The work environment is a portrait of stark reality in an ever evolving world. It changes with the times and keeps pace with everything that happens on the outside. The workplace provides us with a microscopic image of the day to day lives of people who come to work, do their jobs, and live within the framework of company rules and regulations.
Anyone who has ever been in a work environment can relate to the fact that everyone there is shaped by outside influences and live within a myriad of storylines that take place, and change, on any given day or time of day. This is workplace reality, almost identical to the storylines of soap operas, only in real life settings.
A work environment is a hodgepodge of people with different interests, personalities, and lifestyles, who come together for a common purpose. It has many faces and many talents. It is a place of excitement, a place of wonder, and a place of familiar surroundings. A work environment can be warm and friendly, or cold and foreboding, or it can be a mixture of both.
In reality, people who work together live together in many ways more closely than they do with their own families at home. If you work in an office setting, you can spend more of your waking hours, standing side by side with co-workers than you spend with your family.
Once you start your work day, unless you work at home, you become a part of the company and a part of the lives of the people around you.
The person you are before you get to work is different in many ways than the person you are once you get to work. You may not think so, but the truth is in the pudding. You can't do anything you want while at work, you can't say anything you want, and you have to abide by company rules once you get to work.
What does this mean? It means that you, as an individual, are part of a much bigger picture. It means that you are something special in the grand scheme of things. Your personality, your lifestyle, your family and friends, your political and religious leanings, and all personal goals and aspirations are contained and limited once you enter the boundaries of the company doors and you become part of something else.
Even what you do or say once you get off work and on your days off are also restrained in one way or the other. In actuality, your job becomes your life. It's not something that is forced on you because you always have the right to quit, but for most of us, quitting is not an option because once you start making bills, you can't quit on a whim. Your financial responsibilities can keep you tied to your place of employment until you either find a better source of income or you retire.
The work environment does have it's merits. Aside from being a place to earn a salary, the work environment should be a place to learn and grow as a human being, and it should be a place to develop skills and to garner worthwhile experience.
Many people form lifelong friendships at work and get to know each other's families, their wives and children, friends and associates, and they may spend much of their time away from work together. These bonds may run long and deep and over the years, they may become unbreakable.
In essence, a work environment is like an eco-system. Everyone and everything has a purpose and they all work together to keep the company running smoothly.