Recently a few hundred former co-workers all joined in for a Facebook gathering-reunion of sorts. It is nice to catch up with some old colleagues and chew the proverbial cud, sharing stories of our shared experiences of Silicon Valley in the 1990s. Like any socially networked gathering it is always a fine line distinguishing between the forming-storming-norming conduct and the herd behavior. We all have shared stories that each of us have remembered, and in some aspects re-imagined in our own suitable way over the course of the decade and a half of living that have occurred since. Each of us will take away and recall it as our brain has stored it.
One of the interesting threads of discussion in the online quilting bee is regarding hostility in the workplace. One of the trending topics is the constant use of profanity; shouting and intimidation that were quite prevalent amongst certain executives and upper management. Keep in mind this was the 1990s well before the digital gadgets that we all carry today, so any burden of proof was simply hearsay. There were no mechanisms, like blackberries, smart-phones or discreet recording devices readily at your disposal to capture these lapses in reason moments.
Now some of you reading this may think perhaps the person deserved a verbal enema, so let’s take this up a level and talk in some higher generalities. There are a handful of completely over the top situations that did occur in the workplace, and they can be crosschecked across numerous people that I shared a cubical farm with. They may seem completely absurd and so insane that even the TV show “The Office” would most likely never even think of scripting an episode.