Banish the Desks, Bring on the Beds!

It was when I got to bed—for the second time—yesterday afternoon that it hit me: I completely, completely, screwed up.

What I had been skating around, in my post about Robert Louis Stevenson and Florence Nightingale, is nothing more than a completely new, and thoroughly revolutionary concept in business management!

It’s an experience everyone should have—for a few years—working in a major corporation, because it will entirely shred any belief you might cling to about the efficiency or productivity of our current business models.

An example?

Some years ago, the entire Human Resources department—some forty people—was taken off to what was proudly championed as an adult preschool. There were cushions, people sat on the floor, employees meandered about and got sugared snacks, crayons were provided as well as large sheets of paper, to be followed with post-it notes that were pasted on the brightly-colored walls. People were milling about, rearranging the notes, laughing, chatting. And what was the point of it?

I have no idea….

Nor, I’m sure, do any of the people involved. We knew at the time; it made—depending how elastic your credulity was—sense at the time. A plan was generated, meetings were held, committees were formed, reports were generated, progress was measured and observed, goals were met. Finally, at the end of the year, the department “morale” was measured, and guess what? It was little changed from the previous year, and all of the eternal complaints that everybody had about the department—those complaints that were so grave they could never be spoken, only broached anonymously via the survey?

Still there!

There is, in short, an unbelievable level of silliness in corporate America. Consider, for example, another “retreat”—which it was, from sanity—in which a blindfolded woman stood on a platform, behind which her colleagues stood, their arms outstretched, ready to catch her. The coach, however, was urging her: dig deep, feel the fear of rejection, of not being supported, of the fall, of the crash onto the concrete and the splattered flesh and the splintered bones! In the meantime, her colleagues were shouting messages of support.

“We’ll always be there for you, María!”

“We’ve got your back, María!”

“We love you, María!”

María was an out-and-out bitch whom nobody could stand, except for the three members of her micro-division, all of whom formed a sort of cell of nastiness.

Nor was it limited to Human Resources, though we seemed to do this inanity with more panache. There was the Pizza Panic—which started when the Mexican CEO of the company (whose stature was equal to the temperament of Napoleon). This man, called Pancho, had ventured into a Sam’s Club, sampled the pizza, and disliked the sauce.

“Why are we always trying to imitate Costco?” I had asked a group of managers a few weeks previously. “Just because Costco has great pizza, does that mean we have to slavishly copy them? Aren’t we the leader—at least in Puerto Rico—of the industry?”

But no, we had to have pizza, and now it was five PM—rush hour—and Pancho was calling William, the head of the Sam’s division. I was chatting with William when the call arrived. William, of course, had to drop everything to go see about the pizza. First, however, he had to summon the head of the food division, and marshal him to action as well.

‘How far down will it go,’ I wondered, and stepped into the office of the Deli division, who was on the phone saying, “Oh my God, I’ll be there right away!” And so I went from office to office, as the alarm and panic was sounded. Then I head for the door, and waited.

Remember Wilma and Betty shouting, “CHARGE!?”

Also remember—it was now 5:10, which meant that the five miles to the club would now take an hour. During which Pancho was fuming in the club, finding new atrocities, peppering his staff with calls. Taken in total, there must have been a payroll of well over five hundred dollars an hour stalled between the Home Office and the club.

The average manager? He or she is completely harassed by emails, calls, text messages, meetings announced or improvised, reports that have to be done, evaluations that have to be performed…and guess what? At the end of the day, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans, because the twenty-year kid that you’re paying 7.60$ an hour to make the pizza? He could give a flying phooey about it….

Now then—consider Miss Nightingale, as I often do. She was sick, sick, deathly sick—so sick was she that it was impossible, utterly impossible to see anybody. Did no one understand that? Was she always to be hectored, to be surrounded by petty people as fruit flies swarm a rotten orange!? It was impossible, utterly impossible for her to do anything—she had to have complete silence and seclusion, since she was busy just at the moment finishing up her 830-page report for Queen Victoria, and pioneering the use of medical statistics!  Couldn’t they see that? Good Lord, and didn’t they realize that soldiers in peacetime die at twice the rate of civilians in the general population! Good God, and these were soldiers, presumably young fit men! Something had to be done, and at once, and she was a lone, frail woman—utterly exhausted, but struggling, struggling to finish her reports, and will someone please, PLEASE, put hay on the streets? The clatter of the hooves is making it completely impossible to work!

Enter the Invalidism Style of Management!

Everybody, absolutely everybody must be sick, pale, ailing, clenching onto life even as the jaws of death gape wider and wider—an asp of Homeric proportions. No cell phones can possibly tolerated, a meeting would be quite out of the question, and email? Can’t you see that whatever spare energy—piffling as it is—has to given to the question of how to increase the efficiency of solar panels so that even in foggy London everybody will be energy-sufficient!? Must I always be hectored?

Tremendous idea, if I do say so myself….