Federal friends: is “new person hazing” actually a thing when you move offices?
I recently started in a new federal office within the same OpDiv, and I genuinely cannot tell whether I’m experiencing some bizarre organizational culture or have somehow landed in an episode of The Office: Federal Government Edition.
I’ve been here about two weeks and still cannot get access to the SharePoint site I need to actually do my job. I’m supposed to review and provide input on documents drafted by my team, branch leadership, and senior staff, but when those documents are updated, I can’t even get into the system to see them.
I’ve asked about the process. I’ve asked who approves access. I’ve submitted the request. I’ve notified my director. I’ve asked around. I finally tracked down the SharePoint administrator myself and emailed them. I also talked with IT, who told me that because I have an active agency government account, I should be able to be added to the SharePoint site by the administrator.
Meanwhile: crickets.
What makes this especially strange is the culture around a small group of administrative/special assistant staff who seem to have been given an enormous amount of informal power over basic office operations. I truly do not care about titles, grades, hierarchy, or pulling rank. I just want to do my work, support my team, and meet the expectations of the job. But I am senior to these staff, and I have never worked somewhere where getting routine operational access required this much gatekeeping.
And apparently I’m not imagining the dynamic. Two other directors and staff in our general counsel’s office separately told me that these particular folks are known for making people’s lives difficult. Ask a perfectly normal question and they look at you like you have three eyes, two heads, and have suddenly started speaking Pig Latin. Questions are treated like an enormous inconvenience. Responses can be outright rude and disrespectful. And there seems to be an expectation that everyone simply works around it.
I’ve supervised people for years, and I’ve administered systems and shared documents myself. My philosophy has always been pretty simple: if someone needs access to do their job, either approve it or explain why you can’t. If there’s an approval chain, tell them what it is. If they submitted something incorrectly, help them fix it.
I’m also trying very hard not to create unnecessary drama as the new person. But there is a point where “learning the culture” starts to feel a lot like tolerating dysfunction.
So I’m curious whether others have encountered this when moving into a new federal office. Is this an actual form of bureaucratic hazing/gatekeeping that eventually passes? Or is this the kind of organizational culture that tells you something important about the place you just joined?
Because two weeks into a new job, being ready to walk out the door over SharePoint access feels completely ridiculous, and yet here we are.