There are lots of things that I expected when I first started working in an office. The endless tea runs (which I avoid like the plague). The pointless meetings. The daily battle not to go to town to buy lunch when you have a perfectly good sandwich sitting on your bag.
What I was not expecting, however, was the endless socialising.
I don’t mean genuine socialising - I’m all for getting on with your co-workers and even befriending them outside of the office if you’re lucky enough to work with people who don’t make you want to stab yourself in the eye with a pencil. What I’m not for, however, is forced socialising. Or ‘Organised Jollity’, as I like to call it.
Unfortunately, I appear to be in the minority.
“I don’t need to go for monthly drinks with Barry from Finance to bond with my colleagues.”
See, companies have decided that the best way to attract Cool Millennial Talent is to have lots of Cool Millennial Socials full of quirky and ‘off the wall’ activities.
I get the principle, I do. Colleagues that have fun together work better together. We spend so much time at work (more time than with our families, supposedly) that it makes sense to try and get on with our coworkers
But I don’t need to go for monthly drinks with Barry from Finance to bond with my colleagues.
Organising Staff Jollies would be fine if companies would accept that some people just don’t want to spend more time than they absolutely have to with the people they work with. If they just let those of us that are miserable b*stards be miserable b*stards. But they don’t.
“It’s no longer enough to turn up every morning, do your job, and go home.”
Oh sure, the monthly night out isn’t compulsory, but if you choose not to go you’re be met with cries of ‘OH you’re so BORING!’ or ‘Come on, it’ll be a LAUGH’. What’s more, you quickly realise that the people who end up staying out til 5am doing shots with the CEO always end up being the ones fast tracked for a promotion or a pay rise.
Companies expect so much of their workers nowadays. It’s no longer enough to turn up every morning, do your job, and go home. You have to ‘give 110%’ at all times. You have to ‘go above and beyond’. You have to prepared to do things that are beyond your job description, because ‘successful people never say ‘that’s not my job’’ (except, I’m pretty damn sure if you asked most CEOs to clear the kitchen, they’d say ‘that’s not my job’ and fire you).
And now, apparently, you have to give them your social life too.
“Why am I less hardworking because I refuse to do more than my job without being compensated?”
But why? Why am I lesser because I’d rather go home at 5:30pm on the dot, every single day? Why am I less hardworking because I refuse to do more than my job without being compensated? Why am I less valuable to the company because I don’t buy into the ~corporate culture~ that seems to centre more on drinking and less on actual culture?
Maybe I’m just grumpy. Maybe I’m destined to never progress beyond my entry-level job. But if the alternative is dedicating my every waking moment to some corporate machine that thinks the way to buy my loyalty is to ply me with beer, then I think I’m okay with that.
