It’s interesting how, the last time you walk out of the doors of your high school, you expect that somehow all of that pettiness and immaturity that you experienced, the cliqueness and the put-downs, will somehow remain contained within the walls of that school. That as you enter your adult life, you’ll meet people who approach situations with fair rationality.
Well, the truth of the matter is that those people leave the walls of that school, too; they don’t simply remain within them or evaporate into thin air. They get older, they find jobs—just like you do. And while some of them will experience growth and learn tools for self-reflection, a great many won’t and will be perpetually stuck at the same level they were at in high school.
Unfortunately, they have a tendency to drag others down to their level, and sure enough, when you enter certain spaces, you will find yourself faced with those all-too-familiar old feelings of shame and not belonging.
When this employee resisted joining in with the gossiping of her supervisor and another member of her team, she found herself instead the target, with the pair sending very obvious messages to each other and making passive-aggressive comments at her expense. Luckily, the employee was able to get herself moved to another team without things getting too messy, but there are plenty of instances in the workplace where this type of thing would quickly escalate into an issue with HR.
