I came here for the money
2022 05 08 | journal
I was watching something earlier about the culture shock an American woman felt when she started working in England, about the vast differences between work cultures, attitudes on work/life balance, etc.
The brief time I spent working for Target while it was here exposed me to American-style icebreaker/team building activities - and, thinking back, some of things an old friend told me when she started working for WalMart when they first came here years ago - things I always found expectantly demanding and verging on the uncomfortably invasive. The current state of team mentality in the workplace always struck me as a tool by which to further exploit you, to coerce you, to exploit your time via the guilt of pretended relationship.
I don't know about them, but I go to work to get money, not to make friends. I certainly am not averse to getting along with my workmates, but I like to keep a distance between work life and personal life. When I was using Facebook much more, for example, I would not (and still won't) add workmates to my account. That sort of thing can bite you in the ass.
I remember having to do one of those icebreaker activities at a call centre years ago. “If you were a fruit, what would you be and why?” Something like that. What is this? Party games? I'm not going to remember what anyone said. I don't like forced chumminess in any situation. I don't care to have my life curated either.