Office cliques: unethical or just natural?

No sooner do I pick my way -- successfully I hope -- through one minefield, than a reader nudges me into another one. The reader writes:

"I'm 49 years old. Male. I'm overweight, and have been suffering from some low self-esteem over the last seven or eight years. Now ... here's the subject: Ageism/Overweightism/Maleism.

"I work in a large company, with a very conservative reputation. This company has some very sound policies in place regarding discrimination. I applaud them for that. However, I find myself in a quandary, nonetheless. My co-workers range in age from mid 20s to late 30s. Mostly late 20s. The department consists of 2 female managers (both older than I), and 22 analysts (of which, I am one).

"None of the employees would dare overtly violate the company's policy, but they find ways of doing it anyway. I liken this to high school popularity contests and cliques. This clique is led by a late 20s female that is very close to the senior manager. They ostracize people that aren't in their group, and they practice this on me.

"My goal is to work together as a team, and try as I might, I find that I have to 'swallow my pride,' let them be right when I know they are wrong and accept work assignments that are less than desirable -- all because I believe this company is worth staying with. However, making any statements to my superiors would be seen as 'not being a team player.' I've seen what they've done to others, and I don't want to risk my job.

"Having said all that, I know that I have other methods of recourse. I can do things about the weight, the self-esteem and so forth. I can't do anything about the age differences. I would like to know if people in my age group and older have had to deal with these issues before, and if so, how do they do it?"

When I read this, I had to ask myself whether this was an issue worth exploring for an ethical connection, but two things pushed me in that direction. The first is that I, too, am an older worker and have reached the stage where gravity is no longer my friend. Second, this seems to be a serious question for the writer, and is probably worth examining for that alone.

However, I'm also in the enviable position of never having worked in a place where that was a problem for me. Maybe journalism is different. Maybe it's because people tend to socialize around work responsibilities or similar interests. I've never experienced or been aware of people being excluded because they were older or of either gender. Also, for the past nine years I've been telecommuting, so my "face time" interactions during the work day are mostly with pets and inanimate objects.

One possible reaction would be to adopt the position of Generation W (these are the people whose answer to everything is "Whatever") and tell the writer that it's his tough luck and he should "just get over it." Life is unfair, they say, so stop being a victim. But being older and raised to be more considerate of people, I think we need to determine what's going on.