Office, Office

As I sat at home on Monday morning and frittered the time away, I was reminded of Office Space. Hilarious movie, I am sure you'll agree. But so very relevant. And after just a month as a "management trainee", I have realised that not only does it apply to my 1-year software stint in 06-07, it also applies, perhaps more so, here. In the end all that matters is how much bullshit you can pull and get away with. My theory is that office social rules, (and maybe life's rules in the civilized world) are made, bent and broken by a series of one-upmanship games. It’s all about how shameless you can be.

 

For example, it was implicitly expected of us trainees to wear business casuals to work. Friday was a bone the HR had thrown us, where we could show up in our Sunday best. “This is how we present ourselves while dealing with our external partners (read: clients, vendors, blabla)”, they'd hint. The fact that the only ‘external partners’ we'd be meeting during the training period were the caterers working in the office mess, was a non-issue. Now, this rule kind of applied only for us newbies I figured, because the rest of the office showed up in tees and jeans the whole week. So, I got shameless and followed the example and not surprisingly, people around me pretended not to notice. Office is fun that way. The farce of corporate political correctness has pervaded so deep, that nobody dared point out to me, this "flagrant foul" that I had committed. This sort of confrontation unsettles the working-class professional. This guy would sell his grandmother at the blink of an eye if it meant that he could meet his sales targets, but being blunt to a co-worker was a no-no.

 

Then, one fine morning, when I had run out of fresh socks, I thought, why not push my theory to see where it breaks? I am proud to say that I became the only male to wear open footwear in office. Quite an achievement, I must say. And apart from the occasional uncomfortable stare that I get, my theory is still holding good. Stare all you want fellas, but sticks and stones will break my bones, but… stares… won’t… do that.

 

Anyhoo…I wonder which of my co-workers will eventually step up and say something, because I'm all for continuing this social experiment. A commendable sacrifice for the cause of mankind, I must say. Either I'll end up empowering employees to wear shorts to client meetings, or break this mask of sickening professional nicety. In either case, I'm guaranteed of getting the credit for ridding this world of a whole lot of corporate bullshit and bringing stuff out into the open.

 

P.S.: After I thought of writing this post, the HR head made a polite observation that it wasn’t very tactful on my part to wear floaters and walk into the conference room. Damn these evil corporate honchos, they sure know how to have their cake and eat it too. There goes another one of my dreams.