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Somehow, I don't know how, I don't know why, I was online checking/sending work related e-mails and I saw a thing that said 'happy Bosses' Day' even though that was actually October 16th. Thinking I had maybe gotten the date wrong (turned out I hadn't), I clicked the link, which led to an about.com article about Bosses' Day, and how to be a better boss. I followed a chain of links from article to article, eventually honing in on articles about workplace bullying and general employee emotional issues, since these are issues I've come up against in the past, though thankfully they are not nearly as pressing at the places I work now. I found one article that actually made some sense, but all the articles (including that one) had such an overtone of COMPLETE SOULLESSNESS to them all, I felt physically weaker by the time I was done reading them. The original reason that I specifically did a search for bullying etc. was that I saw that the top five reasons for employees leaving the workplace did NOT include anything about coworkers. Now mind you, I realize that I am an egotistical, self-centered person and I do tend to jump to the conclusion that a lot of people think and act like me, even if in actuality they do not. I also am not stupid. Every person I have known well enough to talk to about work has had some kind of huge issue with workplace relationships that led to them quitting, thinking about quitting, or even getting fired. I find it impossible to believe that statistically this would not figure in the 'top 5' reasons for leaving. I find it much more likely that the person posting this article was naive enough to actually believe the bullshit that people spout in their exit interviews - they don't feel challenged enough, they don't feel the company is going anywhere, they don't have enough job security, their achievements aren't recognized. I'm sure these things are a factor for some people, maybe even a lot of people. I'm also sure workplace environment is a much bigger deal than the workers make it out to be - because they don't want to start a confrontation, a fight, burn a bridge, lose a reference. I saw in this series of articles such complete WIMPYNESS that it made me want to weep. These people were trying to build an environment, even in writing, of nice happy friendly don't-say-anything-bad workplace stupidness. Why is it stupid to be nice, you ask? I will tell you why. Because you don't always FEEL nice. To always make nice in the workplace is to lose personal space, to be unable to completely relax, ever, while working. That's forty hours of your week you will be tense. Perhaps you might argue that people would also become tense if they felt threatened by others' negative opinions or treatment of them. I would say two things to this. A) if said negativity is hostile or threatening or interferes with work, the person can be confronted with it, or one can go to the person's supervisor for help. B) if said negativity is just annoying, maybe it's time to GROW A PAIR, ignore their ass, and get on with your life. I have been in these situations, and I have made those confrontations, painful as they have been, or in less threatening cases used humor and exaggerated politeness to dispel the tension. It came down to either confronting them or treating them as a good CSR would treat a customer she hates - like the Queen of England, pretty much. If you're going to lie, make sure you know in the deepest depths of your soul that it IS a lie, so it doesn't try to creep into the back of your mind disguised as the truth. As I see it, all the corporate culture pushers want us to think of the workplace as a 'family.' Fine, I say, let's be family. Guess what. Families fight. They don't always like each other or agree with each other. They sometimes complain about each other. They sometimes stalk off from a conversation in a huff. If you try to sterilize the workplace by labeling such behavior as unacceptable, being a 'difficult employee,' being a drain on productivity, or something similar, and disciplining the employees who do it, you are essentially forcing your workplace to eat, eat, eat, but never take a shit. Newsflash: THIS IS NOT HEALTHY! I find the popular drive to coddle employees, to protect them from each other, to force down all their negative feelings back into their throats, to be barbaric and intolerable. I work in a place where people do vent their feelings, they do fight, they are allowed to, and they take advantage of it, and they insult each other, sometimes jokingly, sometimes for real, sometimes it starts as being for real, but it's taken as a joke, and the steam is blown off effectively without the receiver of the insult ever even knowing they were insulted or needing to feel hurt. This is how families work. They have a rough-and-tumble play session where they get a couple of good digs in, maybe by accident, maybe on purpose, and they are over whatever it was that was bugging them, and they still work together, and no huge and impassible rift has been created because they were trying to be 'professional' about handling their conflicts with the people they have to be around, live with, deal with, every day. My opinion is as follows: The reason work relationships are so shaky is that they are out of balance. HR professionals too often try to foster the positive side of the 'family feeling' while punishing or avoiding the negative side. It leads to a forced, tense environment that would set anyone's teeth on edge. Is it any wonder people make fun of motivational rhetoric, team building exercises and pep talks? Is it any wonder these things seem so hollow to so many? I'll take a good honest 'get 'er done' job any day.