When Work Is Like A Sitcom
April 28th, 2008 by Cali & Jody
Monster.com’s blog is running a contest that asks the eternal question: Is Your Job Like a Sitcom? Judging by the responses so far (contest ends May 5th), the answering seems to be that yes, most people’s jobs are pretty much like a sitcom.
Just check out this excerpt from a contest entry about life at a small brokerage firm:
“Usually at any time of the day they have what is known as their alley. This alley begins at my desk and goes past the assistants. This alley is used for football, soccer and softball practice. I usually am ducking half the day while on the phone trying to work. The ball hits me in the head and I just keep right on talking. There is a five dollar fee for any direct hits to me or the items on my desk!”
So this poor woman goes to work every day and things are so out of control, her only recourse is to charge money when she gets hit by a poorly thrown football.
As one of the entrants notes, “At the end of the day, there are a million stories in these buildings and no one would believe any of them because we live the stories and we can’t believe them ourselves.” That sentence (and the football-dodging worker’s story) sum up the challenge facing all of us. Your workplace’s culture, no matter how broken, still operates almost invisibly. The daily indignities and absurdities are so commonplace that you barely notice them. You might even feel embarrassed to complain about them. It’s just the way it is, right?
What a lot of people might not realize is that cultures can change. You can complain, especially if you have a reasonable alternative. Even if you aren’t in a position to implement ROWE, you still have the right to talk to your manager or your coworkers about results. What exactly are we trying to accomplish here? What can we all do to drive those outcomes? And can you please talk to those guys about “the alley”? Because there is work to do.
Cali and Jody: Thanks for pointing to our contest and highlighting a couple of the responses.
We do hope that this contest will not only get our community talking about their wacky-and-wild workplaces, but also spark/continue meaningful online conversations about how meaningful change can happen in culture, relationships, fair treatment of co-workers, etc.
After all, while it may be amusing to read about “football alley,” would any of us really want to be in that storyteller’s shoes?
I would much rather have a culture that is constructed in an organic way (what happens, happens…just get your work done) rather than a forced culture.
Nothing more deflating than being a part of a company that says: “do this because this is our desired culture”.
What? Are you kidding me?
You can desire a culture, but once you try to force a “culture” on a group of people, they will revolt or just give up.
Culture is usually a direct result of the habits that the “supervisors” of a company have. If your higher up are goof balls than so will your underlings be goof balls.
We have a beach ball in our office that gets tossed around during the day and every once in a while it will fall in my lap or hit my monitor… on occasion it has knocked over a picture of mine, and although it can be disruptive, I somewhat enjoy the quality of life it brings to our office. It reminds me that I can enjoy work and I don’t need to be glued to my screen.
On the one hand I think to myself… if they have so much free time it seems like the office could let them go home or do whatever they might want to do else where, but I also think to myself… well, if you have to be at the office, at least they let you play football.
Also, I read the post that the girl made and I don’t think her attitude in the post was to say that she dreaded going to work because it was so disorganized. It sounded more like she found amusement in the different personalities of her co-workers and how they blow off steam during the day. Drawing comparisons, not complaining.
I hate to be a spoilsport, but I would rather recommend the “No Asshole Rule” than “Work Sucks” to the “Alley Girl”.