Out of Network

I worked for 17 years at the same place before changing jobs in early April. For 13 of those 17 years, I worked in the same position, as a supervisor for at first four people, ballooning up to 14 direct-reports by the time I left. It was suppose to be 15 direct-reports, but we lost one position to a failing-laterally entitled white man whose whole position they moved to another department instead of letting us fire him. That's not the reason I left, but I just wanted to point out that shit very obviously still happens in 2024. Well, technically it was 2023, but I feel safe assuming we haven't solved either patriarchy or corporate liability-phobia in the 12 months or whatever it's been since.

Even though I've been entirely reinvented from a guy who works as a contractor in a public sector space to a guy who works in a public sector space, the changes have been more drastic than they seem on the surface. For example, my new cubicle is in the same section of the same building as my previous cubicle. Pretty safe and easy, right? I was going to say it's even closer than it seems as the crow flies, but honestly, the crow wouldn't have really enough time to get the wing beats in to get airborne. The crow would be better of just hoofing it. BUT! I'm never there since my new job is listed as "remote" instead of "telework," which, it turns out, are two different things apparently. So my actual new primary work location is many miles away from the office, in a room in my home recently abandoned by one of my children. See, like I said: drastic! I feel like I now know how the butterfly feels when it accesses its memories of being a caterpillar; a swirling haze of being-before-being, a series of experiences that would have to be lived again in order to ever be fully believed.

The main difference, though? Gossip. As a supervisor, I took a lot of really great pains to make sure I wasn't in the loop for a lot of interpersonal stuff in the group. Did that just happen to dovetail perfectly with a natural introversion that also as kept me from learning any of my neighbor's names for 20 years? I'd ask you earnestly in follow-up: is there a difference between coincidence and serendipity?

I was always afraid of even accidentally coming across as favoring one person over another, or even creating a perception that any one person or clique had my ear more than any other. It turns out that all it takes is a practiced veneer of work-shallow affability to give the illusion of approachability and openness, keeping everyone more or less satisfied that you gave a shit while never once giving them the impression that it would be a good idea to try to invite me to a barbecue or whatever. If you deftly deflect enough personal questions, you eventually become bulletproof.

Of course when I was there, I definitely had favorites, as much as I endeavored to keep that to myself. Not in the sense that I would give benefits or leeway to any one person or group over the rest (that would just create a problem down the road for my boss and mentor, which seemed like a good way to invite scrutiny on myself), but there were definitely some I had to gear up for emotionally and physically before reluctantly going to talk to them. I like to tell myself I did a good job not making it evident which ones required that kind of effort, and everyone since then has given me decent reviews on how I handled things generally, but compared to the others I could/would stand around and bullshit with for 45 minutes at a time, it would take a failure of several human sensory systems to make the distinctions anything but evident.

Now, since I left, I have no qualms or hesitation about keeping contact with the ones I find interesting or easy to talk to. And in turn, they feel a lot less reticent about what they are willing to share with me. It's weird for me socially as an adult to discover things like "friends," but it does actually feel like we're trending in that direction. I'd say since I've become an adult and especially since I became a divorced person, very close to 100% of the real, lasting, new friendships I've made have been with people I first dated and then (successfully, apparently) stopped dating. I'm out of practice with becoming friends with people I've never once seen naked, but I'm learning.

Is it still awkward with my former coworkers? Sometimes. Like other normal people, they like to bitch about their boss, but their boss is my former deputy group lead and another one of those people with whom I am keeping in touch. But I'm a GenX social weirdo, so I feel pretty comfortable compartmentalizing all my customized emotional settings for each person. It's just like shuttling back and forth between my mom's family and my dad's family after the divorce again, just with a lot less alcohol and cigarettes at the center of the dynamic.

Overall, I'm learning to be a different person under these changed circumstances, or maybe I'm learning more to be myself. There's the person you imagine yourself to be when you're alone, but the line between a core value and self-delusion can only be excavated and elucidated under the pressure of other sets of ears and eyeballs. Other people can't tell you who you are, but they do tend to provide just enough light to reveal the topography of your actual personality, including where the shadowed valleys lurk in places you were certain were sunny hills, if not actual peaks. So far the surprise inversions have been relievedly minimal, but the only responsible way to approach this is to listen actively and be prepared to find the occasional innie where you thought an outie should be.