DO YOU WANT THE BLUE PILL OR THE RED ONE?BOTH??
Where I work,I am blessed/cursed with working with some friends...I hold most of the other employees in high regard and occasionally socialize away from work with them all.
There are a few that are just co-workers.
The problem is the ones I'm closest to...these are the guys that got me the job in the first place and the owner of the company.
Back in the social worker days I was friends with peers and subordinates...hell I even slept with a few of them and lived with one for 8 years...but,being social workers,we had a twisted kind of bond that allowed us to be brutally honest with each other in the name of the job,treating the patient.We also had the uncanny ability to separate our own less than moral behavior from the morals we espoused to our patients,the details of which I won't go into...it was do what I say,not what I do,and what I do when I'm not here is none of your business,your business is why are you here?and what do you need to do to get back in the world and start acting like I do when I'm not here.It was done in a honest,open way,in front of everyone else...a critique presented in the spirit of strengthening the team.We were all focused on one goal,the maintenance of a therapeutic milieu.Critiques were not taken personally,as a rule,and if they were it was sorted out right away.
The people I work with now are NOT social workers,and have a rudimentary concept of what it means to be a team player. You have to watch what you say.The politics are different.
The farther away I get from what I did back in the day,the more confused I get.I can't be honest anymore without wondering if it's gonna come back and bite me on the ass,under any circumstance.
Back in the day,there was a clear code of conduct...there are no clear parameters anymore...I am frequently reminded of that scene from Apocalypse Now where captain willard asks the wild eyed grunt in the trench "who's in charge here soldier"? And the reply is a manic "Ain't you"?!
Responsibility and accountability is a game of hot potato...I try to set an example by owning up to my mistakes,and when I do,it's almost like I've ruined the game.If I can't legitimately point to someone else,I don't.And on the occasions when I can and do,I always get a sick feeling about doing it .
Back in the day,loyalty and trust was the foundation...today they feel more like shifting fields,changing everyday given the turf we find ourselves deployed on.
And I ask myself which experience is the real experience?It's the same game...only the rules are different somehow,and even after 6 years in this job I still haven't lost my memory of how it was,back in the day.
And I'm beginning to realize,that, while we were honest with each other,what we did was artificial , a cartoon of real life. A construct of the world, as seen through the eyes of a bunch of people with degrees in psychology imposing this reality on people who came from the real world...the one I'm in now.
Learning to be careful is hard.