Blue Flamingos and Pink Elephants

This next "next" job hasn't been too bad so far for the past month and a half since I started. As you may have surmised from my relative lack of blogging, I've at least been busy enough. But I have a few minutes to spare today, and since I originally started the blog for purposes of venting, I shall vent.

At the time I started, The Petting Zoo (that's what I've decided to call this new place where I'm now working in my new, non Think Tank, non secretary job) was experiencing a time of significant transition. Upheaval, some might call it. A new program (Habitat Expansion, let's say), the one I'd been hired to work on, was eating in its entirety another, older program (let's call that one Survival in Captivity). Noobody from Survival in Captivity lost their jobs during the transition, but there was some reordering of priorities. And, maybe more importantly, Director of Survival in Captivity had made a bid for the job of Director of Habitat Expansion but an external candidate ended up getting it.

Transitions can be good times to start new jobs because there's a lot of flexibility in terms of the roles you carve out for yourself. I'm still grappling with all that and think in the long run it will work out for the best, but it's a little hard to know where I fit in right now, especially given the under-the-surface yet still perceivable tensions between Survival in Captivity and Habitat Expansion, which are now one and the same.

Add to these tensions the fact that one of the more senior people from Survival in Captivity is a Pink Elephant, only hires other Pink Elephants (including interns -- there's a stableful), and seems to find it weird to have to deal with Non Pink Elephants.

I happen to be a Blue Flamingo. If I were a Blue Elephant or a Pink Flamingo, there'd be less of a problem.My elephant-ness or pinkness would provide common ground.  But no. I am a Blue Flamingo and can not change either my blueness or my flamingo-ness. While I have no problem personally with Pink Elephants, it irks me that Semior Pink Elephant, while capable of interacting superficially politely in the course of getting work done, seems to despise the presence of Blue Flamingos and wish them to go away or at least not have to be bothered with their stink and feathers in the Pink Elephant Stable.

So, amyway ... I don't really have a purpose here other than to vent. I'm not going anywhere, and Pink Elephant isn't going anywhere. But the stableful of Pink Elephant interns is emptying out at the end of this month when they mostly all go back to school, and Senior Pink Elephant and I will probably have to intereact more then. And that will be annoying. Maybe Senior Pink Elephant will have gotten used to me by then????

Meh, I doubt it ... Right now, I just wish SPE, who is a loud talker and a hall walker, would STFU!!!