Recently I signed up for ‘MasterClass’ - the subscription online learning platform. The assembled collection of experts is pretty jaw-dropping, and the whole thing is produced really well. When I have a little lull in my workload, I chuck on a class for a while. At the very least, the talks are interesting. At best, I think they can legitimately improve the quality of my work. Not in mind-blowing, revolutionary ways. But just by absorbing bits of wisdom on, say, comedic writing from Steve Martin or Judd Apatow - sooner or later one of those tips is going to make one of my TV spots 10% funnier. So like a total of 20% funny.
And yet, as I was watching one of them the other day I thought back to my old life. Sitting at a desk in an open plan office for 50+ hours a week. There were just as many lulls in my workload - much of my time was spent waiting to see the very busy person who needed to approve my work. But I imagined using that time to just watch MasterClass for an hour or two, and I laughed out loud. You’d be inviting trouble. Firstly your creative colleagues would crack jokes about your seemingly light workload. When your traffic manager busted you edifying yourself, you might even get an additional brief. And then there would be people from other departments, who probably wouldn’t say anything to you, but would make a mental note that you are learning rather than kerning - and accordingly judge you to be lazy.
How fucking absurd that taking some time improve yourself could make you the target of ridicule, or worse. But that’s office culture. I used to participate in it along with everyone else. I’ve been the guy making that dreadful joke when someone leaves at 5pm - ‘Half day, eh’? It’s so much worse than just a tired gag. It reveals the toxicity of those work environments - where every person is being measured in every moment…but measured on the most meaningless metrics. The most common one is how long you spend at the office - this was always a badge of honour when I was coming up. The later you stayed, the more weekends you gave up - this verified Your Hunger. Your Commitment To The Cause. Leaving at 530 was never viewed as being the action of someone who had just used their talent and intellect to get through their workload efficiently. No, observers wanted this person to pay a price. And the price was a label - informally applied and never said to their face - the label of bludger.
Why did we feel the need to do that? I don’t think we ever believed it. I think it’s just plain old jealousy. So many of us just wanted to be walking out the door ourselves, but we knew our bosses expected us to stay and we were too insecure and too chicken shit to do anything else. So we remained at the office achieving very little, instead of going home.
Of course no one can stop you going home if you’re already home. So that’s where you’ll find me - mostly working, but sometimes watching MasterClass.