Office Etiquette?

The workplace has long been paired with images of half-full coffee pots, droning men in white collared shirts, and TPS reports piled up to the ceiling. We're reminded of these office cliches whenever we browse the ever-popular hit series The Office, or pop the comedy classic Office Space into our DVD players. But what about the REAL office? Please sit back and relax folks, while I take you through a journey filled with images of copier repairman butt crack, nail clippings, and women running around with no shoes on.

Now, I'm sure every office is not like mine. I'm in the business of technical writing, which is undoubtedly the least glamorous field next to prosthetic limb sales. But I feel, at times, that some of my co-workers make it their 40-hour-a-week goals to be as unprofessional as humanly possible. For example, I just discovered, to my disgust, that a certain employee clips his nails at his desk--and what's worse--he thinks he's perfectly justified in doing so! To my usual crinkled-face look of repulsion, he responded by explaining "my desk is my own space, and no one but me sits here, so what's the big deal?" Remembering that I myself practice the habit of flossing daily at my own desk, I thought it best to quit the argument while ahead, leaving it at "that's just gross."

In a sense, though, the nasty nail clipper has to be recognized for his earnest (though inappropriate) efforts at personal hygiene. The bad office habit I absolutely can not look past, however, is barefooted gallivanting. As far as I'm concerned, keep your rancid, bunion-covered, yellow-toed feet nicely stored away where they belong--IN YOUR SHOES! I don't care if you're 35 years old and just this morning decided to wear your first pair of high-heels, or if you used to work in a steel factory and consequently emit heavy metals from your feet when they sweat (more on that one later), leave your damn dogs in your damn clogs. And yes, that heavy metal thing is a true story.

A hugely unprofessional, yet admittedly amusing phenomena I've noticed around the office in recent days is the post-lunch snooze, and there are at least two repeat offenders on site. It happens like this:

• 1 p.m.- offender is spotted clutching meatball sub.
• 1:15 p.m.- offender wipes mouth in accomplishment and resumes work (...or so we think).
• 1:17 p.m.- coworkers in near vicinity start wagering bets on time left before offender's chin reaches his chest
• 1:21 p.m.- offender's head is no longer visible from behind, and neck is completely contorted. Full REM sleep is now in effect.
• 1:23- coworkers take joy in this sighting, and make several attempts at discreetly arousing offender.
• 1:27- offender's head lurches upward in surprise.
• 1:28 p.m.- offender looks briefly left, then right, wipes drool from his chin, and cowers into seat while faining work until the next onset of narcolepsy.

I'd have to say though, the most widespread office offense is the dress code. Now, I'm not sayin' we need to dress for a funeral every day, but another thing we don't need to EVER do is stroll in to our professional job wearing our Cancun Spring Break '97 miniskirt. For the love of god, can't that wait til' Saturday? I don't know about you, but I have a hard time focusing on business matters while I'm envisioning some Mexican dude quaffing Jell-O shots off of my tits.

I think these days we're under more pressure than ever to do more at work and to work longer hours, and as a result, we have to make ourselves as comfortable there as we possible can. Even telecommuting, which involves little or no actual time spent at the office, has further contributed to degradation of workplace etiquette by deconstructing the regimented structure the office once held so dearly.

All in all, though, employee antics and non-tactful activities definitely make for an interesting day at work!

Dirty Diagnosis

Community. Identity. Stability. These three words served as the national motto of Aldous Huxley’s fictional city 'World State,' and a resounding theme throughout all of Brave New World. In Huxley’s dystopic tale, he paints an image of a planet where humans are incubated, hatched like farm-fowl, and raised according to a pre-determined set of social standards--thereby rendering them void of all free-will. The sterile, drug-numbed populace is constantly reminded of their place in the social hierarchy of World State, and thus can aspire to achieve nothing more than the standard.

When I read a science fiction novel or watch a sci-fi movie, I can’t help but consider the idea that there actually is ‘science’ that goes along with the fiction. Of course—some sci-fi prophecies are more right-on than others. Take Orwell’s 1984, for example. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard people (myself included) exclaim "Big Brother’s watching" as they glaze over some article about cameras at traffic intersections, or learn that Google now has a "street view" with actual photos of people’s houses (thankfully not in real-time…yet anyways). Even Ayn Rand's Anthem was arguably on-track, ) with its foreboding depiction of a world where the concept of individuality has been abolished, and each person is issued a common name consisting of a series of numbers.

Despite the apparent differences present in the writings of Orwell, Huxley, and Rand, it’s hard to ignore the fact that one unified theme is commonly present: conformity.

What prompted me to ponder this slightly depressing and highly geeky subject was a friend of mine, who just last week proclaimed to me with full conviction "Kristen, you have a personality disorder." So sure of this idea he was, that he proceeded to outline each and every piece of evidence supporting his case, without even pausing to consider the fact that people usually don’t take this kind of criticism well…unless we’re paying good money to a reputable authority to hear it. He, being a 3rd-year med student, probably assumed he possessed that authority. I thought differently.

Histrionic personality disorder. That's what he classified me as having. A person with this "illness" will exhibit these characteristics:

1. self-dramatization, theatricality, exaggerated expression of emotions
2. suggestibility, easily influenced by others or by circumstances;
3. shallow and labile affectivity;
4. continual seeking for excitement and activities in which the patient is the centre of attention;
5. inappropriate seductiveness in appearance or behaviour;
6. over-concern with physical attractiveness.


Now, I could launch into a four-page diatribe defending my perfectly ordered and otherwise quite stable personality—but instead I’ll just focus on the part of my friend’s statement that really pissed me off: his labeling me as a person with a problem, and his complete disregard of the notion that people, as a result of their genetics and personal experiences, are inherently different. Society has become so obsessed with understanding the human condition, that we've nearly succeeded in abandoning all of the nuances and idiosyncrasies that serve to define us as individuals.

Bipolar. Overweight. ADHD. Antisocial. Obsessive Compulsive. Dependent. Emotionally Unstable. These words resound throughout hospitals, schools, offices and televisions, and serve to negatively stigmatize what are otherwise normal side-effects of life. Let's face it--livin' ain't always easy. No one ever said it would be. And what makes it even harder is society (namely the medical community) reinforcing the idea that everyone should act a certain way or be branded as a deviant. How are future generations ever going to learn to cope with their problems when they think that any situation is diagnosable and treatable by pills?Bottom line- the more we characterize, isolate, and medicate our individuals, the more we begin to resemble a world not unlike that described by the aforementioned writers--where everything is ordered, controlled, and deadened.