Catch 22

So, I am in a bit of a quandary. At my new place of work, which I overall love and appreciate, there is a bit of a cultural snafu going on. It is nothing official, but one of those unspoken rules that everyone has to abide by yet no one tells the new guys about. The rule is this: as a new guy, you are expected to know everthing right off the bat, and not to ask too many quesitons. Further, you are not to let on that you know anything what-so-ever, to show that you know your place as a new guy. In other words, they want you to be smart, but keep quiet about it. They want you to know everything, but don't want to teach you about it.

Now granted, not everyone is this way. My supervisors, thankfully, are not this way. But other people are. At a recent training I piped up to give my opinion. What my supervisors then heard from other higher-ups is that they felt the 'new people' were talking too much. Ergo the Catch 22: you have to prove yourself, but you can't talk too much, change too much, or ask any questions.

Maybe this is all agrivated by the fact that I work downstairs from HQ, and I hope that when I head out into the field things will improve. I do not do well bottled up. I can't believe that they hired me so I would stay quiet and ignorant, and consistently underachieve. So I am not going to let it get me down. I am gonna be the best employee I can possibly be. If people don't like that about me, then it is their problem. I will not be held back. There is only one way to win a hopeless game: don't play.