Is it normal for people to have a strong need to "sort out the pecking order" at work?

I understand exactly what you mean. Short answer: yes. There are a$$holes at every job.

Disko Eric wrote:

I understand exactly what you mean. Short answer: yes. There are a$$holes at every job.

It's easy to label them as Aholes, and maybe they are, but it seems like it's more of a need to sort out the hierarchy than simply be an Ahole. Some people just really, really need to know where everyone stands I think.

OR, check your privalege at the door?

xcvxcv wrote:

OR, check your privalege at the door?

Privalege? Is that some kind of designer coat?

I think it is more noticeable now with a lot of companies moving to “flat” structures. The company doesn’t have a formal hierarchy so people just workout what it is. I think it is just human nature. Most noticeable when someone is new or you are new. Same thing happens at the beginning of XC until that first race or killer workout. In the workplace it usually takes a key deliverable or project.

In every social structure you go there will be a hierarchy that will need sorting out. It's part of being a social species. If you don't like it, pray that after you die you come back as a lizard of something.

I mean, yes and no to what folks are saying. OP seems to be the somewhat rare bird not concerned with some of rat race BS. The thing is, many people define themselves by work, a title, or getting credit for this or that. OP might be one of those people who just wants to do some good work and go home. I say this because that’s how I am and time and again I’ve run into threatened people thinking I will take their job or their accolades when really I want neither. I want to do good work, work with fun people, and go home. Many people have a hard time understanding that their own priorities are not necessarily the priorities of others so when they see that someone excels in one of their priority areas, they become fearful and/or antagonistic because without being person xyz or being known for quality abc they struggle with role definition and purpose. It’s why the status quo can continue for so long (that and the routine fear of change)—many are terrified at what they’ll lose without considering what could be gained with a different value system. That said that same value system allows someone like me (and maybe you) to be valued and allowed to be considered a threat in the first place.

That's pretty much how I am. I just want to come to work, do my job well, try to have fun with my coworkers, and go home. I have lots of other things going on in my life and am secure with who I am, so I don't really care if person A is better at our job than I am.

It is interesting though, I worked with a woman for six years who WAS the sort of Queen B figure at work for a long time until there was an expansion and several new people came in (me being one of them). She pretty much immediately started trying to bully and harass the newbies, which backfired because she, like all bullies, is compensating for profound insecurity, AND, she wasn't actually that great at her job. She was Queen B because the other people around her up to that point had been complete idiots. As she lost her unofficial position as Head of the Hierarchy, she became very neurotic and unhappy. The depression and apathy was very obvious, but at different times her mental state drifted almost towards mild psychosis. Not sure if this was due more to her mood or just time ticking by, but she became worse and worse at her job to a degree that was very noticeable to everyone, and everyone talked about how much she had changed over the last several years. It's gotten to the point that she is on the verge of losing her job because she keeps trying to seek out someone, anyone, who is weaker than her that she can bully and assert dominance over, and her ineptitude at doing her actual job has become a real problem. I see it all as a striking example of what can happen to people when they lose whatever little patch of Earth that makes them feel important. Kind of amazing, really.

Yes, it really does come down to, for me, that you have to enjoy the process as much as the outcome. The outcome is simply rarely guaranteed and so you have to eke out joy from the day-to-day and the minutiae. Trite and cliche as that might seem I believe that it is that way for a reason. Philosophers amateur and philosophers by trade have been grappling with mostly the same ideas for thousands of years such that we find a lot of news ways of saying the same thing. The endless postulating can be fun but not at the expense of life along the way.

As one last nod to the experience(s) you’ve noted, I think of the industries shrouded in complexity to convince you of value. Consultant-speak, lawyer-speak, business-speak. It’s all there to confuse people who don’t have the time rather than the intellect in most cases to unwrap it, and to foster this continuing illusion of being better when one can’t actually be content. It’s much like the person who wants to pass you on the highway or a run, simply because you passed them. What really are you feeling as a visceral threat in that moment? Where precisely does it tap into an inadequacy?

Yeah, something I've thought about for a long time is that I think running helps with all of this. Running is a very objective sport compared to most. If you run 4:30 in the mile and someone else runs 4:20, it's cut and dry who is better (or at the very least who was better that day). Besides that, you can quickly look up times of top runners from around the country. You get used to not being the best very, very quickly.

I think, or I guess I know, in my case, this mentality has carried over into my life in general. I'm not really worried about competing against Jenny from work because I know there are many other people out there "better" than both of us, and ultimately being "better" than Jenny, or Ben, or Sally, really doesn't mean anything. On top of all that, like I said, I have a lot of other things going on in my life, and a lot of that has value, so spending a ton of time worrying about drama at work and who likes me and who doesn't seems almost comical. I know for the person I described in my previous post though that she is obsessed with who likes whom, who doesn't like whom, this person said this, that person said that. Her inner world revolves around it. And her mental health has suffered tremendously as a result. It's a good lesson.

Finally, I guess the thing with running too that is different than a lot of sports is simply the concept of PRs. Yes, we compete against others, but largely we're always competing against ourselves. Every competitive runner knows what their PRs are and wants to improve them (while they're still in the competitive period of their life). Improving one's PRs is generally more important to runners than beating your teammate, Jim, or even Craig from your team rival. I remember one race I had at state, an 800m one year, the stars aligned and everyone in the top 8 PRed by over a second, some by over 2 seconds. Everyone was so happy and pleased with the PB that what place people ended up in was kind of secondary. I carry that attitude with me in life.

I've been on teams or running clubs where there was a strong hierarchy and I found it to be pretty toxic. Either I left or didn't hang out with a lot of people.

I've been in academia most of my life and the worst bosses I've had or known about were the ones who felt like they had to establish their superiority over their subordinates. The best ones were just there to help.

Yep. Pretty much all animal species do this is some form.

In humans at slow-mo jobs is usually the unfulfilled insecure people.

I think it depends on the job. I'm in software development, I don't really see it there at all. If someone thinks they aren't being treated fairly or not getting the pay they think they deserve because someone is trying to establish themselves as above them then they'll just leave and easily get a different job where they don't have to deal with it.

People at my company don't give a rat's butt about it, they do their job done and get paid.

Probably depends on the job wrote:

I think it depends on the job. I'm in software development, I don't really see it there at all. If someone thinks they aren't being treated fairly or not getting the pay they think they deserve because someone is trying to establish themselves as above them then they'll just leave and easily get a different job where they don't have to deal with it.

People at my company don't give a rat's butt about it, they do their job done and get paid.

The more the job includes human interactions, the more what OP describes occurs.

Software development is one of the most isolated job (except on some occasions, or when you get into management), it's one of the reason introvert ranks it as one of the most fulfilling.