Remember when you were in high school and there was at least one group of mean girls?

A clique, a tribe, whatever you want to call them, they were mean to everyone who wasn’t in their own little group. They were the same little girls that made your life miserable in grammar school too but, as they got older, they got more skilled at being mean, and more clever about pretending they weren’t.

Jump forward a few decades. You’ll find they’re still there but, instead of being the “Queens of Mean” at school, they’re now the “Crafty Crones” of the women’s club, or the garden club, or the book club, or the congregation, or the workplace — especially the work place.

They never say anything mean to your face. (Remember, they learned better than to do that in grammar school.) It’s all very civilized. No one gets in your face…