The Afternoon Debate

I saw Horrible Bosses the movie earlier this week, and I loved it. But this isn’t a film review and before you run off and go to see the film on my endorsement, I feel you should know two things about my taste in on-screen entertainment:

In a recent study by PwC a third of UK workers admit lying to avoid work. Skiving, taking a sickie, a duvet day – whatever you call it, most of us have done it (go on, admit it). Yes, despite my annoyingly ever-present guilt complex, I confess I have relented to the little devil on my shoulder and taken two fake sick days in my lifetime. The shame.

 “Let’s have a meeting.” You’ve said it, now you feel better. Go on, admit it, you feel relieved. You can relax knowing you’ve taken the bull by the horns and done something. Pat yourself on the back, a date is going in the diary – a tangible action. Or is it? Do meetings in reality just slow everything down, courting deliberation and procrastination that simply delays getting the job under discussion done.

Meetings have become an unavoidable part of our business culture. We insist on them to make any decision, to start any project, to keep in touch with our team, even just to get through the day. If you don’t have a diary full of meetings you feel like somehow that you’re failing in your job. Even though too many meetings ironically prevent many of us doing our job and getting home on time.

Karen Walker, Grace's squeaky voiced assistant in US sitcom Will and Grace, has a blatant approach to the art of doing nothing at work. Most of us are more covert in our tactics. Sly naps in a toilet cubicle on a painful hangover morning, internet 'research' that extends to the celebrity pages of your favourite online magazine, searching for your next holiday destination when you should be finding the perfect venue for your next corporate event and those epic shopping lists you meticulously construct when you should be writing up meeting minutes. (Of course I have never done any of the above. Ahem.)

 Let's face it, doing nothing (and disguising it as work) is a fine art that anyone working in an office learns to master very early on in their career.  

It's that time of year when offices across the country are filled with back from holiday treats. Creamy fudge from a colleague who has returned from a holiday in Cornwall, maybe some buttery shortbread from a Scottish break, a few tubes of Toblerone hastily grabbed on a flight home or some cheap Spanish sweets. It's all part of office life (and a good one at that). Let's face it, these treats can often bring a glimmer of cheer to an otherwise dull working day.