I am a straight arrow. What about you?

Wondering what the title is all about? During workshop 7 on Corporate Politics, we were supposed to do a small test on political tendencies. It turned out that there were one or two of us who were company politicians and survivalist, while the rest were straight arrows like me. By ‘the rest’, I mean about three of us (mostly girls) as there were only six students in that make-up workshop. Sad much?

Others would not perceive a straight arrow as being an office politician. A Straight Arrow believes fundamentally that most people are honest, hard working, and trustworthy. A Straight Arrow’s favourite career advancement strategy is to display job competence. However, we all know that it is not that easy.

What I have learnt in Corporate Politics taught me that the ‘real world’ is not all nice and fairytale like, well, at least it is not as perfect as I thought it was. I used to think that everyone would be honest with each other and that if you are nice to someone, your kindness will be repaid. So far, for all the part-time and volunteering work I have been involved, almost everyone was nice and helpful to me. Almost. Apparently, that is only true when you are of no threat to anyone’s salary. In the real-real world, no such luck.

In this topic, the most basic that I have learnt is to make as many people like you as possible. That includes (and especially) your boss.

There is also a scary list of familiar acts by people who play politics in the office. There are people who backstabs in front of the boss, but act as your best of friends in front of everyone else. Then there is this group of people who gets you into deep trouble simply just because their hobby is to gossip. A tutor used to teach me from her experience, the meaning of CYA – cover your *buttocks*, which I find is more than true.

As I have said, I have had some almost-real-world experience. Some of the behaviours of corporate politicians, mentioned in the notes and during the workshop, actually apply in some of my experience. The result of the test for political tendency was also quite true for me. I am almost, always the victim of the politics.

This lesson is definitely beneficial for me. I think I will need to learn to trust myself more than trusting others. Perhaps learn about one’s personality, backgrounds and goals before making good friends with her. That way, I may not be backstabbed as much.

I just have so much more to learn about this topic.