workingitout - Jezebel

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The Office: Your Job Is Like A Big, Unhappy Family!
Take This Job And Love It
Dating A Coworker: Awesome... Until It's Not
Sporty Spice
Here's A Solution For The Fitness Crisis: Let It Happen

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Lowti
12/04/08

In reply to The Office: Your Job Is Like A Big, Unhappy Family!
Oh noeeees, I'm sleeping with my brother!
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AnnoyingFemaleLeadVoiceover
12/04/08

@Lowti: Ha!
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sequined
12/04/08

In reply to The Office: Your Job Is Like A Big, Unhappy Family!
Yeah I guess if my family is one that gladly welcomes in little new siblings a few times a year and pampers them and coddles them and then, when it's time for them to get benefits, the big matriarch (at the behest of... um... the government) says we have to run this family on 30% less money than we currently do and then all the happy little children are told that not only can we not have benefits, we are cut out of the fucking family forever, then yes. My workplace is a lot like that.
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NewsBunny
12/04/08

In reply to The Office: Your Job Is Like A Big, Unhappy Family!
Second time I'm saying this today:

I would so fuck Dwight.*

*my husband is out of town and I'm loooooooonely
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Ratinski
12/04/08

In reply to The Office: Your Job Is Like A Big, Unhappy Family!
See, my office is more like a bad sitcom.

You have two cute and sarcastic ladies, one young but relatively sane and polite new hire, two crazy British guys plus one crazy Australian who throw stuff at each other and make inappropriate comments until one of the aforementioned sarcastic ladies shut them down, and an awkward boss who has never really gotten over the fact that he was picked on in school and continually tries to be a cool and hip boss and failing miserably.

I should sell this concept to a network. Sara Rue could play me.
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Suffragettestream the Office Hussy
12/04/08

In reply to The Office: Your Job Is Like A Big, Unhappy Family!
I'm tired of people saying that only children are spoilt. I had very strict parents. Lots of people with siblings grew up with far more spoiling
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Princess Leela
12/04/08

@Fashion Police: As a fellow only child, I agree ... but I would make the distinction that I DO think many or most onlies are coddled/overprotected (especially if your mom has been told from the time you were born that it's too dangerous for her to have any more kids! whee!).

I have struggled in previous jobs with feeling threatened by the stereotypical uber-efficient female coworkers, the same age as me, who I perceived to be "competitors". One would think this would mean I had a sister who was always more successful than me, but oddly enough it doesn't. Unless she was the one that never got born.

Totally had the neurotic-oversharey-mom boss, though, at my last job. Trapped beneath her, her sidekick who was directly above me in the food chain (see above) and the prez of the organization who was also momlike but more like the scary brand of mom who you can never, EVER please (maybe more mother-in-law-like?) -- I lasted six months.
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Ailatan
12/04/08

@Fashion Police: I'm tired as well, only children have to put up with a lot of this (I think it's because most people would like that, secretly)
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Understater
12/04/08

In reply to The Office: Your Job Is Like A Big, Unhappy Family!
I concur. My female supervisor smothers me. My much older female co-worker mothers me. My younger, brother-like co-worker receives the brunt of my frustration. I am generally rather defiant at work and I think that has a lot to do with the restrictions that have been imposed on me ala my childhood. In sum: I'm a nutjob.
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Calluna Vulgaris
12/04/08

In reply to The Office: Your Job Is Like A Big, Unhappy Family!
I'm an only child, so I can't say that I hate my co-workers because they remind me of an annoying younger sibling. Maybe I hate my co-workers because they remind me of former annoying co-workers?
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Scout
12/04/08

@CatherineMorland: maybe you just hate the "co" as in "cooperation & diplomacy".

I'm an only child and will admit that I always think my way is the most viable, cost-effective and obvious way available....any dissent is taken with a scowl and muttering underneath my breath Lisa Simpson-style "Stupid, stupid, stupid" he he
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Calluna Vulgaris
12/04/08

@Scout: Yeah, that's sounds pretty accurate. Although I also think that a product of my only child-ness has been a serious lack of competitiveness. I've never played any team sport and just can't ever muster up the energy to even care about a card game. My friend, on the other hand, is one of six girls and she freaks out if you beat her to the top of the stairs.
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Scout
12/04/08

@CatherineMorland: HA! beat her to the top of the stairs 'tis amusing

Sadly, I have a competitive streak - I guess it comes from years of being alone and telling myself I was the best and brightest, without any real "competition" in the way of siblings. I may treat everyone as "siblings" then. eek

but ha ha anyway : )
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lizzzz
12/04/08

In reply to The Office: Your Job Is Like A Big, Unhappy Family!
Oh crappy science, how intuitively interesting you can be. GIVE ME DATA, OR GIVE ME DEATH!!!
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badmutha
12/04/08

In reply to The Office: Your Job Is Like A Big, Unhappy Family!
It seems there is always so old woman at the office who hates me. Does this reflect my issues that I had with my Mother as a teen, or is there a constant supply of hateful old ladies who resent younger women? Tough to know for sure.
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Cerridwen
12/04/08

In reply to The Office: Your Job Is Like A Big, Unhappy Family!
My work is nothing like my family. Partly because I don't have someone in my family who is a hateful, self-pitying, Cassandra-complex-having, antagonistic, aggressive vortex of negative, bitter energy. (Yeah, I'm literally listening to her bitchin' while I type this...I think I need to go take my lunch break to get away from the noise. Or down some Extra Strength Tylenol.) I don't dislike this woman because I have Mommy issues. I dislike her because she sucks.
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Blueberry26
12/04/08

In reply to The Office: Your Job Is Like A Big, Unhappy Family!
I'm the youngest, and I'm terrified of change and getting fired. come to think of it, though, when I was little I was always scared my mom would have another baby and I would be replaced as the favorite. very interesting ...
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robot ninja spy
12/04/08

@Blueberry26: I'm the opposite; I'm the youngest and I love change and while I'm terrified of being fired in this economy, the threat of it is something I never got too bent out of shape over because I thought of it as a chance to be somewhere new and better.
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IndyPRPrincess
12/04/08

In reply to The Office: Your Job Is Like A Big, Unhappy Family!
Does that mean I want to make out with my brother in a supply closet?
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prestocaro fears the culling
12/04/08

@IndyPRPrincess: whoa. you guys aren't related, right? so it's only like making out with your STEPbrother.
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Alys Brangwin has a huge talent
12/04/08

In reply to The Office: Your Job Is Like A Big, Unhappy Family!
But I love my family and hate my boss! My boss is the evil one. Are we all just the victims of her displaced anger? Why does it have to be us?
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morninggloria
12/04/08

In reply to The Office: Your Job Is Like A Big, Unhappy Family!
If workplace relationships mirror family relationships, then my family relationship must have been thus:

I was by far the youngest of dozens and dozens of men who sort of act like assholes most of the time, but because I am young and female they mostly spend the day flirting with me and egging me on to see what witty reply I will come up with. Additionally, the parental units trust me with very sensitive documents regarding the fiscal health of the immediate family and all of its friends and everyone with whom it occasionally exchanges written correspondence. My family gets sued a lot. A lot of people give my family money. My family is one of an extremely wide global network of extended families and some branches of the extended family were a little irresponsible when constructing subprime mortgage backed securities while other participated in the unregulated and dangerous CDS market. The combination of these two rogue branches of the family caused us to be purchased by another, bigger family. Somehow my family has clients, and whenever the clients come in to the... house... they ask me what is wrong with the entire extended family, as if I would have direct personal access to our patriarch in New York City or any of our family trading desks. I tell them, I'm sorry, I don't know. I am but the youngest daughter of a dysfunctional male-dominated and cocaine addled industry.
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vamusical
12/04/08

@morninggloria: I can add: My brother has never asked me how frequently I douche. so no, my coworkers are NOT like my family.
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Sukie in the Graveyard
12/04/08

@morninggloria: are we living in the same house? Am I hiding in the attic or something?

Cause, all metaphors aside, you do what I do?
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morninggloria
12/04/08

@Sukie in the Graveyard: If what you do is swing from the lower rungs of management at a branch of a retail wealth management office of a large financial services firm, then yes.
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Sukie in the Graveyard
12/04/08

@morninggloria: scratch off retail wealth management office and replace with engineering and design firm bent on taking over the world through wind domination and sustainable parks and we're one in the same :)

otherwise - we do the same thing.
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NewsBunny
12/04/08

@morninggloria: You young kids have it easy. I was the oldest. I was chained to my bed until I went to college; youngest sister, they didn't care if she didn't come home for WEEKS.
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Penny
12/04/08

In reply to The Office: Your Job Is Like A Big, Unhappy Family!
My boss is more like my super pervy drunk older sister.
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NewsBunny
12/04/08

@Archetype: Is her name Connie? Because that's my boss.
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