I found that when I was in the best way to "defeat" the little back-biting rumor mill and keep everyone from screwing with me (and it didn't always work) was to elevate the insults above the plebeians. If someone told me any kind of gossip, the first thing I did was turn around and repeat it verbatim to the next person I saw and delivered exactly who told me and why. People stopped including me in the rumor mill after that. Since they couldn't get me to talk about me, they couldn't ever figure me out or know what I had going on.
Step two was to use insults they didn't get. Things that were seeming innocuous to the ordinary person but are biting and vicious when you sit down and think about them. Since most of the people in the military at that level are half-wits by training, they don't realize you've blasted them until 2 am.
Next time they look like sharks circling the kill, just buddy up with any one of them and call him "chum". They won't get it. But it might just be funny enough to keep you sane at that moment.
Yeah. Using your mind to fight always seems to conquer the feeble-minded. All I am really trying to do right now is survive this for a couple more weeks. Then I am home free.
I really meant to have something insightful to say about this entry...it really made me think, but I'm not sure how to write down all the things I'm thinking. Maybe I'll come back to it. But I was really glad to read your thoughts on this.
Good post! And shit man, things never change no matter where you are. If it's not playing mind games, it's playin politics and king of the corporate hill. I'll take my lumps in good initiative faith, and then dish it out where appropriate. Not too much mind you - There's a time to be the leader, and a time to save your skin, but most of the time I don't give a damn ( I wonder how effective that approach would be in the military, though).
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Step two was to use insults they didn't get. Things that were seeming innocuous to the ordinary person but are biting and vicious when you sit down and think about them. Since most of the people in the military at that level are half-wits by training, they don't realize you've blasted them until 2 am.
Next time they look like sharks circling the kill, just buddy up with any one of them and call him "chum". They won't get it. But it might just be funny enough to keep you sane at that moment.
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But one thing you can always do is quit your day job. A luxury I don't have.
Saving your own skins seems to be the single most important guideline my leaders tend to follow. It's a shame.
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