Cliques
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
I had lunch with some of the guys today. All of them were once in the military and/or a JAG and/or a prosecutor. It’s been a while since I’ve been in varying social situations, I realized. Like in college, you can get the sense of what it’s like to be around certain types of people pretty easily due to the endless array of social events. In law school, people naturally group themselves by age (single, married, with kids, second career) or interests (bars, ultimate frisbee, coffee shops). People are still willing to make friends, but are generally less open.
In non-academic environments, social options are quite limited. When I was working at my old firm, no one would really go out to lunch together. The only time we’d all sit and eat together was at the weekly meetings, and those were stilted with all the senior partners there. Not counting work-related meetings, I probably interacted more with my office plant than with most of the attorneys there. That left Dave on weeknights and church on weekends, both offering very rare opportunities to meet and interact with new people or acquaintances.
Now that I’m working at a big office, with a more diverse population, there are a lot of people I could get to know. Yet I noticed people, again, are grouping themselves by certain categories. It’s about comfort level. Today I had lunch with the former JAG guys – aggressive, eager to litigate and win cases. I did not participate in the conversation and did not feel particularly encouraged to. Tomorrow I’ll probably go back to the Girls’ Room – late twenties/early thirties chatty women whose conversation bounces at lightning speed from the latest asylum fraud trends to traumatic childhood memories to the pleasures of Godiva hot chocolate. I don’t talk much there either, but the discussions are more interesting to me. While leaving the restaurant today, I noticed a small group of the more middle-aged women eating together. The list goes on.
I don’t like the word “clique” because it makes me think of high school and always being on the outside looking in. But when one of the new attorneys joked that we should get the new attorneys together and form our own clique, it made me think. In this work environment, who do I gel with best? The Christians, the Asians, the young marrieds, the inexperienced, the Orange County commuters, the introverts? In all these categories, I can already think of one person who I don’t click with, despite the superficial similarities. I just hope I’ll be able to find one or two good friends here.
(On the bright side, my mentor fits 3 of the above categories and is really helpful. And we saw Wolfgang Puck at lunch today. Makes sense, since we were eating at one of his restaurants, Wolfgang Puck Gourmet Express.)
The one thing I’ve noticed is everyone is crazy; befriending people at work is a bad idea.
Oh dang…Is that from personal experience?
I wish I didn’t but it’s true. I’ve stopped hanging out with people at work. It’s so strange because co-workers can seem cool or even good workers, but once you see them outside of work, something changes and the beast comes out. Caution, caution, caution.
On the other hand, I’ve had good experiences… you just have to be with the right people and not necessarily in the right environment. Even when things were rocky at work, people could maintain positive links afterwards in my five years out of school. Of course you have to exercise judgment about particular things like what you will gossip amount so there’s a level of responsibility on your part too.
You can have all the good judgment in the world, but it does not mean that they will and that can impact your work situation. I’m not saying good experiences can’t happen, just be wary.
Hm. I would imagine it’s worse in environments where it’s important that everyone is doing their part. Like in my office, each attorney relies on the timely and accurate legal analysis of others. And the office set-up makes a difference too. We each have our own office, while in other settings, people might share offices or even the same desk.
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