Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Maybe offices are like gas station attendants


     If I see one more article on when and how office workers will return to the office, I think I'm going to hurl.
     Such essays always dwell  on three main points. First, that white collar employees are entirely happy working from home, if they can. Second, despite this, employers want them back an inevitable "two or three days a week" though I've never seen anyone try to figure out why those figures, and not one, or four.
     And finally, there is some hint at the bountiful benefits to be found going into the office, the hallway conversations that lead to breakthroughs, the energizing meetings, the eureka brainstorming sessions around the foosball table.
     While such articles sometime mention that there is no real data backing any of this up, they never take that extra step. Those who can work at home are obviously happy about the prospect of remaining there. Why? Maybe because going to the office is a bad idea for many, maybe most employees. What if the guilty secret of COVID is that a big swath of white collar workers never needed to come into work, not five days a week, not two or three, not ... gulp! ... ever. What if nothing that happens at the office can possibly counterbalance the time lost commuting, and the smartest thing any business could do is ditch their physical space entirely and distribute the savings to the staff as bonuses.
     I don't have a dog in this race. Since I began my column in 1996, I've worked at home far more than in the office—in fact, the first 10 months I was on paternity leave and never came in the office at all. Not once. 
     Don't get me wrong A newsroom is an exciting place, and I would occasionally go in to pick up my mail, to schmooze, to press the flesh, grab lunch somewhere. It was fun, and it helped that I went in when I wanted and stayed home when I didn't, which was most days.
     Going to the office always has risks, downsides. I remember a certain manager who rode the same Madison bus as I did. I'd notice her there, and fixedly look out the window, because I knew, if we made eye contact, she'd smile and try to draw me into whatever cracked project she was hatching at the paper, and I'd have to spend part of my limited face time at the office extracting myself from it. Luckily, she was only there a couple years, but any office is filled with such people. Bad idea generators. Martinet bosses. Treacherous colleagues. Bumbling subordinates. Time sink coworkers ready to snap their teeth into your ear and start chewing.
     I might be one of the latter, by the way. I'm a PWC, a person with chattiness. Many the time I'd slide over to a colleague's desk and start executing one of those meaningful personal interchanges that are the holy of holies to what passes for business journalism. And I'd notice, just as I was approaching my point, or the punchline, or nearing the midway point in my exegesis anyway, and my prey would toss the briefest of glances toward their computer screen, yearning to return to the story they had been working on when I barged in. At least I got the message, wrapped up, and moved on. Not everybody does.
     As someone who wrote a book on the death of men's hats, I know that society clings to the most ridiculous practices, essential right up to the point they are abandoned as pointless. Of course top hats would survive: how could there be weddings and funerals otherwise? I see a similar fate for the office. We needed workplaces the way we needed someone to pump our gas. It was nice, to have Jack say hello and ask what octane, clean the windshield and hand a stick of gum to the kids in the back seat. But it wasn't actually necessary, and we got rid of Jack, long ago, to save a nickel a gallon.


11 comments:

  1. I'm an office guy. Working at home sucks. Too many distractions. I need the discipline. And Jack moved to New Jersey, where it's long been illegal to pump your own gas. When I stopped in Allamuchy years ago and started to do it, out of habit, Jack nearly kicked my ass. He got even more pissed when I said "Al-la-MUCH-y." It's "All-uh-MOOCHIE." How the hell did I know?

    It's the town where FDR routinely stopped, on the way from D.C. to Hyde Park. His train would pull onto a siding, and he would do the deed with his longtime mistress, who lived there. The station, or what's left of it, is still standing...but just barely. Tried to explore it, but state troopers were lurking there, to chase away history buffs like me.

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  2. After 19 months, my wife will start going in three days a week next month. She's always enjoyed the 22 block round trip walk to Michigan and Wacker and having real live, in-person contact. Much faster and efficient than texts and emails..

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  3. Necessary is the key word. As Doug inferred regarding real live, in-person contact, it may be going the way of men’s hats.
    Real live, in-person contact is necessary for the human race to exist. It’s something that must be learned. It’s not easy communicating with people who are “different” from us. The less we practice it, the worse we are.
    The trend of online everything is pushing us in the direction of isolationism. That can’t end well.

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  4. When I was in college, training to toil in the machinery of upward mobility, I worked for a year pumping gas. It was perhaps the most enjoyable job I've ever had. A work day consisted of dozens of brief, enjoyable exchanges of small talk, never lasting long enough to get into anything controversial. It was a rare job with a perfect, human scaled rhythm. At the end of the day I always left work feeling good about humanity - which certainly doesn't happen in this era. The work wasn't hard, I was outside much of the day and it was the only winter in my life I didn't catch a cold. I was healthy as a horse because of the nature of the work. My coworkers were hilarious, there were lots of girls to flirt with, the owner of the station was a rich, proto Trumper who was such a buffoon that he provided endless entertainment for the workers. No pressures, no worries, and a parade of easy interactions. For some reason older women were the only problem customers. They'd get two dollar of gas and ask that we check the oil, wash the windshield, fill the radiator, find a squeak in the shocks, check the air in all four tires. We'd kill them with kindness and occasionally lose one of their valve stem caps. Funny how they would disappear like that. Didn't make much money but went home with a smile on my face.

    Pumping gas as a profession is as dead as a town crier and a button hook maker - except in the great state of New Jersey. But I bet the tassel shoed corporate mid-managers have taken the joy out of pumping gas now - probably making workers clean toilets when no cars are on the lot, even though old timers know that an empty lot means it's time to go behind the station for one hitters. All work and no play kills joy and joy should be the mission. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

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  5. My office for forty years was a company provided mobile office. Usually, a Chevy or Ford. In the early days the only visits to the bricks & mortar office was to drop off paperwork, pick up supplies, or attend meetings only if doughnuts or lunch was provided. With the advent of emails, faxes, and other electronics, visits to the main office became less frequent.
    I learned early on that those in the the brick office suffered from mindless chitchat & and hair brained plans of improvement which had no bearing on the real world. Production of paperwork was their bane of existence. I blame years of inhaling carpet glue had caused their minds to accept living in cubicles, kowtowing to fax and copy machine, and an addiction to the worst tasting coffee.
    Give me my four wheeled mobile crisis center where I could pick from fine coffee shops and avoid the rules of what could go into the microwave.

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  6. My office for forty years was a company provided mobile office. Usually, a Chevy or Ford. In the early days the only visits to the bricks & mortar office was to drop off paperwork, pick up supplies, or attend meetings only if doughnuts or lunch was provided. With the advent of emails, faxes, and other electronics, visits to the main office became less frequent.
    I learned early on that those in the the brick office suffered from mindless chitchat & and hair brained plans of improvement which had no bearing on the real world. Production of paperwork was their bane of existence. I blame years of inhaling carpet glue had caused their minds to accept living in cubicles, kowtowing to fax and copy machine, and an addiction to the worst tasting coffee.
    Give me my four wheeled mobile crisis center where I could pick from fine coffee shops and avoid the rules of what could go into the microwave.

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  7. " and the smartest thing any business could do is ditch their physical space entirely and distribute the savings to the staff as bonuses."

    Gee Neil, I had no idea you wanted to be a comedy writer!

    It more likely they would distributes the savings as bonuses to the CEO & his henchmen.

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    Replies
    1. Laughed out loud when I read that line. I'm in the office so I have to be careful. I think Ed Gold would have had a different take. FYI: They also have gas station attendants in Oregon.

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    2. People type "lol" all the time... I actually DID lol when I read that line.

      "distribute the savings to the staff as bonuses"

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  8. I love the street photos that Neil entertains us with from time to time, each with dozens of clearly delineated individuals whose faces and general disposition are worthy of inspection and delight.

    john

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  9. and if you like your gas pumped for you a visit to NJ will make it happen

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