Be The Solution, Not The Problem:
“Office gossip can be a form of reputational warfare,” Dr. Hallett says. “It’s like informal gossip, but it’s richer and more elaborate. There are more layers to it because people practice indirectness and avoidance. People are more cautious because they know they can lose not just a friendship but a job.”
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Martinis for All:
I belong to the working class. I might as well be in the psyche ward at Bellevue.
The great efforts of this century was to "organize" workers. Acronym groups appear to lead us to the promise land, only the first stop is the slaughterhouse. Union leaders that make 500% more than their constituents shouldn't be trusted or followed. If upon reflection, the individual paying his or her dues on a regular basis, would analyze such a situation with objectivity not one worker would join such an organization. But once they are in, they can never leave or their pension will be stolen and their health care terminated. The AFL-CIO job trust is the Hotel California of the working class.
This unfairness is perpetrated by popular culture and the hyper-competitiveness that is capitalism. We are trained with bogus myths at a very young age that never seem to leave our consciousness no matter how the world appears. Every coloring book page that goes on the refrigerator is a priceless Van Gogh. Sports revels in the "best", solidly reinforcing gender stereotypes and rewarding brute force to get there. You are better than the next guy... then you join the workforce with these attitudes only to discover you are a replaceable cog in the machine and are reminded daily of it. This causes the internal value system to rebel, only it rebels internally not at the system causing such disconnect. Television tells us everyday we live in the greatest county in the world. Your bursting anger must be your fault.
Look around your workplace. If statistics are correct, one-fifth of your co-workers are on a psychotropic drug to battle anxiety or depression. They have decided with their AMA MD's (the greatest drug pushers in the world) that this is what they need to get through their day, only thing is most of their day is work. This is what they need to go to work. Everyday at the job site is another episode of McMurphy in the Cuckoo's Nest for me.
Want to organize a group of workers to get justice? Here's my suggestion. Look around society and see what organizations have survived and how they do it. A group of people with mental issues meets weekly because what they believe is outrageous and doesn't fit into the "normal" thinking of society. They testify, break down in frustration, and receive support from the others in their sect. They hold hands and sing songs together. They sit down and break bread together. All in a secure regular location known for its tolerance and love of people. No one is turned away or deemed unworthy. All people are taken in for the goodness within and none considered crazy no matter what.
This is the model for success as is shown by the Christian Right and its twisted power has risen exponentially in this country with these tactics. Unions or solidarity worker groups will never succeed until they take on the issue of mental illness within their recruits. Capitalism wants us all crazy. Doing that sends us to cults and prescription drugs or anything to validate us or to stop the madness within. Inequality, injustice, economic pain are all symptoms of this mental illness because we accept the conditions most readily as appropriate. There are not alternatives in action to point to. It's easy to shut down thinking and become a cog than take the responsibility of your birth and be a human being. This is what capitalistic society demands of you.
The result of 30 years of labor organizing I have witnessed has produced many frustrated Don Quixotes tilting at windmills, damaging their family lives and physical health. Marching so far ahead of the parade they can't hear the brass band. Their idealism is to be admired, if only their self-righteousness doesn't spoil you on them first. They are truly the sane ones until lack of support from capitalistic induced insane fellow workers grinds their spirit down to a fine dust to be blown into the winds of history.
"Enough is enough" is the chant these days. I hear it as cry of mental anguish.
