Middle school

I have written some about the new office environment, which is great. We are no longer embargoed from talking with government and other stakeholders. This is so refreshing, and it makes work so much better.

However, the social dynamic at the office is worse than before. In the old team, people either hung out with one or two other people, or invited everyone to do something. It was a very pleasant office dynamic, no social jockeying, no office politics, no gossip, just pleasant.

As you may remember, most of the St. Bernard and New Orleans teams were sent home and replaced by new members from other teams. Just two people from the original 20 St. Bernard team members were left. We were told that they cherry picked the best team members from all the teams to make the new St. Bernard. The truth is that most of the new team members were from the capital (central planning office) and they were just members of a social clique. One member who was chosen to stay was our liaison and she was universally disliked by every team member she worked with.

In any case, the new St. Bernard team is made up almost entirely of people from the mothership office from the capital. The new dynamic is cliquey and exclusive. For instance, three quarters of the team will go out to dinner. If someone that is not a member of the cool-kid club asked a member what they were doing, they would say something like, “I have plans, I am going out,” but would not invite the non cool-kid club member. If we have to drive somewhere, the cool kids only go with each other. Same for going out to lunch.

Choosing people to stay because they are a member of a social clique is a disservice to the work we are trying to do here and an insult to all the highly qualified team members that were sent home.