A Square Peg in a Round Hole

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This is the thread where we post e.g.s of ppl we have known, whether at work or in a social situation, who seem blatantly not to fit in. It may be no fault of their own. But sometimes you get ppl in a certain situation and you think "What on earth are they doing here? It just doesn't seem their 'thing' at all!"

― New Mark H (New MarkH), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 11:57 (eighteen years ago)

This is my entire life. I am your living example.

― Fire and Worms (kate), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 11:59 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/afro_am/African_American_Presence/Design/Assets/images/1960Meredith2copy.png

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 12:00 (eighteen years ago)

at my current company, but back in the day in our old office, there were two guys, whom I will call Simon and Graham. Both were hard-smoking, hard drinking, gnarled, wizened, with all the appearance of a dissolute lifestyle. Both were a couple of years older than me. They had tats and piercings. One rode a motorbike so was usually in leathers, the other lived on a canal boat and had been a forester in a previous job. Both were v short tempered and seemed to me to be at home on a building site, on a farm, in a factory...anywhere, in fact, but in an office.

Now don't get me wrong, I didn't dislike them as people. I got on with one all of the time and the other most of the time. And don't for one moment think that ppl in my office have an illiberal attitude. In many ways the opposite is the case - it is very easy going here...people can wear what they like and there is a generally relaxed attitude to such things as time-keeping. But still, in spite of all this, these two seemed like square pegs in round holes.

― New Mark H (New MarkH), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 12:02 (eighteen years ago)

Pretty much me and everyone I know.

― Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 12:05 (eighteen years ago)

I did anticipate that ppl would say "that's me all over" and this is where it gets fascinating. The what's-becoming-a-habit truism alert: there is so often this gulf in perception between what ppl think of themselves and what other ppl think of them. I suspect that Simon and Graham did not consider themselves to be square pegs in round holes. But on the flipside Kate, that is yr perception of yourself in yr office, whereas you've told me that you are v focussed at work and tend to keep yrself to yrself and would rather ppl left you to get on with the job, so maybe the differences between yrself and yr colleagues aren't made as blatant as you believe them to be.

Simon and Graham tho: all they wanted to do was to go to the pub at lunchtime with other ppl from the office. In Graham's case, if there was no-one who wanted to join him, he'd go on his own, pretty much every day.

― New Mark H (New MarkH), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 12:12 (eighteen years ago)

No, it's difficult to explain.

One of my colleagues was laughing and making a joke on the blackboard because the rest of the company think Finance and MI are kind of freaks - so she drew this huge sign saying WE HEART NUMBERS AND MATHS AND MAPS! and signed everyone else in the department - and I made them add my name, because that is me.

It's whenever I try to do social things with the rest of the office - even just the department. I simply can't do it. It's not even the mundanity of the "football/last night's telly/where are you going on holiday" conversations, but whenever I try to bring up something I think is a perfectly reasonable topic of conversation (what was the last book you read?) or god forbid, make a joke, there's this crashing sense of DIFFERENCE that they think me very definitely deeply odd.

I mean, it is maybe a self fulfilling prophecy, because I've spent so much of my life being the square peg - always the new kid in schools because we moved so much, the wrong accent, the wrong age, the wrong class, the wrong gender, whatever. That I no longer know *how* to fit in.

― Fire and Worms (kate), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 12:17 (eighteen years ago)

But sometimes you get ppl in a certain situation and you think "What on earth are they doing here? It just doesn't seem their 'thing' at all!"

The correct answer is, of course, [insert bizarrely out-of-place ILX poster of choice]

Kate, do you feel/have you felt like this in other places outwith the place you work? Workplaces are a very artificial environment in which to try and assess one's ability to get along with people.

― ailsa (ailsa), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 22:59 (eighteen years ago)

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