Here’s the third installment of my little story, the first and second of which are here and here, respectively. As before, the term “X” is used in place for a certain real name.
Our little company was now under new management. In the months to follow, our respective jobs remained more or less the same, but the interactions within the office grew both peculiar and contrived.
For example, in the arsenal of psychology tools our new owner “X” pulled from his new age bag of tricks, there was something he called “pacing”. During these pacing exercises, everyone in the company would stop whatever they were doing (to the chagrin, I imagine, of customers calling in to place orders or get technical support) and pair off, two by two, and face one another while sitting in chairs. One person would speak, and the other person would “pace” them – – that is to say, the silent person would mimic the body language of the other party. This was not to be done in a mocking way, but instead was assumed to build empathy with the other person. (more…)
