Varying Wildernesses

It’s one of those moments when you know intuitively that it’s true. When Susan Cain in the TED talk below tells introverts, “hey, it’s OK to withdraw—seek your wilderness, that’s where the creativity comes from,” I was back behind the building at work, looking on at the iguanas resting in the trees, or the egret sailing off lazily as the barking dogs attempted chase.

I had left behind a huge open office with little individual workspaces and four-foot partitions. The noise level was high, despite constant reminders to respect other people’s privacy and not to play loud music, have loud conversations, or—and this drove people nuts—go away from your desk leaving your cell phone blaring your favorite—and no one else’s—ringtone.

On Friday afternoons, all pretense of work or an office environment was dropped. People roamed the aisles, talked to their friends, laughed, planned—or actually started—their weekends.

Cain is right, as well, about the constant pressure to be in a group, to be a part of a group, to be contributing to the group, to be a leader in the group. Staff meetings were agony for me—I liked virtually all my coworkers individually, but together they drove me nuts.

First of all, nobody came on time. Second, there were constant interruptions. Third, the same people who always talked, well, always talked. So we always agreed to do whatever it was they had decided to do, and so why were we there? Was it really necessary to gather us all together to rubberstamp what was going to happen, anyway?

(When, by the way, did we decide that “rubberstamp” is one word? It seems ominous, somehow—as if it’s legitimizing something that very much shouldn’t be….)

Even worse was the portion of the meeting where a dinámica would be rolled out. The purpose was always some corporate hooey about increasing trust, fostering teamwork, building effective networks—whatever. Once, construction paper was passed out, and each person was given the name of a colleague. With glue and crayons, we were told to make a hat, and adorn on it some emblem or symbol of the person whose name we had been given.

I saw my hands making it, and watched in horror. To my right and left—as well as in front and behind—people were making orderly, ordinary hats. My own? Well it was a lop-sided affair that had three horns stuck out the top of it—God knows what I was thinking—and little paper dreadlocks hanging down the back. To this I applied colors that instantly clashed—I never got around to learning the color cycle, which is why I always wear black pants and a white shirt: that way the tie won’t clash…see?—and then began to contemplate what symbols I could impose upon my creation.

The problem being that the person whose name I had been given was absolutely the blandest creature I had ever met. Right, I thought, so I’ll just draw in some abstract figures, and let her figure it out.

It was a monstrosity: a misshapen, disfigured, cruel joke of a hat. What if I added some curls to the side?

Made it worse….

OK—string little doohickeys from the three horns?

Horrible.

The room had grown still, all were finished, all eyes were on my hands, wonderfully finding new ways to make the hat uglier. I myself watched in horror as the thing grew in hideousness, a hat with a terrible genetic malformation exposed to horrific blasts of radiation. At last, the director of the department put an end to it.

It was time—I had to present my hat. The problem being that my recipient was one of two colorless women who had the same position, very similar names, almost similar physiognomies…oh, and they always hung out together.

All I could do was call out her name….

She lifted her hand to her mouth and gasped as I marched the abortion over to her and wedged it one her head.

It got worse—I was asked to explain the meaning of the abstract figures I had scratched on the hat.

“Kindness,” I said, pointing to something that looked like a chewed up dog toy.

“Carefulness,” I said, thinking anybody so boring had to be careful.

And the last?

“Precision,” I said, and retreated to my chair.

At a certain point it was clear. When they announced the “realignment” (get with it—it’s no longer called a “restructuration”) it became obvious. All things come to an end. I had my meeting with the HR people from Bentonville, the meeting that began with the question, “now, what is it exactly that you do,” with the explanation followed by blank looks and noncommittal murmurings.

So the day when I came upon the most zealous of the dinámica guys filling up buckets of water before the staff meeting?

I couldn’t, I absolutely couldn’t bear to find out—would someone be blindfolded and told to carry the bucket of water through an obstacle course without spilling one drop—just by receiving feedback from the rest of his team?

I was free, I decided. Nothing I did was going to alter my course, change my destiny, save my job. I was coasting along to that Friday morning that indeed came—the one announced by the E-mail stating “your attendance is mandatory.”

So I can’t tell you, dear Reader, what manner of nonsense got done on that bucket of water. I was out, as ever, peering at iguanas, consoling myself with a warm bit of wilderness outside before plunging back into the madness inside.