Do you mind?
I woke up during a meeting the other day to discover that I had apparently been possessed. At least, that’s the most rational explanation for my subsequent behaviour.
The subject under discussion (TRANSLATION: the excuse for the meeting and hence ordering of biscuits at office expense) was a code of conduct to be implemented when we move from our current proper grown-up offices into open plan (TRANSLATION: through what medium do we tell Sweaty Dave, currently confined to his own lead-lined office, that he stinks? Face to face? Post-it note? Interpretive dance?).
There’s no doubt that some sort of regulation will be needed in open plan, the same sort of rules that confine me to merely eating all the chocolate biscuits at meetings rather than my preferred behaviour of taking them, licking off the chocolate and then replacing them.
There are two types of open plan citizen; those with annoying personal habits and those who are going to be medically retired at 40 because they have been driven insane by somebody’s annoying personal habits. Annoying personal habits can be: humming, singing, muttering, stinking like a landfill site in summer, coughing, sniffing, sniffing, sniffing, repetitive sniffing or making a curious tooting noise because of a semi-blocked sinus - C minor on the inhale, major F on the exhale. Unchecked, these can lead to a build up of tension in neighbours until the annoyed party starts to consider ‘breathing’ as one of their colleague’s nasty little habits and plots to remedy this.
A code of conduct may be a good way to start but I’m concerned that just about every anti-social quirk I have will be banned, a problem as collectively these form my personality. I know for sure that there will probably be a ban on swearing. I do enjoy a good swear, or a bad one, I’m not fussy. It’s a way of releasing tension and so it’s either swear or start drinking even earlier in the day and currently that would mean getting up before the sun. If swearing means you’re tense then Gordon Ramsey must be the tensest man in Britain but it’s not actually him who’s provided me with my sweary phrase of the moment. Rather, it’s another chef, Jamie Oliver. Normally clean of mouth and limb, seeing him swearing on the telly was like seeing an oil painting by Michelangelo - not what he’s famous for, but still a work of art. The phrase in question is: ‘fuck me ragged. Right up the arse.’ And I use it far more than is healthy.
So my great idea to promote open-plan harmony? ‘Why not have a one month amnesty where, for four weeks after we move into the new office, you can tell people that something they are doing is annoying you and they can’t take offence?’ Even as the last syllable of ‘offence’ was out of my mouth I know that I’d lit the blue touch paper of a truly shit idea. You could see half of the faces round the table light up as people thought ‘at last, I can have a go about Phil’s garlic and dung sandwiches’ while the other half, the irritating people with the self-awareness of a sea-sponge, thought ‘sounds reasonable. Hummmn, am I humming out loud again? Oh well.’
It’s a monumentally shit idea and if it doesn’t totally destroy office harmony, I’ll be bloody surprised. We’re a quirky bunch, which means we’re not wealthy enough to be considered eccentric and are not weirdly bearded enough to be considered insane. We need lies to get along, we can’t be honest - honesty is like hemlock to office workers! If we have to be honest to others provoking anger and tears then we are going to have to start being honest to ourselves and that’s when they start making up Jack Daniels and Prozac in gift sets.
The subject under discussion (TRANSLATION: the excuse for the meeting and hence ordering of biscuits at office expense) was a code of conduct to be implemented when we move from our current proper grown-up offices into open plan (TRANSLATION: through what medium do we tell Sweaty Dave, currently confined to his own lead-lined office, that he stinks? Face to face? Post-it note? Interpretive dance?).
There’s no doubt that some sort of regulation will be needed in open plan, the same sort of rules that confine me to merely eating all the chocolate biscuits at meetings rather than my preferred behaviour of taking them, licking off the chocolate and then replacing them.
There are two types of open plan citizen; those with annoying personal habits and those who are going to be medically retired at 40 because they have been driven insane by somebody’s annoying personal habits. Annoying personal habits can be: humming, singing, muttering, stinking like a landfill site in summer, coughing, sniffing, sniffing, sniffing, repetitive sniffing or making a curious tooting noise because of a semi-blocked sinus - C minor on the inhale, major F on the exhale. Unchecked, these can lead to a build up of tension in neighbours until the annoyed party starts to consider ‘breathing’ as one of their colleague’s nasty little habits and plots to remedy this.
A code of conduct may be a good way to start but I’m concerned that just about every anti-social quirk I have will be banned, a problem as collectively these form my personality. I know for sure that there will probably be a ban on swearing. I do enjoy a good swear, or a bad one, I’m not fussy. It’s a way of releasing tension and so it’s either swear or start drinking even earlier in the day and currently that would mean getting up before the sun. If swearing means you’re tense then Gordon Ramsey must be the tensest man in Britain but it’s not actually him who’s provided me with my sweary phrase of the moment. Rather, it’s another chef, Jamie Oliver. Normally clean of mouth and limb, seeing him swearing on the telly was like seeing an oil painting by Michelangelo - not what he’s famous for, but still a work of art. The phrase in question is: ‘fuck me ragged. Right up the arse.’ And I use it far more than is healthy.
So my great idea to promote open-plan harmony? ‘Why not have a one month amnesty where, for four weeks after we move into the new office, you can tell people that something they are doing is annoying you and they can’t take offence?’ Even as the last syllable of ‘offence’ was out of my mouth I know that I’d lit the blue touch paper of a truly shit idea. You could see half of the faces round the table light up as people thought ‘at last, I can have a go about Phil’s garlic and dung sandwiches’ while the other half, the irritating people with the self-awareness of a sea-sponge, thought ‘sounds reasonable. Hummmn, am I humming out loud again? Oh well.’
It’s a monumentally shit idea and if it doesn’t totally destroy office harmony, I’ll be bloody surprised. We’re a quirky bunch, which means we’re not wealthy enough to be considered eccentric and are not weirdly bearded enough to be considered insane. We need lies to get along, we can’t be honest - honesty is like hemlock to office workers! If we have to be honest to others provoking anger and tears then we are going to have to start being honest to ourselves and that’s when they start making up Jack Daniels and Prozac in gift sets.
1 Comments:
Wow. I wish I worked in your office! I personally don't really care if people complain about my annoying habits because if they were really that annoying, i would have stopped doing them. For example, I don't eat stinky cheese and rotten fish sandwiches everyday like the Russian. I don't regularly misuse the English language to mix-up both the plural and singular tenses of words. I don't say "Okie dote" instead of "Okie doke". AND I NEVER EVER leave time left on the microwave in the breakroom...it drives me nuts to walk in for coffee and see that someone stopped the microwave 4 seconds short of the originally designated heating time. Are they that impatient and then subsequently that LAZY that they can't just hit the "clear" button once they jump the gun and get the bag of popcorn out 3 seconds early so that they can cram it down their throats sooner?
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