oregano June 26, 2009

Oregano. I saw this comic on my daily trip through the internet and I immediately recognized an employee I knew very well.

Even though we’ll never freely admit it, we’re just as bad as adults as we were in high school. We all join cliques, even at work, and cliques can be dangerous. Sometimes. Especially if the company is undergoing turmoil.

But cliques can be simpler than that. Off the top of my head, for example, I can name several cliques at CorporateSpeak:

• Athletes — the ones who form teams and join leagues.
• Golfers — the ones who play golf, or watch it whenever it’s on TV.
• Eaters — the ones who get together every day to go out and have lunch.
• Churchers — the ones who fervently believe in their religion of choice and incorporate it into all of their discussions*.
• Technicians — the IT crowd.

And then there’s people like Oregano. Oregano is a ubiquitous seasoning that goes on a lot of food, but the food would likely be just as good without it. It’s larger than salt crystals or ground pepper, and it often comes in a rounder container**. And a lot of people either don’t notice it’s in there or actively try to avoid it.

Cliques avoid Oregano, no matter how hard Oregano tries to be part of the group. Really, that’s all Oregano wants: to make friends at the office. To join the softball team, or play some golf, or find someone to have lunch with, or even talk religion with. But no one invites Oregano to join, and when Oregano manages to tag along, it usually feels like a third (or fourth, or fifth, or eleventh) wheel.

Cliques made up of adults have an unfortunate tendency to make people feel like they don’t belong and never will. At least in high school teenagers have the knowledge that they’ll be going off to college and, if they’re not popular, they can start over with new people in a new place. But once you’re in the work world, there’s nowhere to go, especially in this economy.

Oregano these days is a very depressed seasoning. You’ll find it at its desk during lunch breaks, eating leftovers and surfing the net because no one wants to invite Oregano to be part of anything, and like I said, when Oregano tries, the try is always unsuccessful. And one more thing that makes Oregano feel even less accepted: when Oregano tries to start a clique, no one joins.

* You may have seen them on Facebook, saying how unhappy they are with work but confident that their deity of choice (usually God) will somehow show them the way. You will probably be annoyed every time you read one of their status messages.

** Remember I said that when I introduce “Fat Guy Week”, coming July 6.