Social Circles
Finally a moment to breathe...
My lover commented on something today that has been in my thoughts for a while--the corporate 'family' many businesses today are trying to establish. I work at a large chain retail store, and he works at a multi-branch facility, and both are pushing that we're one big family, to smile at everyone you see, and it's all about the team. Walmart's policy is the 'Ten Foot rule;' i.e. if someone comes within ten feet of you, be they customer or employee or manager, you must say hello and smile. Volunteering with your coworkers is becoming popular, and company bowling nights, and potlucks. You're not an employee, you're an important piece of a social work community.
Perhaps this all sounds well and good, but it has come to bother me greatly. It has the taste of collectivism that I can't quite swallow, and every time I walk into work and see my coworkers smiling at me I want to frown (gasp! no!). They greet me as though we've known each other for years, ask me how I am as though they truly care, and jump to my aid at the drop of a hat. In reality, they know absolutely nothing about me, they couldn't care less if I were having the worst day of my life, and only help me because they would be shunned by other family members if they didn't. Their "Have a good day," sounds hollow and echoes my own, not false for lack of passion but false in that I say it a hundred times a day and even when I truly mean it, there is nothing to distinguish it from the hundreds of others i have said and therefore it falls powerless in the air.
They get away with it by creating a social environment of people that actually seem to care about you; so you want their approval and to fit in? How are you accepted? By becoming like them, a demonstrator of nondiscriminatory smiles and less than genuine friendship. You become an expert at small talk and pointless banter. You attend events outside of work because like any human being you crave acceptance from a group of peers. But no one tells you this group is just a collection of people who needed jobs and were sucked into this social environment of non-genuine people just as eager to fit in as you. We're perpetuating a society in which everyone matters and nobody matters.
Does every human soul have value? Absolutely. Do I have to treat every human soul as if we were soul mates? Absolutely not. There lower the requirements for your care, the cheaper your love becomes, and if you grant it to anyone that comes within ten feet, it's worth absolutely nothing. I want my smile to have value and my "How are you?" to ring genuine. But how do we escape this corporate family?
My lover commented on something today that has been in my thoughts for a while--the corporate 'family' many businesses today are trying to establish. I work at a large chain retail store, and he works at a multi-branch facility, and both are pushing that we're one big family, to smile at everyone you see, and it's all about the team. Walmart's policy is the 'Ten Foot rule;' i.e. if someone comes within ten feet of you, be they customer or employee or manager, you must say hello and smile. Volunteering with your coworkers is becoming popular, and company bowling nights, and potlucks. You're not an employee, you're an important piece of a social work community.
Perhaps this all sounds well and good, but it has come to bother me greatly. It has the taste of collectivism that I can't quite swallow, and every time I walk into work and see my coworkers smiling at me I want to frown (gasp! no!). They greet me as though we've known each other for years, ask me how I am as though they truly care, and jump to my aid at the drop of a hat. In reality, they know absolutely nothing about me, they couldn't care less if I were having the worst day of my life, and only help me because they would be shunned by other family members if they didn't. Their "Have a good day," sounds hollow and echoes my own, not false for lack of passion but false in that I say it a hundred times a day and even when I truly mean it, there is nothing to distinguish it from the hundreds of others i have said and therefore it falls powerless in the air.
They get away with it by creating a social environment of people that actually seem to care about you; so you want their approval and to fit in? How are you accepted? By becoming like them, a demonstrator of nondiscriminatory smiles and less than genuine friendship. You become an expert at small talk and pointless banter. You attend events outside of work because like any human being you crave acceptance from a group of peers. But no one tells you this group is just a collection of people who needed jobs and were sucked into this social environment of non-genuine people just as eager to fit in as you. We're perpetuating a society in which everyone matters and nobody matters.
Does every human soul have value? Absolutely. Do I have to treat every human soul as if we were soul mates? Absolutely not. There lower the requirements for your care, the cheaper your love becomes, and if you grant it to anyone that comes within ten feet, it's worth absolutely nothing. I want my smile to have value and my "How are you?" to ring genuine. But how do we escape this corporate family?