Some people will assume that this is a Covid-19 post because of the title, but it’s not. The pandemic is a part of what I write about, but it’s not the sole focus. One long scream has been building for years in many workplaces, not just mine. But during the past decade, life in my workplace changed irrevocably for many. As in, there was no going back to what was, only moving forward to what could be. The focus became the future. The past was never talked about; the history of my department, how it came to be the way it was, was unimportant. Those of us old enough to remember the past, or who had worked there long enough to know about it, were told that it wasn’t important; no one wanted to hear about it. The present was just ignored in favor of the future. But the present was what needed to be dealt with, except that no one knew how to deal with it or wanted to deal with it because the problems were too many. So it was ignored in favor of all the fancy buzzwords, slogans and catch phrases that would create the future that ‘everyone wanted’ or said was important to have for the sake of productivity and effectiveness. When we were children that was called ‘let’s pretend’.
I don’t mind playing let’s pretend. It’s
just that let’s pretend has gone on for many years, and has worn down those employees
who tried as hard as they could to implement the many changes and trends that
were laid on the table and prioritized. The problem was that there were too
many changes and trends, and one could never be certain which change or trend was
the one to be prioritized, since priorities shifted on a monthly basis. Courses
in how to lead were important, but they didn’t produce better leaders. They
produced leaders who were only interested in forcing their employees to adapt
to change for change’s sake. There were never good explanations for why this or
that change or trend was important. Employees who were resistant or critical
were pushed aside, and are still pushed aside, in favor of those who are
receptive to every change or trend that gets suggested. It doesn’t matter if
the changes or trends cause a lot of upheaval, waste time, are ineffective, or
lead to demotivated employees. The leaders and their loyal employees continue
on, while those who are critical find it harder and harder with each change to start
over and plod on, dreading the next major change, the next trend to attack the
workplace that its leaders will embrace warmly and force down the throats of
their employees. The pandemic has brought to light how stupid some of these
trends that workplaces adopted without question actually are. One of them is
packing as many employees as possible into tiny offices, with little room to
move or to spread out. Another stupid trend is open office landscapes—placing
an entire workforce into one large room, no individual offices, no dividers, no
cubicles, no privacy, no quiet time, constant distractions, and a lot of noise.
The party line was that open office landscapes were conducive to interaction, communication
and collaboration. Employees should embrace them without question. The reality was
something else entirely. Most employees want and need some private time, some
quiet time, at work. That’s the purpose of offices—one can close a door and
shut out the noise if one needs time to think. But that was no longer ‘allowed’.
The reason for open office landscapes, as we all know if we cut through the piles
of bullshit that have built up, is to save money. Workplaces save money by
forcing their employees to sit in one large room together. The pandemic however,
has shown just how stupid this trend is. Suddenly the hunt is on to find new
solutions for dealing with this problem—the spread of Covid-19 (or any virus
for that matter)—in an open office landscape setting. So the solution has been
to tell employees to work from home if they can. That must really rub some
leaders the wrong way; after all, they lose the ability to totally control
their employees. I’ve seen other solutions that have to do with erecting Plexiglas
dividers between adjacent desks, or enclosing individual desks in Plexiglas
cubicles. It seems to be a return to some kind of individual office thinking.
Dare one hope? Can one dream?
I’ve come to the conclusion that leaders
and employees who can shift from one change to the next, from one trend to the
next, without problems, are surface skaters. They are not interested in depth;
it’s unclear what they are really interested in except control. They should be
interested in depth; they should be listening to their employees. Because not
to do so is simply to invite trouble. Some few do at present. But most do not.
They have their visions and preferred ways of doing things, and they simply
expect employees to fall in line. After a decade of multiple leaders, multiple
leadership styles, fragmentary visions, shifting priorities, stupid changes,
stupid trends, wasted time, wasted breath, useless meetings, endless budget
cuts (to no avail), poor strategies, poor planning, yet more meetings to undo
what was decided upon two or three years ago that took up valuable employee
time—some employees experience only one feeling—the desire to scream into the
wind, into the boundless future that was promised them, the golden land of
promise and opportunity, the utopian landscape, where all workplaces are
effective and productive, where all work output can be measured and controlled,
where all employees can be controlled. It’s one long scream, a primal scream, a
plea really for a return to sanity and to peace, a plea for a return to a time
when freedom from control was still to be found in a workplace.
