Thoughtful Thursday: Inner Circle

Welcome to the November Intelligentsia.

#47: Elana from Elana’s Musings
#39: Strongblonde from Strong Blonde
#29: St. Elsewhere
#27: Lori from Write Mind Open Heart
#22: Sara from Aryanhwy
#17: Ana from Ana Begins
#17: Cat

If you watched The Office during the brief Will Ferrell era, you may remember the Inner Circle episode. The new boss hand-picked a few people for exclusive meetings, including some obvious choices like Jim and counter-intuitive choices like Kevin. The inner circle was particularly egregious because everyone could see the secret meetings going on, so everyone else knew that they had been left out of the inner circle.

I’ve never experienced the inner circle phenomenon, as far as I know — if it has gone on around me, I guess my bosses have been good at hiding their existence. Recently, though, the Big Boss has, for some reason, brought me into his inner circle. A few weeks ago there was a meeting to make some big decisions, with 3 very senior staff, a newly recruited hotshot, and me. I frankly held my own in the meeting, but still I had no business being on the list. No one asked me what the hell I was doing there, but they would have been totally within reason if they had.

Then again today, I was on a short list of people that Big Boss emailed to ask for a vote on something. I should be at #23 in the organizational hierarchy based on status and experience, but somehow I made Big Boss’s top 7.

This is all particularly ironic given that one of my immediate bosses is constantly disappointed in my work. Today was the first meeting in two months where she didn’t chastise me for something. Two weeks ago I totally killed it with outstanding work, which she absolutely couldn’t criticize, so instead she complained that I hadn’t turned in my time card.

Yeah well fuck her. I am riding my inner circle membership all the way to the top! I will leapfrog right over her!

Until Big Boss retires.

Have you ever been in the inner circle? Have you ever been left out of the inner circle?