9 to 5

When you work in a corporate setting there are just some things that you have to learn to accept... or ignore. For example, no matter where you go, and regardless of what industry you work in, there will always be one coworker who drives you nuts! For me there are several-but then again, I am judgmental.

Also, you can be sure that some time along the way you will collide head on with some sort of nonsensical office politics-like the time I told a supervisor that even though I know my penmanship IS artistic, I wouldn't be able to fill out the name field of some departmental reward certificates for her because I was working under a career making/breaking deadline-she smiled and said she understood only to later dock me performance points on my annual review.

Oh that reminds me of another point, most likely you won't like one of your supervisors.......

That all aside, today I am reminded of yet another universal office happenstance many of you many have already encountered: team building activities.

Earlier this year the entire company was required to schedule two hours out of their day to take extensive personality tests. While we were assured the results of said tests would not be used against us should we be pulled into any disciplinary meetings with H.R., it would be a great tool for the directors to better manage our talents......

Having recently embarked on my own journey towards self-discovery through internet personality quizzes (See Tickle.com's "Which potato chip are you?" quiz) I had no problem with this activity. What I DID have a problem with came several weeks later when we all had to reconvene and TALK about our results and how we FELT about them.

I tried to mentally escape to a happy place in my mind as one of my more unattractive coworkers launched into a ten minute diatribe detailing her life's seemingly futile progression before she took the test-and how prior to its results, she had never fully understood why she got so maddeningly frustrated when things didn't go her way.

My brother Golden Boy just entered the corporate work force, my advice to him was this:

"You'll probably dislike most of the people you work with, so it's really important to bring headphones to work as often as you are allowed."