politics

politics comes in many forms there are the questions of relationships between nations: the making and maintaining of treaties and accords. how does the state relate to its citizens? does it encourage individualism or collectivism, does it allow freedoms or is it authoritarian. does the state seek and maintain peace or is it imperialistic. for some this is the most important form of politics as it is a matter of life and death for us all.
well they are wrong.

then there is gender politics, sometimes seen as being the battle of the sexes, but it is a bit more than that. gender politics covers more than just equality of the sexes, it looks at how women are represented in the media, how we are socialised into accepting certain sexual stereotypes and how these stereotypes continue. it is about definitions of beauty, definitions of what is acceptable behaviour from each of the sexes. it covers work, media, porn, sex, love, fashion and much more. gender politics affect us all and for that reason many argue that the study of gender politics is the most crucial area of modern life.
need i tell you how wrong they are?

the most important form of politics is of course office politics. each and every day it affects us all. no matter what size your office is there will be conflict, there will be tension, there will be cliques, there will be outsiders, and there will be leaders and followers. office politics is about influence, pecking orders and domination. most importantly it is about keeping abreast of how these things change, because if office politics is one thing then it is fluid. one day you are top of the heap and then the next day people don’t want to talk to you.
in order to know where you stand in the office you have to be able to read the signs, decipher the clues, and comprehend the code.

i work in a small office and every day there seems to be a new event that is like a seismic shift in the various delicately balanced alliances that keep the place working smoothly. perhaps it was an off hand comment, a joke that misfired, an unintended slight.
all of which make the workplace one of the most dangerous places to be in the whole wide world. sometimes solving the problems of the middle east would be easier to do than to navigate your way through the traps and cul-de-sacs of the maze of office politics.
the most recent battle to break out in the office has me smiling and giggling like a loon because of the stupidity of it. a small joke, admittedly only funny to two people, has been elevated to the level of an insult to every one of your ancestors, and the only way the insult can be wiped out is by a duel to the death. in one bad joke tension goes from being a like a fine mist to resembling a nuclear winter.

this kind of office dynamic is one of the reasons i love my job. if i won the lottery rollover jackpot tomorrow i would still go into work every day just for more the shenanigans of office politics.
i love it.

(there is the other great office tradition: the office secret. you know the thing i am talking about. there you are having a chat with someone when they turn around and tell you something and tell you they are telling you in strictest confidence. this is normally shorthand for “i have told several people exactly the same thing”. the special thing about the office secret is that it is never meant to be secret it is designed to get out be told to all and sundry. a few days ago i was told an office secret. in this case it came from the horses mouth. i filed it away and ignored it, as i knew he would tell the “secret” to others.
and he did.
today someone was about to tell me the “secret”, but i had to promise not to tell anyone – even though they had heard it from someone who was not the person involved in the “secret”.
i felt guilty that i didn’t pretend not to know.
i ruined the fun of the office secret.

these are the reasons i work.