meetings stuff like this wouldn't happen...

Originally Posted by Now_Rudi

Yes......it is. Sadly, if you don't join in you become like me, the outcast; then no one likes you. If you participate and say anything negative about anyone, that person will eventually tell the other person what you said, making you the bad guy. In the event that you don't participate, then you are viewed as uppity or whatever from the person who has initiated the negative banter.

Advice from someone who deals with it ALL DAY LONG (and it's actually happening as I type this) just ignore it. Some people never grow up. Most "adults" are only adults in theory of their age. Most never progress mentally after age 14. Some are able to deal with it and avoid being sucked into it, these people are the ones who typically become supervisors/successful (if that's what you want to call it). I prefer to work in small companies with like-minded individuals who are there only to make money. We don't have to be friends, just have the ability to communicate clearly and stay out of each others way when it comes to raking in cash. Unfortunately this is not the situation I am currently in, but it's safe from a financial standpoint.

I mean I can be extremely childish too but I also know when to be and when not to be and it's not stuff like this. I'm not really looking to make office friends, a lot of the other interns are from my school too. The cool ones we hang out with outside of work anyway - I don't participate in the bad talking because I'm just an intern. Don't want to be labeled that right off the bat, but it's still pretty annoying to hear all this when all it takes is an email with the director or something CC'd...