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Down with fun: The depressing vogue for having fun at work

economist.com

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Re: Down with fun: The depressing vogue for having fun at work

#31

Post by pjscott »

Cushman wrote: post #11
jat850 wrote: post #6

The first time this happened: "The company engages in regular “random acts of kindness”: workers form a noisy conga line and single out one of their colleagues for praise. The praisee then has to wear a silly hat for a week." I would make it very clear it shouldn't happen again. If it did, I'd leave the company.

Does anyone else see the irony implicit in "regular random acts of kindness"?

If I had to implement something like that, I would make sure that the recipients of these acts of kindness were chosen uniformly at random from the entire workforce, and that the times between acts of kindness were exponentially distributed random variables. It would just feel right to be able to say that our "random acts of kindness" are a Poisson process.

Or better yet, abandon the entire idea and get a rock climbing wall instead. I love those things.

Re: Down with fun: The depressing vogue for having fun at work

#34

Post by gruseom »

maxawaytoolong wrote: post #17
gruseom wrote: post #4

It has always seemed to me that if the work is good then it doesn't need sugar on top. What one wants is hard, interesting problems to solve and great people to work with. Once you have that, work is more fun than "fun". Edit: But I have to say something about that asinine first paragraph. First, judging history by recent television dramas? He's joking, right? Second, the corporate culture of the early 1960s was noto…

Having done a 2 year stint at an ecommerce startup, I will have to say that there is not too much fun or goodness to be found in the work itself. In a solid but fundamentally boring business idea like this, there are two approaches I've seen work for employee retention: vastly overpay everyone (the "wall street" strategy) or create a weird corporate "FUN" atmosphere (the "zappos" strategy.) As much as the zappos stra…

Good points. It does make me wonder, though, what would happen if everyone simply began refusing to do meaningless work. Would the world grind to a halt? I doubt it. I bet we'd eventually figure out how to reorganize things.

Re: Down with fun: The depressing vogue for having fun at work

#35

Post by seldo »

This article tries to say that fake-fun at offices should be banned, but what it actually says is that what modern companies do for fun isn't their idea of fun (their idea of fun seems to involve smoking and drinking and sexually harrassing co-workers).

Believe it or not, Googlers love the ball pits and the massages, and Twitter peeps are very appreciative of the HR people whose job it is to make sure everyone's happy (contrary to the E's report, it more often involves firing people who suck than handing out cold towels).

Re: Down with fun: The depressing vogue for having fun at work

#36

Post by caf »

Even if you do accept the dubious assumption that Mad Men is an accurate depicition of "the good old days", the author seems to have missed the point (or just wasn't paying attention).

The constant drinking has caught up with several of the characters - one character has his foot mashed, permanently disabling him, during drink-fuelled office "fun". In the latest episodes, even Don is cutting down...

Re: Down with fun: The depressing vogue for having fun at work

#37

Post by al3x »

There are people who like a "fun" office culture, and there are people who don't. What these companies are doing is creating workforces that are, in part, self-selecting.

I have my opinions about the value of workplace wackiness, but it gets the hires in the door. The question is, are those the right hires?

Re: Down with fun: The depressing vogue for having fun at work

#38

Post by houseabsolute »

seldo wrote: post #35

This article tries to say that fake-fun at offices should be banned, but what it actually says is that what modern companies do for fun isn't their idea of fun (their idea of fun seems to involve smoking and drinking and sexually harrassing co-workers). Believe it or not, Googlers love the ball pits and the massages, and Twitter peeps are very appreciative of the HR people whose job it is to make sure everyone's happ…

Drinking is very good, and not all office romance is sexual harassment, although it's true the article's examples are . . . unfortunate. I think the article's message is a sound one: Googlers talk about how much they love the ball pits, but I don't know anyone who's gone in more than once. However, we all enjoy the team bar in the hallway. There is something to the idea that "fake fun" is not as fun as "real fun" -- the kind people opt to enjoy when left to their own devices.

I do agree that fake fun is still better than no fun at all. But I think, as someone who works at one of these places that tries to make everything fun, that I enjoy the types of fun I have with coworkers that aren't engineered more than the types of fun that are.

Re: Down with fun: The depressing vogue for having fun at work

#39

Post by rudasn »

enjo wrote: post #16
_cbsz wrote: post #8

I can't speak for everyone, but based on my experience, regularly drinking (even lightly) during the day would be likely to cause significant productivity loss. Duh?

Not true for me. I'll often have a beer or two at lunch. The company itself has developed a high-end beer day tradition every week. I've noticed very little difference in my productivity... except that I'm a bit more relaxed and probably able to focus slightly better. Of course there is a line to walk between a couple of beer and the three martini lunch.

> Of course there is a line to walk between a couple of beer and the three martini lunch.

That is true for productivity but what about your health? I like drinking as much as the next guy but drinking a couple of beers every day, at work, just to "relax" and "focus better" seems like a bad tactic.

Re: Down with fun: The depressing vogue for having fun at work

#40

Post by Goosey »

ImperatorLunae wrote: post #10

This reminds me of a group of roommates I had in college. They played Super Smash Brothers: Melee for the Nintendo Game Cube perpetually. They played the same level--a flat level without platforms or items--over and over again for one reason--to get better. They had little interest in having fun and cared more about being the best. One of our other roommates suggested that they play the game to have fun. They liked t…

Just sounds like your "other roommate"'s idea of what is fun was in different alignment from theirs. Rather than accept different tastes an attempt was made to coerce them (by use of negative language - "why not just play for fun") into playing for the same purpose he did. Unsurprisingly they found a way to have fun despite being forced into a new playing style.
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