Prevailing mental conditions
Oct. 5th, 2011 07:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bktheirregularOnce upon a time, I thought the attitude might have been imprinted on people in the army: the only-look-out-for-yourself, do-the-minimum-to-get-by, leave-the-mess-for-the-next-guy attitude. I certainly saw it enough during my conscription term.
Not that the idea had been created in the army, mind you, but that it was a natural place for that corrosive attitude to be passed on to the next generation, since every male in the country had to go through basic training.
I mentioned this theory to a female colleague, once I was out of the army and back at work.
"It doesn't explain why women have the same attitude," she said.
She had a point.
Oddly enough, women are heavily represented in the legal profession here in Greece; I'm in a fairly large office, and the women outnumber the men here by something like two to one.
The kitchen sink's still overflowing with dirty dishes after lunch, to the point where it's almost a gymnastic trick to clean a fork.
(I can't think of an intermediate example at the moment to fulfil the Rule of Three.)
And all too often, conversations will take place over speakerphones. That in itself isn't the problem; the problem is that the speakerphones will be turned up very loud, the people will be shouting, and the doors to the offices will be wide open.
It's annoying and distracting, and pervasive, all the way up to the senior-partner level. Maybe it's just me, stranger in a strange homeland, still not adjusted to The Way Things Are Done Here. But sometimes the only way I can concentrate is to shove the earbuds deep into my ears and crank up some music.
And it sometimes feels like the same attitude that manifests in the marches in the streets, or even in traffic patterns sometimes. Every man for himself. Unless, of course, you're in a chosen group. If you're not one of US, then you can go suck vacuum.
Something like that.
I notice I've been out of touch here for something like three weeks. Sorry for the inanity.
Not that the idea had been created in the army, mind you, but that it was a natural place for that corrosive attitude to be passed on to the next generation, since every male in the country had to go through basic training.
I mentioned this theory to a female colleague, once I was out of the army and back at work.
"It doesn't explain why women have the same attitude," she said.
She had a point.
Oddly enough, women are heavily represented in the legal profession here in Greece; I'm in a fairly large office, and the women outnumber the men here by something like two to one.
The kitchen sink's still overflowing with dirty dishes after lunch, to the point where it's almost a gymnastic trick to clean a fork.
(I can't think of an intermediate example at the moment to fulfil the Rule of Three.)
And all too often, conversations will take place over speakerphones. That in itself isn't the problem; the problem is that the speakerphones will be turned up very loud, the people will be shouting, and the doors to the offices will be wide open.
It's annoying and distracting, and pervasive, all the way up to the senior-partner level. Maybe it's just me, stranger in a strange homeland, still not adjusted to The Way Things Are Done Here. But sometimes the only way I can concentrate is to shove the earbuds deep into my ears and crank up some music.
And it sometimes feels like the same attitude that manifests in the marches in the streets, or even in traffic patterns sometimes. Every man for himself. Unless, of course, you're in a chosen group. If you're not one of US, then you can go suck vacuum.
Something like that.
I notice I've been out of touch here for something like three weeks. Sorry for the inanity.