During Standard Time I usually don't walk home from work using the walkway that parallels the train tracks, because it's not lit very well, and I have an irrational fear of being mugged. Tonight I did, though. The walkway passes behind a whole string of office buildings, and since it was dark, I could see in and watch all the people still at work.
The offices are delightfully average. Delightfully average desks made of that honey-colored oak in offices with off-white walls and maroon renter's carpet. Delightfully average fluorescent lighting and acoustic tiles for ceilings. Computers with the "login" screensaver running, with teensy little 14-inch monitors. Coat hooks on the backs of delightfully average doors. Cubicles with one or two delightfully average personal items, like a little lamp or a boom box. Signs on the cubicle walls with delightfully average anglo names, like "Jeff Jones" or "Aaron Cowles."
I can imagine the sorts of things that go on in these places. When I say "these places," I mean offices like this; the places I passed by were so delightfully average, I couldn't even tell what sort of business they were in. I saw white boards with writing on them, but they have things like "Sales Dominance Challenge" on them, with no mention of what, precisely, is being sold. People were still at their desks, filling out paperwork, or working in some unidentifiable database program on the computer, or talking on the phone.
When I was maybe 7 or 8, I played with the neighborhood kids (well, kid) in a game called "office." Office was where I would sit up at the perch of the swing-set, and the other kid, my secretary, would bring me papers (which were actually leaves dropped from the tree) for me to sign, and I'd give them back to her to file. This, in my mind, was work. This is what people did when they went to work every day. They got paper, they signed paper, and they gave paper to someone else. This was how business was done, and (as far as I knew) how the economies of the world operated daily.
So, it's wonderful to see that people actually do this kind of work. This sort of indeterminate, androgynous sort of paper pushing and file rearrangement that so captivated (uh, we only played office once, as far as I can remember) my imagination as a child.
I can see a memo now:
To: Jeff Jones, Regional Manager
From: Aaron Cowles, Sales Director
Subject: FilingMr Jones,
I want to alert you to a significant loss of productivity in the office. I know you want your staff to be as efficient as possible, and I think I have found a way to considerably improve the workflow in and around the office.
Currently, I have to take TR-450 forms and physically walk them across the building to the Human Resources department. Two things are problematic with this: first, TR-450 forms are not handled by the Human Resources department until they are first approved by the Regional Vice President. Second, the only reason they are stored in the Human Resources area is because they are the only department with the filing cabinet space available for the physical paperwork.
In the interest of speeding up the process of filing these critical documents, I suggest moving the filing cabinets themselves into my area, next to Janet Koslowski's cubicle. My staff and I are finding that we are making more and more frequent trips to reference these forms, and the loss of time to walking to retrieve our critical information is crippling this department.
I would appreciate your consideration of this matter, and look forward to speaking with you about it in the next department meeting on January 15.
Aaron
This is the thing I don't understand about these people. The slightest little thing is an international incident. Office Space makes an excellent point about this: with radios being too loud, inefficient paperwork, and a sort of "management-speak" that formalizes communication to the point of incomprehension. Imagine the memo above in English:
Hey Jeff,
Can we move the filing cabinets for the TR-540s over here? It's a bitch walking all the way to HR like fifty times a day.
Aaron
I am so glad to work where I do, because there's very little of that sort of "business posturing" that more formal organizations have to deal with. I the point where a small company becomes a large company with the addition of more management is where this sort of thing starts.
These places I walked by (actually, they may all be part of the same company, I don't know) all look like these sorts of soul-crushing work experiences that good, wife-loving, 2.5-children-having Aaron and Jeff have to toil through every day. The act of filtering and translating every packet of information into this pseudo-formal English is so tiresome and unnecessary if people just act like people, and not like they're in the military. And it's not just the communication: the entire environment is so intentionally inoffensive and sterile that there's no chance for self-expression outside of a lamp with some tassles on it.
To: Jeff Jones
From: Janet Koslowski
Subject: Aaron's cubicleMr Jones,
I want to alert you to a potential situation, and I wanted to let you know before I went to Human Resources with a formal complaint. Aaron Cowles has a poster in his cubicle of Jimi Hendrix, which I'm sure you've seen.
What most people don't know is that Jimi Hendrix routinely inserted paper soaked in lysergic acid (commonly known as LSD) inside his headband, so as to get "high" during his concerts.
I find this overt reference to drugs and drug abuse to be offensive, and in direct violation of the Employee Handbook (section 11.40) with regards to the retention of illegal drug paraphernalia. I doubt the company would want itself associated with such people as Hendrix, who glorified the use of such drugs in his performances.
Respectfully,
Janet
These are the kinds of people who work at places like this: the kinds that want ultimate and total control over their little worlds, which happen to include their desks, and the desks immediately around them. And the sad part is that this sort of thing has nothing at all to do with the work at hand — but yet people would rather focus on these little inter-office dramas than actually getting work done.
I guess that's why I see myself as different than the average cubicle-dweller. I'll do what it takes to get the work done, but that's priority number one. If someone has a song playing loudly (or whatever), my first reaction is not to complain to management, but to put on my headphones. If someone complains about my attitude toward something, I don't really care — unless it's somehow affecting the quality of the work that I deliver. Sure, it's important to maintain a professional and reasonably-friendly working environment with everyone. But there has to be a line where you say "look, everyone, beyond this is my personality. It's just who I am. So if you have a problem with it, you have a problem with me. And if that's damaging the work, then let's talk." Otherwise, shut up and deal with it.
The operative term in that sentence is "let's talk." Don't go to management because you're too much of a pansy to talk to me about it. If you feel comfortable gossiping with someone else about my behavior, then that's fine. But understand that if you talk to me about something, chances are I'll be a little friendlier about it than if I hear from our manager about the same topic.
But people are far too willing to play the politics game and involve everyone and anyone. It's just because if they — as an accuser — get to management first with a complaint, then they're immediately the victim, and you're immediately the attacker. That's the sad, horrible part of it all.
My dad used to be on the board of the homeowner's association when we lived in Temecula. The bulk of the business at these association meetings seemed to be that people would come to the board and complain about their neighbors. My dad would get so frustrated with these people, and the first thing he'd say was "have you talked with your neighbors?" Invariably, the answer was "no" (or some couched form of "no"). His only response after that was "make a good-faith effort to talk to your neighbor. If he or she doesn't respond, then come back to the next meeting in a month, and we'll talk about it."
The moral of the story is to talk to people before you go to management. These places I walked by, in all their averageness, seemed to be such havens for organizational warfare that it scares me to think I may have to work at a place like that some day — if only to make a buck for a little while.
I guess I "started" my design career at a place like that, though my youth (and my boss) probably insulated me a bit from the full brute force of it all. I worked at this industrial automation manufacturing company in the marketing department. If I went back there, it would be such a different experience than what I had in high school — it would be so much like Aaron, Jeff, and Janet's company. I guess being an intern is nice, because you have only one direct report, your tasks are very well defined (and pretty simple), and you don't have to deal with clients. But if I were to go back there today, I'd probably be on my own, and in a very different situation.
That's why I'm blessed to work at a small company, because there, everyone talks to each other, and even the people I don't always get along with are good people. Everyone means well, and everyone actually does care for each other, even though it's tough sometimes. I doubt, at a larger company, Aaron cares about Jeff's new baby, or Jeff cares about Janet's husband going to Iraq. It's so easy to make a company where everyone is just a cog in the system, rather than everyone being people with successes and failures and personal lives.
That's why the term "Human Resources" is so inappropriate, because nine times out of ten, it's more about the "resource" than the "human."