I thought about using a throwaway for this, but whatever, nobody that this applies to will read it anyways. The culture at my current job has become just downright hilarious to me. Everyone is so socially distant and awkward.

There's somewhat of a culture of sucking up to the boss, using certain vocabulary, and all that. But then there's kind of a "currency" around the office in which everyone is trying to pile up and keep track of the mistakes of others. The more that you can hold over someone's head, the more of that currency you have. And it only trickles downward as no one has the cajones to pull that on a supervisor and let them know how many times they've screwed up.

Then of course there's the types that try to sound as verbose and long winded as possible that just do it in order to make themselves sound as important as possible. Meetings, conversations, and tasks take exponentially longer to accomplish because everyone has to get a word in and try to sound smarter than the last guy. And of course they have to use that "currency" too in order to make their contributions more valuable than the last screwup.

Plus everything is so damn awkward. For example, there's a big break room where everyone has lunch. All of the production and front office people come in to eat, usually about two dozen people at a time. No one talks to each other. At all. Everyone just reads a book or stares at their phone. I tried to strike up a conversation once and I was looked at as if I was a leper. After that I kind of just took my lunch to my office if I didn't go out. But if I do go out, I notice there are another dozen or so people that just go out to their car and sit there for a half hour or so. Around a dozen cars are just sitting in the parking lot on and running, while people with empty stares just sit there vacantly. It's so weird.

I've personally completely checked out of it. The average age of this office has to be at least 50, and I've just come to terms with the fact that this is just an office, and it's never going to be a place where I'll socially fit in. There's so much Old Man Politics around the office and I just keep to myself and stay out of it.