I should really post more.
Mar. 14th, 2013 07:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bktheirregularJust realized I've gone a month without a post. Then again, not too much in the way of excitement here - the protests seem to have died down from years gone by, and the worst of the psychodynamics is closer to home.
Well, the office, anyway.
There are too many people around whose standard mode of communication is "belligerent hollering", and my tolerance for that sort of thing has its limits. I've taken to cranking up the sound on my iPod again to create a noise buffer against the shouting.
Came to the point where I was trying to look up a certain word, and coming up dry, asking one of my office-mates for help ... and one of the senior partners, who I've had to tune out as a matter of course lest I blow a gasket, shouted an answer at me from her office, unbidden.
And I missed it.
So now it's almost like I'm back in the situation I was in while conscripted in the army: 100% concentration on everything everyone says, translation circuit on all the time, no chance to catch a breather. Because this same person has a habit of shouting for subordinates like calling in a dog to be chastised - and will ream out subordinates publicly, even while there's a conference call blaring on speakerphone at the same time, so she's got to scream to be heard over the loud background chatter.
And a week without such an incident is a rarity.
This is common to Greek society, I'm told. It's on the TV, on the radio, on the street, in the Parliament, everywhere.
This is an old society, which has somehow survived a long time.
So why does it feel to me like the entire society's dropped into the septic tank?
Well, the office, anyway.
There are too many people around whose standard mode of communication is "belligerent hollering", and my tolerance for that sort of thing has its limits. I've taken to cranking up the sound on my iPod again to create a noise buffer against the shouting.
Came to the point where I was trying to look up a certain word, and coming up dry, asking one of my office-mates for help ... and one of the senior partners, who I've had to tune out as a matter of course lest I blow a gasket, shouted an answer at me from her office, unbidden.
And I missed it.
So now it's almost like I'm back in the situation I was in while conscripted in the army: 100% concentration on everything everyone says, translation circuit on all the time, no chance to catch a breather. Because this same person has a habit of shouting for subordinates like calling in a dog to be chastised - and will ream out subordinates publicly, even while there's a conference call blaring on speakerphone at the same time, so she's got to scream to be heard over the loud background chatter.
And a week without such an incident is a rarity.
This is common to Greek society, I'm told. It's on the TV, on the radio, on the street, in the Parliament, everywhere.
This is an old society, which has somehow survived a long time.
So why does it feel to me like the entire society's dropped into the septic tank?
