anywhereisbetter

Do you wear a lot of hats at your job? Is there a lot on your plate? Are you encouraged to think outside of the box? If you answered yes to any of these questions, I bet you hate your job.

Okay, maybe you don’t hate your job. But let’s face it: the lexicon of the workplace is stupid. It’s full of bad metaphors and worse euphemisms, and seems designed to facilitate circumlocution and passive aggression in favor of direct action and conflict resolution. It’s something that, sooner or later, everyone in the workplace ends up adopting, if only by osmosis. It’s a part of process of assimilating employees into office culture. But I think it’s more insidious than that. Just as Big Brother implemented a new form of language in Orwell’s 1984, officespeak can control the thoughts of those who succumb to it. “Delegation” of tasks‚ basically shirking one’s own responsibilities and dumping them onto someone else, just sounds like good managerial practice. “Back-burnering” an issue means neglecting it altogether, and “casual Friday” means employees are allowed to wear their second uniform to work on the last day of the week. Tired of wearing suits everyday? Well fear not, today you get to pull out those pleated khaki Dockers and blue denim button-down. TGIF!

There’s another reason officespeak is doubleplusungood. If you’ve ever spent any time around the real bigwigs‚ directors of this or vice presidents of that‚ you might notice that the degree to which they use this kind of jargon is far more limited than that of the average middle manager‚ and I don’t think they ever use it on each other. The language acts as symbol reinforcing the company hierarchy. They’re not thinking outside of the box; they’re telling you to. Why? Because they’re not trapped inside boxes all day like you are.

I’m not going to act self-righteous about this and claim that I’ve never submitted to this aspect of office culture. For anyone that’s spent any amount of time in an office, it’s unavoidable. But after years away from it‚ working in video stores, garages, and academia‚ I think I’ve gained a bit of perspective. I’ve had some time to think of some “enterprise-wide,” “scalable” solutions to this vexing problem. With enough “team building,” enough “proactive thinking,” we can change things.

I think the time is right for a white-collar cultural revolution. The Accounts Payable department is with me, are you?

It’s time to begin translating the tepid metaphors of office life into their literal equivalents. Go to the company cafeteria (hopefully your company is gigantic enough to have one), pick up a styrofoam plate, and go to town at that salad bar. Set the plate at your desk, in place of your to do list. You could even spray it with that weird chemical stuff to preserve it, and hang it on your cubicle wall. I don’t care. Either way, whenever your manager delegates responsibility to you, all you need to do is point to your plate, and ask them to note the contents. They’ll probably be so confused by your gesture that they’ll forget what they came to your cube for in the first place, and stumble away in a state of befuddlement. And inducing befuddlement feels goooooood. Way to stick it to the man.

Wearing a lot of hats is fairly self-explanatory, but for anyone who has not yet learned to think outside of the box, I will offer suggestions. Perhaps go to the costume store and spend a few bucks on whatever hats you fancy. I recommend pirate and swashbuckler hats, since the skull and crossbones are intimidating, and it’s tough to micromanage employees when their giant purple plumes keep tickling your nose. You’re free to pick and choose, but whatever you do, make sure that you buy a lot of them. And don’t forget to get something special for casual Friday!

Though it’s slightly more elaborate, I fully encourage anyone who wishes to backburner items to buy a hotplate for their desk. When HR comes by to make you fill out yet another form to receive those benefits you’ve been eligible for since last June, just throw the form on the backburner, and tell them you’ll get to that once all of your action items are taken care of. But beware‚ items that get put on the backburner for too long might become a safety hazard, and someone will have to come around to put out the fire‚ literally. I guess that’s the point, though, so have at it.

Though these acts of defiance (or are they simply strict interpretations?) of popular office phrases may make you feel liberated, be careful‚ there’s a chance that all those antics will give the company cause to “let you go.” We wouldn’t want that. After all, the mere fact that they could let you go shows just what a grip they have on us in the first place.