The Office Rivalry

It is not spoken, but it exists...the office rivalry. The assistant's assistant, or the office assistant, is worried about getting fired. The assistant (one above him) is worried about losing  his/her job to the bottom one. The assistant's boss (3rd from below) is worried s/he won't get promoted and s/he will need to look for a new job. The boss of them all doesn't give a shit about any of this at all.

The best part of not having a permenant position - if I had to be positive now- is that I get to visit different offices and see different practices. Here is one practice I most recently ran into:

A secretary/receptionist has tried to scare the office assistant, the intern and the temp away, saying that the boss doesn't like to see them hang around. Why? No reason. This secretary/receptionist says, the boss has this thing about lo-lives ( s/he didn't word it that way, of course) and that the boss just doesn't think these people are necessary...

So, who is necessary exactly, at the work place? Does this boss think the crap-work would get done if any of these people were absent? Would the boss do all the work by him/her-self?

Of course, it doesn't require a PhD degree to figure out at some point, that this secretary/receptionist was trying to get the lo-lives out of sight, so s/he would seem to be doing all the work. But his/her scare tactic has worked! The intern, the office assistant and the temp- all got out of sight, at least for the time I was working there. And s/he "seemed" to spend 10+ hours a day doing all the work.

The lesson? I think the competition happens because people at the workplace feel insecure about their future, or they think pulling the mat under one's feet is the way for them to move up. Also, I think sometimes the tasks at work overlap. Finally, the society's standard of 15 hour work-days , define "successful," so everyone strives to look "successful."

The solution? I don't have a definite solution for this since I find that some people are competitive by nature. But when I have my own company, I will make sure to  (1) define & design every position's work/task load, (2) value "efficient" time management (3) appreciate and show appreciation for the employee -so they won't feel insecure and try the scare of the lo-lives. If I could, I would also (1) punish the ones who play an unfair game.

Who knows? May be I could be the owner of  one of those " top companies to work for"!