Everyone likes to talk about how blogging is like high school all over again, what with the cliques and the popular kids and the whatnot.

I’ve had my own view on that for a while, which is that blogging is like high school in that there are always classes and they’re probably never going to interact much. The senior class is gonna be removed from the freshmen class and that’s just kind of how it is, with a few rare exceptions. You may find a few clubs that mix the classes up, or you find a superstar freshman who gets bumped up to the varsity team, but in general, freshmen hang with freshmen, seniors hang with seniors. (We won’t talk about those kids who moved on to college but still came back to hang out with the sophomores…that’s just weird).

But the more I think about it, the more I *really* think that blogging is more like any company in corporate America.

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Think about it. There are millions of us little worker bees working away on our blogs. We do good work, we may even do great work, but we’re down in the trenches. Maybe every once in a while we hit something out of the park and get noticed in our performance review, but mostly, we come in and do what we do and hope that we slowly make our way up the chain. There are different branches to the company–some that overlap, some that don’t–but the basis of what we’re all doing is similar, even if our individual goals and group goals are different.

You’ve got your interns who are just learning the ropes, dipping a toe into the industry to see if they really want to play in this sand box. They may be tentative, they may be enthusiastic, but they’re so green only time will tell if they find their place in this world. Just, please, someone show them where the break room is before they get lost again.

You’ve got your entry level folks. Good, hard workers most of them, though they may make their fair share of beginner mistakes. But you can see them growing their skills and their networks and that they may make it for the long haul.

You’ve got your mid-level people. Been doing the job for a while, know the ropes. Maybe they occasionally feel a little jaded by the industry, but they come to work and put in their best (most days. Everyone has off days). The may mentor the entry level folks, and may look for mentors in the rungs above them, but they know they’ve found a good home in this place, with mostly good coworkers, and are glad to keep building on what they’ve started.

You’ve got your old timers. Some of them love keeping up with the changing industry. Some of them just wish it would go back to being the small company it was when they started. They have a lot to offer to people who pay attention, when they feel like sharing. You sometimes see them shaking their head as they walk by the interns, bemused by their shenanigans.

Then, there are the inevitable superstars. The ones who are Golden, who hit every right rung on that ladder and shoot to the top of the pack with all the money and accolades (and stresses) that come with it. You can’t be too mad about it because they are GOOD at their job, and everyone knows it.

Of course, you’re also bound to have the ones that piss you off. The jackass who ends up with the corner office and the good promotions because…well, no one really knows why. Because he’s got the right friends? Because he takes credit for work other people have done? Because he knows how to game the system? No matter–you and your coworkers all hate him, but you’re never going to convince anyone who’s in a position to change things that he’s a fraud. It happens in the best of industries.

And, like any company, you’ve got your work friends and enemies. You’ve got people you can’t stand and people you love. You’ve got groups who work well together and those that don’t. You have your loners and workaholics who eat lunch by themselves and you’ve got the party planning team who’s always putting together that Friday Fiesta! for everyone.

See? Just like a big company. Minus the cubicles.

So who am I missing in my corporate chain? And what do you think of my analogy?

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