Fraternization in the Cube

*Team Building*

I had a coworker who recently departed from the organization say to me, after reading my myspace page, that she felt she was just now getting to know me. There were quite a few things about me that she didn’t know i.e. that I was an artist, that I think I’m sexy, that I’m in a relationship. Basically she knew nothing about me, which leads me to think about fraternization at work and whats the cost. I believe in the separation of work, social and personal life. I don’t necessarily want my work life spilling into my social life. I don’t necessarily want to see the people I spend 40 hours a week with for any more time than that. I don’t even see my sig (significant other) that much. I also feel that because there is such a separation of work and social life, that I cant be who I really am in front of work folks or at the office. Since I work in a place that doesn’t represent me, my interests, or anything that I stand for, I feel like I have to hide how I truly am because the real Eysqueen is the exact opposite of the organization she works for. If my org were a box, I’d be an oblong bullet shredding the foundation and taking no prisoners. I don’t feel that the two personas can coexist.

I keep myself hidden from coworkers because I don’t want the worlds colliding. I only become cool with my coworkers when one of us leaves the org and I don’t have to see them 40 hours a week. I actually really liked this particular coworker too, I guess that’s why I found her on myspace and added her to my friends list, yes she has passed being just a coworker and is now a friend.

There is an exception to the rule though, that I think my cohort can tell you about:

Ok, Naturally Alise on the 1's and 2's. I have a coworker right now that is the bestest work-buddy in the world. To protect the guilty innocent we will just call him Angry Black Man (ABM). I will have been working at my job for 4 years come January and ABM and I never even spoke to each other until the end of last year. The reason why.... well there are a couple of them. First, he thought I was a henchman for "The Man" because I was in management, and secondly, I probably seemed pretty lame because of my whole wack ass sheep get-up. We ended up randomly talking one day about music and from there built a friendship because we had no idea we had so much in common (both artists, both angry, both pretty damn cool, both ready to leave this god forsaken prison place).... In fact, I think this is the only coworker that has seen me do my spoken word and read my poetry .... All of this to say, you can do the workplace fraternization thing if you have been somewhere for a while and have thoroughly scoped out everyone and everything, because the man is always on the prowl and the machine never stops running.... oh you don't know about the machine? good, keep it that way! By the way, ABM is also in on Operation Shawshank, so look for his guest blog any day now, *ahem*.... Oh and I didn't forget about the Operation Shawshank to escape the cube, but you know I gotta play it cool and shit..... Naturally Alise out...