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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

#41

Post by c1sc0 »

gruseom wrote: post #34
maxawaytoolong wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You have a revolution brewing there, brother. I'll add to that: what if people would just stop sugarcoating everything & tell what they really think.

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

#42

Post by joshuacc »

_delirium wrote: post #19

Seems like Disney was ahead of the curve: this "corporate wacky fun" employment atmosphere used to be a trademark of theirs. They still do it, but it's no longer the only place like that. I'd be curious if there's any direct link/borrowing, or if it's an independent invention.

I'm not sure if it's still done, but businesses used to send groups of management to Disney World or Disney Land to watch the training/cultural-initiation of new Disney employees in order to bring ideas back to HomeCorp.

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

#43

Post by PaddyCorry »

Great article, enforced corporate 'fun' is always horrific, couldn't agree more.

Perhaps slightly off-topic, but recently enough where I work, there was an attempt at measuring the happiness of the workforce. Everyone was encouraged to register how happy they were, once per day, by clicking on a survey link. The choices were: 0% happy, 25% happy, 50%, 75% or, yes, 100% happy.

The results were aggregated (a basic average I believe) and emailed to management, who then supposedly knew how happy >everyonePutting aside the obvious problems with this approach, it kicked off some funny quasi-philosophical debates each day (e.g. am I 50% or 75% happy?, Do I register how happy I am with work, or in general?). Bizarre stuff, it didn't last very long.

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

#44

Post by brown9-2 »

blogimus wrote: post #33
brown9-2 wrote: post #20

Isn't it a bit dangerous to assume that Mad Men accurately reflects workplace culture from the 60s?

One could argue that it is inaccurate, but how is it dangerous?

I mean dangerous to the article's central thesis.

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

#45

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

I have no issue with corporate fun, so long as it's opt-in.

I've seen very few things companies do for "fun" to be universally hated and similarly few are universally loved - most fall somewhere in the middle.

Make it opt-in and it's all fine, enforce it and you're likely to do more harm than good.

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

#46

Post by krschultz »

brown9-2 wrote: post #20

Isn't it a bit dangerous to assume that Mad Men accurately reflects workplace culture from the 60s?

All of the people I talked to who worked in that industry in that time period and watch the show think it is pretty accurate (sample size: 2). Or as they said "that show seems rediculous, but that is actually how it was. people used to get drunk at work. people used to chain smoke all day. your boss would berate you constantly and the only reward was your paycheck, no one was coddling you"

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

#47

Post by krschultz »

Corporate "fun" and team fun are two very different things. Just let each team do what they want to do and if you have good coworkers, the fun will happen organically.

Last thursday my team decided to go to a bar. About 15 of the engineers went, and it was a decent time. Was it as fun as my college days with my dorm friends? Of course not. Was it better than the company picnic? Hell yes.

A few of the "fun" things that I've done with companies that actually worked:

I worked in an office that was a converted residential house, we had a BBQ every friday in the summer. Simple, cheap, but honestly taking an hour and enjoying the summer weather on the back porch in the middle of your work day goes a long way for moral.

Pranks. This can go too far, but in moderation really is funny.

Going out to a bar if you actually like the people you work with.

Skydiving, not everyone did it but you want to talk about a "team building" exercise, have everyone jump out of a plane together.

Almost all of those that worked were organically started by the guys in our team. My current company has no "fun" policy as I see it, but my coworkers are fun, and that makes all the difference.

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

#48

Post by ahoyhere »

I think I may have worked at the most "fun" corporate environment ever. The parties! The BBQ! The evenings on the roof top deck in Tribeca! The pillow room! The Wii! The wall-o'-drinks! The buddha statues! The one-team-cooks-a-full-lunch day once a month! The expeditions to South's! That one guy who was always napping in the weirdest places trying to be polyphasic! The singing, the dancing and the hilarious coworkers.

The key difference between that workplace and the others I've experienced/observed, was that the fun was bottom-up instead of top-down. It wasn't cheesy, but it was real. If an institution is the lengthened shadow of one man, well, Limewire had a pretty whacky shadow, but the air of freedom was what led us to all bring our own flavor to it. We weren't whacky, even though the guy who ran it was whacky. We just did what we wanted and made our own fun. The biz-sponsored parties were the only orchestrated element, other than the cooking.

Ah, Limewire, I miss you sometimes.

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

#49

Post by m0th87 »

ahoyhere wrote: post #48

I think I may have worked at the most "fun" corporate environment ever. The parties! The BBQ! The evenings on the roof top deck in Tribeca! The pillow room! The Wii! The wall-o'-drinks! The buddha statues! The one-team-cooks-a-full-lunch day once a month! The expeditions to South's! That one guy who was always napping in the weirdest places trying to be polyphasic! The singing, the dancing and the hilarious coworkers…

Hah, as I read your comment I thought "this description sounds exactly like Limewire." Did you work with Mike S?

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

#50

Post by tcskeptic »

rudasn wrote: post #39
enjo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Really? Almost everything I have read indicates that moderate consumption of alcohol (both beer and wine, dunno about spirits) has positive health effects. Heart disease, brain function, blood pressure, etc. all seem to benefit.
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