This is purely an issue of politics -- office politics.
This kind of nonsense wasn't part of the job description. Now I find myself asked to navigate some fairly treacherous terrain, land laden with hidden mines where things may just blow up at any moment. I am, and will always be, an impartial observer. My inclination is always to see things from both sides, but for this case, I lean towards minority opinion. The ability of the minority to invite such an overwhelming majority to the contrary displays a skewed ratio of cause and effect. From one small ripple, a tsunami arises, and in that giant wave of water, all sense is washed away.
It is Week 4, and problems seem to spring forth from every crack in this organization. At our Tuesday meeting, after a jolly ol' round of office updates, the president revealed a troubling organizational issue. It has come up before, in a previous meeting, the issue of Club Outreach and Communication. This issue almost reduced the president to tears. The problem is either personal or logistical in nature, but when you're frustrated, it might be hard to tell the two apart. Because I know that I don't have all sides of this story, I'm not backing any horse just yet. I don't like to speculate on the particulars of things I know not about, so I will never declare anything I say as the absolute truth. I can only talk about the things that I have seen and heard for myself. Unlike most people, who spend inordinate amounts of time yapping, I never say anything. The problem with talking is that you don't listen while you flap your lips. The only thing you hear is the sound of your own voice.
So what is the problem here? I'm still not sure that I completely understand, but I'm picking up pieces here and there. Apparently, there's some interoffice feuding. The President's Office and Student Services aren't properly communicating with each other. The veracity of this statement is up for debate, and perhaps owing to my unfamiliarity with most of the people in the office (this is my first year), I can't sense it. I've heard stories to the contrary, but I wonder whether or not such stories are being painted with prejudice. There are many explanations for a rude or curt response from a comrade, and it does no one any favors to assume why without putting in the effort to actually find out why.
The fundamental attribution error describes the phenomenon in which we ignore any possible external factors and simply blame the person's behavior as a part of their personality. After being brushed off by someone, we could either assume "he's a jerk," or "he must be having a bad day." We can never know for sure unless we ask.
Any evidence that supports interoffice feuding is entirely secondhand to me. I heard of the case in which one commissioner went to Ben with an idea that was curtly rejected. It could be erroneous to attribute that curtness to the conflict of Club Outreach and Communication. It could simply be a case of personality, rather than any lingering side effect of Student Services vs. Office of the President. I can't comment on curtness, possible rudeness, back talk, or bristling in the presence of the "enemy." Another piece of this interoffice feuding was a story relayed by the president herself, to all the commissions, that "half of Student Services hates me." I haven't heard any such talk (then again, I don't hang out with the Student Services interns) around the office. I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm just saying I haven't experienced it for myself. Joy and Mareesha also told me that they had experienced some frigidity at Starbucks, where they greeted some Student Services people but were then promptly ignored. Borna, who said he was friends with all the Student Services people, also sees tension.
Even with all these people claiming that there was tension, all of them came from the President's Office. I haven't spoken with anyone from Student Services, but my biggest question is, did they feel the tension too? Does tension exist if only one side feels it? Perhaps I'm being too short-sighted here. Perhaps my peers were able to understand that any seed of tension will quickly grow and escalate into full-blown war, and that they had to take dramatic measures to stem such an event from happening. That would explain why a curt demeanor could suddenly transform into outright hatred, but a leap of logic is required to reach that conclusion.
From the office of the President's side, it sounds like conflict over Club Outreach translated into organizational discord, a sort poisoning of the well. Frustrated and angry, the executives said nasty things about the other office to their subordinates. These nasty things create fictional ulterior motives. Now the Office of the President wants an athletics commission, they want to take over Student Service's job of Club Outreach, and now rumors have spread, and these rumors have changed the interaction between the two offices. I wonder now, who is truly victimized?
If the Student Services people altered their behavior towards members of the President's office because of rumors, then certainly the onus would be on them. Alternatively, the president's story to the commission convinced all of us that Student Services is talking behind our backs, and this news altered our behavior. The question is, who is ignoring who?
This is just my hypothesis, but if I spoke with any of the Student Services people, I predict I will receive stories similar to the those I heard from my co-commissioners. In another scenario, they might not have noticed any tension at all, and it was all imagined on our end.
This is a real-life case of Rashomon, a story fraught with multiple perspectives and contradictions. Is there an objective truth in this web of deception?
Too bad I'll never find out.
