http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/fashion/04roles.html?_r=1&ei=5070&emc=eta1
THE office joker. The mother hen. The king. The rebel. The gossip. The peacekeeper. The dude.
Anyone who has ever been part of a workplace culture can probably recognize at least one of those characters in the cubicle next door.
But workplace roles and the dynamics among colleagues can go much deeper than those somewhat superficial stereotypes, especially in a nation where many people spend as much time with colleagues as they do with their families, where the office so often mirrors the family.
A boss is not just a boss, in the view of some psychologists who study workplace roles; he can be a stand-in for a disapproving and distant father. An unpredictable, easily angered manager can be a thinly veiled rejecting mother. Colleagues competing for the boss’s attention — or merit raises and bonuses — are siblings in rivalry.
The employees of a company acquired by another in a hostile merger? They can experience seething resentment toward what they feel is an unwelcome stepparent, according to psychologists working with companies to manage emotional fallout during a merger.
There is, too, the workplace spouse, a co-worker of the opposite sex who shares a kind of closeness achieved only through the intense experience of long weeks at the same office.