SIXTY people are up early, looking dapper with their hair combed, their collars smoothly pressed and their shoes shined.
It is Monday morning, 9 am, and already the office is filled with diligence, activity and team spirit. Quite frankly, it’s unhealthy and more than a little disconcerting.
We have a new boss. A top gun, who is looking equally dapper and demure in her dark suit and polished nails. She’s glamorous.
I imagine that by a week on Wednesday, the cracks will begin to appear. Our shiny shoes will revert to trainers, the collars will look less starched, and by 9.30 am most of the office will be back out queuing for the routine Costa Coffee and croissant without having entered the building as yet. Work will not begin until after the Facebook, Hotmail and Kodak accounts have been checked. It will be — as of course the world of office work should be — with everything in its rightful chronological order.
Today our new boss has endured her first day under the scrutiny of eager employees with hot collars, keen eyes and enthusiastic smiles and nods. There is no let-up. There is no wandering about. There are simply 120 eyes, half-staring at computer screens and half-gawping slyly at the actions of our new leader. Imagine 60 Churchill dogs on ‘oh yes’ autopilot. Now you have it.
If a Top Gun’s first day is anything like anybody else’s first day (but worse), it will be utterly exhausting. In fact it should feel like one whole week squeezed into one small day — stuffed full of boredom.
Hours will be spent surfing an age-old intranet site and an annual report. A hundred and one e-mails will be waiting, all from HR on health and safety and company values.
And then, once the morning is finally, but finally, over, there will be a canteen lunch with people unknown. And in this case, they will still be smiling and nodding in a weird and slightly creepy way. There is no reprieve.
And, of course, this is the worst of it all, the deadly combination of being watched and being bored. Everything from the hellos to walks along a corridor and watercooler trips have to be accompanied by a welcoming smile and a friendly, open and warm disposition. Simply hideous.
It will be a wonder if she turns up tomorrow to face more of the same — more team members with their keen sense of making a great first impression. I’ve spotted at least four techniques during the course of the day.
There is the direct, all-out, no-nonsense, straight up and straight over approach much favoured by the confident middle managers who want to prove their equal status at the top table. Most of them applied for her job. They walk in, walk up and offer firm handshakes and lots of warm reassuring taps on the arm. There are laughs and poor jokes. ‘Still here?’
There is a lot of sizing up in these few minutes. There is a lot of unspoken ‘what have you got that I haven’t?’ in a gentle arm touch and a good-natured chortle.
Then there are the office jokers, the loud ones, who prove their credentials through their hearty banter and overenthusiastic mateyness with their colleagues. They high-five the weekend stories of watching the FA Cup. They nudge backs, play the fool and act up in front of our Top Gun.
They are everybody’s best friend and they make the office ‘fun’ — or so they hope to convey. She may be impressed. If she is, she doesn’t say. But she does well with the welcoming smile and friendly, open and warm disposition. That must be getting tiring by now.
You will also find a once-in-a-lifetime tea-maker abruptly standing up, post-it note in hand, to take the orders for a sizeable chunk of desks: two coffees, three teas, and a baffling combination of sugar and milk. It is a kind gesture, but what does it suggest? I’m not sure it’s the right approach. Once a tea-maker . . .
It’s dubious, but at least our boss is no longer thirsty and she has had a moment’s reprieve from intranet hell.
And the final technique is that of those who forgot. Their desks are messy, strewn with paper, post-its and last week’s lunch. They have been queuing at Costa Coffee for the first half-hour of the morning while Top Gun makes her rounds looking warm and friendly. They arrive in trainers, chomping on half a pain-au-chocolat, with a look that distinctly states ‘I don’t want to be here.’
In one swift move of doing nothing differently whatsoever, they have revealed themselves as unimpressive, messy types with a poor grasp of time-keeping and zero ‘go-gettance’ first thing on a Monday morning. They have screwed up, and they spend the rest of the day looking remorseful and embarrassed. They hide behind their screens, keeping quiet with heads down. Theirs is the approach of merging into the background. It is a strategy to erase those first impressions and count on better things to come.
I wonder who’ll be in bright and breezy tomorrow with a newly Cif’d desk? I wonder who’ll be flicking through the trade press at 8.45 am with an array of sharpened pencils and a selection of highlighters? I wonder who’ll forego the Costa coffee for the earliest of starts in a demure black dress, tied back hair and neat, feminine make-up? Top Gun had better appreciate all the effort.
120 eyes on a shiny new boss
SIXTY people are up early, looking dapper with their hair combed, their collars smoothly pressed and their shoes shined.
It is Monday morning, 9 am, and already the office is filled with diligence, activity and team spirit. Quite frankly, it’s unhealthy and more than a little disconcerting.
We have a new boss. A top gun, who is looking equally dapper and demure in her dark suit and polished nails. She’s glamorous.
I imagine that by a week on Wednesday, the cracks will begin to appear. Our shiny shoes will revert to trainers, the collars will look less starched, and by 9.30 am most of the office will be back out queuing for the routine Costa Coffee and croissant without having entered the building as yet. Work will not begin until after the Facebook, Hotmail and Kodak accounts have been checked. It will be — as of course the world of office work should be — with everything in its rightful chronological order.
Today our new boss has endured her first day under the scrutiny of eager employees with hot collars, keen eyes and enthusiastic smiles and nods. There is no let-up. There is no wandering about. There are simply 120 eyes, half-staring at computer screens and half-gawping slyly at the actions of our new leader. Imagine 60 Churchill dogs on ‘oh yes’ autopilot. Now you have it.
If a Top Gun’s first day is anything like anybody else’s first day (but worse), it will be utterly exhausting. In fact it should feel like one whole week squeezed into one small day — stuffed full of boredom.
Hours will be spent surfing an age-old intranet site and an annual report. A hundred and one e-mails will be waiting, all from HR on health and safety and company values.
And then, once the morning is finally, but finally, over, there will be a canteen lunch with people unknown. And in this case, they will still be smiling and nodding in a weird and slightly creepy way. There is no reprieve.
And, of course, this is the worst of it all, the deadly combination of being watched and being bored. Everything from the hellos to walks along a corridor and watercooler trips have to be accompanied by a welcoming smile and a friendly, open and warm disposition. Simply hideous.
It will be a wonder if she turns up tomorrow to face more of the same — more team members with their keen sense of making a great first impression. I’ve spotted at least four techniques during the course of the day.
There is the direct, all-out, no-nonsense, straight up and straight over approach much favoured by the confident middle managers who want to prove their equal status at the top table. Most of them applied for her job. They walk in, walk up and offer firm handshakes and lots of warm reassuring taps on the arm. There are laughs and poor jokes. ‘Still here?’
There is a lot of sizing up in these few minutes. There is a lot of unspoken ‘what have you got that I haven’t?’ in a gentle arm touch and a good-natured chortle.
Then there are the office jokers, the loud ones, who prove their credentials through their hearty banter and overenthusiastic mateyness with their colleagues. They high-five the weekend stories of watching the FA Cup. They nudge backs, play the fool and act up in front of our Top Gun.
They are everybody’s best friend and they make the office ‘fun’ — or so they hope to convey. She may be impressed. If she is, she doesn’t say. But she does well with the welcoming smile and friendly, open and warm disposition. That must be getting tiring by now.
You will also find a once-in-a-lifetime tea-maker abruptly standing up, post-it note in hand, to take the orders for a sizeable chunk of desks: two coffees, three teas, and a baffling combination of sugar and milk. It is a kind gesture, but what does it suggest? I’m not sure it’s the right approach. Once a tea-maker . . .
It’s dubious, but at least our boss is no longer thirsty and she has had a moment’s reprieve from intranet hell.
And the final technique is that of those who forgot. Their desks are messy, strewn with paper, post-its and last week’s lunch. They have been queuing at Costa Coffee for the first half-hour of the morning while Top Gun makes her rounds looking warm and friendly. They arrive in trainers, chomping on half a pain-au-chocolat, with a look that distinctly states ‘I don’t want to be here.’
In one swift move of doing nothing differently whatsoever, they have revealed themselves as unimpressive, messy types with a poor grasp of time-keeping and zero ‘go-gettance’ first thing on a Monday morning. They have screwed up, and they spend the rest of the day looking remorseful and embarrassed. They hide behind their screens, keeping quiet with heads down. Theirs is the approach of merging into the background. It is a strategy to erase those first impressions and count on better things to come.
I wonder who’ll be in bright and breezy tomorrow with a newly Cif’d desk? I wonder who’ll be flicking through the trade press at 8.45 am with an array of sharpened pencils and a selection of highlighters? I wonder who’ll forego the Costa coffee for the earliest of starts in a demure black dress, tied back hair and neat, feminine make-up? Top Gun had better appreciate all the effort.
Article posted on 22nd May, 2008 - 3.00pm