I'm two months fresh out of college. No. I'm three months fresh out of college.
I'm working at an advertising agency in the Houston area. From the three weeks I've spent here, thus far, I can gather a few a things: agency life from one to the next is like night and day, people are willing to help other people, and office politics are...interesting.
I don't mean interesting the same way I mean when I say, "Ted Bundy was an 'interesting' guy." I mean...interesting. After all, politics are a cultural phenomena. There's no "director of office politics" position within agencies - politics aren't tangible.
This isn't my first rodeo. I've worked at another advertising agency in the Austin area as well. That job and my current one both had "interesting" office politics. The first day of work is exciting: you have butterflies in your stomach, everyone's nice to you, and your forearms typically smell like lime juice.
After that, you start to observe the inner-workings of the space you're in. You begin to gather tidbits of information by watching other people interact. Things like: "Jerry must think bathing daily is a nuisance/optional." Or "Suzy probably has a phallus, and it's probably really big." And of course, "I can't wait till Friday so I can shove as much booze into my gullet as humanly possible," which seems to be an understood/not-spoken-of universal in the agencies I've worked in.
The biggest contributor to office politics (and the most interesting facet of them) is this - 9 to 5 folks are expected to have two personas: their white collar self, and their everyday self. I'm curious to know who came up with the idea of "being professional." My theory, is that somebody a loooong time ago, came to work acting like a damn bigot, and forever ruined it for the rest of us. To my demise, though, not everybody's childhood is blessed with a white picket fence in the sterile, 'ol U.S of A.
I worry that office politics may keep a few (unfortunate few) from being able to let down their guard and really know the people they'll be spending A LOT of their time with. Which is why I appreciate being a part of the industry I'm working in...
My cohorts and I are in a constant battle to determine who enjoys fermented beverages the most, which leads to some pretty interesting camaraderie-building "exercises."
