I just spent half a day at an office. A real office! It was the first time in years (honestly, 5 of them), and I found it exceptionally enjoyable. Doubly enjoyable, because I could be there, and not share in their stress. Everyone is preparing for a big conference, and tensions were running high. People were running up and down, there were last minute meetings with raised voices as the details of everything were being finalised. The telephone switchboard quit working mid-morning, and Telkom had to be called in. There were only 25 people in the office, but from the buzz, you'd swear it was twice as many.
Through it all, I got to sit in a quiet little corner, and plug along at the piece of work I had to do, offering occasional sympathetic head nods as people ran by upset and tense. It made me realise how much organisational bandwidth gets consumed feeding the organisation. I felt that in my previous job - like I only spent half my time actually doing things and the other half being consumed by vague organisational imperatives (circular email conversations in which everyone and their dog is cc:ed. Trying to schedule a teleconferece, in which a minimum of 2 attendees are travelling at any given time. Trying to figure out who has the mandate to make a decision about whatever) I don't have a solution to this - when organisations grow, they need switchboards (which sometimes break, and cause havoc), cooperation (which takes time) and systems (which are sometimes slow). I was just happy to be around it, and not part of it for the day, and hope to continue sitting smuggly and productively in a corner.
Through it all, I got to sit in a quiet little corner, and plug along at the piece of work I had to do, offering occasional sympathetic head nods as people ran by upset and tense. It made me realise how much organisational bandwidth gets consumed feeding the organisation. I felt that in my previous job - like I only spent half my time actually doing things and the other half being consumed by vague organisational imperatives (circular email conversations in which everyone and their dog is cc:ed. Trying to schedule a teleconferece, in which a minimum of 2 attendees are travelling at any given time. Trying to figure out who has the mandate to make a decision about whatever) I don't have a solution to this - when organisations grow, they need switchboards (which sometimes break, and cause havoc), cooperation (which takes time) and systems (which are sometimes slow). I was just happy to be around it, and not part of it for the day, and hope to continue sitting smuggly and productively in a corner.
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