Work Daze

Office walls do not a prison make. Or do they?

There are times when being at work is wonderfully liberating. And then there are the times when being at work feels like serving an unlimited sentence in solitary confinement.

It’s that solitary confinement feeling that you get most of all, right? Everyone else is out there – making contacts, making money, making progress across the global spectrum. And here you are, trapped like a rat in a cubical the size of a face cloth with barely enough enthusiasm to press your cold, wet nose against your mouse button.

Is it any wonder that you have decided to take action? And I totally support your efforts to break free – your idea of stealing a spoon from the break room and digging a tunnel from under your desk to the back of the parking lot is a bold and daring move.

I wish you best of luck in your escape!

All of which reminds me of a March 17, 2008 article in “The Wall Street Journal.”

“Executives Teach Inmates How to Be Employees” was the title of the piece by reporter Carol Hymowitz, and lest you consider me cold-hearted, let me say right from the jump that this charitable effort by retired execs is a good deed, indeed. By sharing basic business success tips with the prison population they are turning common criminals into uncommonly productive employees. Best of all, by instructing the inmates on how to get and keep jobs when their sentences are over, they have managed to reduce the recidivism rate from the national average of approximately 66% to a measly 10%.

But is being locked behind a desk better than being locked behind bars? I’m not sure there is much difference. One successful graduate of the program, Mark, described prison life this way: “The food was nasty, I missed my family so much, and you’re dependent on the guards for everything. No one thinks about kindness in prison.”

Now consider your job: the food in the company cafeteria is so toxic that “nasty” could be a blue plate special. And with all the hours demanded by management, you also miss your family and yes, you’re dependent on your supervisors for everything. As for thinking of kindness, forget about it. The only time you’re likely to find kindness is when the security guards offer to carry your boxes to the street after they kick you to the curb.

The charitable work that is needed here is obvious. Instead of business executives going to prison to teach convicts how to succeed on the outside, we need are convicts coming to businesses to teach employees how to survive on the inside.

[No, I’ve never been in prison, but I’ve watched “The Shawshank Redemption” a dozen times, so I’m no stranger to doing hard time.]

For example:

• Serve your sentence one day at a time.

Everyone in the workforce is a lifer. So, there’s no sense in taking the long view. When you come in on a Monday, try to ignore the weekly delousing and don’t obsess on whether you can make it all the way to Friday. If you can grit your teeth and tough it out, maybe you can make it to lunch. After that, it’s an easy jump to your early-afternoon nap break, after which you can pretend to have a stomach ache and get taken to the IT department for an emergency appendectomy. For some people, this is major surgery. For you, it’s parole.

• Never turn your back on a con.

Remember that your co-workers are just as depressed and dangerous as you. They’ll turn you in to the guard (AKA, the office manager) just for the fun of it. Be smart and strike first. If one of your office friends is cheating on her expense account, or her spouse, drop a dime on the jailbird. You’ll rid yourself of a rival, and you may get extra privileges, like a second helping of gruel at bonus time.

• Keep a positive mental outlook.

A workplace, like a prison, is a depressing place. Your body has to be there, but your mind can run free. Maybe you won’t have Morgan Freeman as your work buddy for the decades ahead, but that doesn’t mean you can’t walk through your days in a happily-demented daze. Let the bulls think you’re a nitwit. And no matter what else you have to do, just keep digging that tunnel.