Applicant Tree

Years ago when I got a job as a teacher, a former educator gave me some sage advice I did not heed: steer clear of the teacher’s lounge. The logic behind this was that the burnt out teachers populated the lounge and any new teachers would be spoiled by their negativity.

One day I wandered in there and I immediately understood why I was warned against it. If smoking had been allowed on school grounds, they would have been enshrouded in a cigarette induced fog. Instead they were lost in an abyss of bitterness – and they loved to share why they felt that way. Sadly for me, I was struggling with the job, as all first year teachers do, and turned to these people for advice. I did not teach a second year.

There are teacher lounges in every workplace in the world where the people who are five years past their expiration date for the job linger and try to drag down anyone within arm’s length. Anyone who’s new to a job needs to quickly identify these pockets of bitterness and avoid them. The last thing you want is for your new-job enthusiasm to be drained away with stories about how the company “should be run” by people who could solve all of the world’s ills if “only they’d listen to me.” This will inevitably lead to poor advice about the company, its policies and politics, and possibly prevent you from working there much longer.