As related by a friend and fellow slave
Managers are people too. This dawns on you from time to time. But in the interim, they just seem like a peculiar tribe slave to rigid practices and pointless ritual.
As your department’s pack forages on their usual slope, the new kid on the block stays on the side lines. Besides the one-off documentation and scheduling of meetings, the kid has little to do to keep herself busy. She does try though, her anxiety shows anyway. The veterans of the pack show no signs of even acknowledging her existence. You, as always, are the passive observer.
And as a good observer is wont to do, you survey from a distance without intruding, interacting or influencing the subjects of study in any way. It is a tough job but someone has to do it.
The pack almost seems to be trying too hard at times, going out of their way to look past the kid and act generally self-important. The posturing is led by their Head of Department, a man with a big face and a thin voice. He is also the Alpha Male by proxy.
On many an occasion you feel compelled to break in, break the ice and put the kid at ease. But with some effort, you convince yourself that nature has to run its course.
And it does until a day when the pack is feeling particularly restless and hungry, both feelings being often interconnected. They are pulled out if their lazing around into the mildly vigorous activity of looking for biscuits and half-eaten packs of chips in the foliage of files and half-open boxes of forgotten stuff.
The kid, startled at first, makes the bold move of offering her own reserve of nutrition bars and Oreos. It is an instant hit. One of the Oreos makes its way to Alpha for approval. You almost find yourself anxious waiting for his response. But guess what, the big man likes Oreos!
Over the next few days, banter increases in proportion with the kid’s supply of fodder. They still don’t know the kid’s name and her smile is still awkward. But there is progress…
The kid comes up to you once offering you the last Oreo lying at the bottom of her shallow lunch box. You offer her your pack of nutrition bars instead.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Kim!’ she says with a bright smile.
‘Glad to have you on board,’ you say.
Managers are people too and nature has to run its course. But you can always run your own.
- J.
