Bullying is a big topic in recent years. There are all kinds of initiatives to prevent bullying and to encourage bullies to change their ways. That’s important work. Standing up to bullies and refusing to stand by passively while someone else is being picked on are important character traits that should be nurtured.
Less talked about, however, is peer pressure. You remember the old parental admonishment, “If all your friends are going to jump off the bridge, are you going to jump, too?”
Peer pressure is especially powerful during our teen years. We want to fit in, we yearn to be “cool” or whatever the equivalent to that 1970s term is these days. To do so we often give into the pressure to do things we know our parents would not be proud of. Mostly we survive and, with a few mistakes and missteps, we gradually become a little wiser and more circumspect in what we are willing to do to gain the admiration of others.
In some cases we even veer off in the other direction and do things we know others will denigrate us for, but since we feel that direction is right, we go that way regardless.
In short, peer pressure seems to lose its power as we age.
There is one form of workplace peer pressure, however, that still has the power. It is in the form of the office lottery pool.
I don’t personally buy 649, Lotto Max or any kind of scratch and win ticket. I do buy tickets on the Battlefords Union Hospital Foundation cash lotto and I support the STARS home lottery. When I buy those tickets I know I am making a donation to an organization I support and, if I win something, that’s a bonus.
I am pure, until the jackpot on the weekly lottery balloons into a ginormous prize. Then around comes the office lottery troll wanting to know if I want to pony up a twoonie in a pooled effort to win the big one. I don’t want to get sucked in. I try to resist, but I don’t.
Yes, it is the opportunity to show up for work the following Monday and find you can have any or all of the jobs in the building to choose from — publisher, pressman, payroll manager, staff reporter — but who wants to be that person?
It should be noted that even pooling our resources and buying up fistfuls of tickets each time the prize soars, we rarely win anything. Sometimes we score a free ticket or some other minimal payout. The odds against us are astronomical.
But like the office lottery troll says, “You never know.”
