By Janay Kingsberry and Sofia Andrade
Labour Day has arrived again in the US, with another opportunity to consider the continued decline of the place we call the office. (And yes, we all saw the story about the poor woman in Tempe, Arizona, whose dead body was found in her Wells Fargo cubicle last month, four days after she last clocked in, becoming a new symbol of workplace discontent.)
Lately, and less dire, it seems as if everyone’s colleagues are dragging them down. Just look at the highest levels of public office, where the drama can get downright Shakespearean. Lawmakers have hurled insults across aisles, clashed over legislation and even come close to physical blows – all in the public eye.
Workplace conditions have gone downhill. Credit: Steve Colquhoun
Behind closed doors, it gets even weirder. Earlier this year, Vermont state representative Mary Morrissey (Republican) was caught pouring water into a tote bag belonging to her Democratic colleague Jim Carroll – behaviour she had secretly carried out over the course of five months before Carroll set up a camera to catch her in the act.
“I just remember thinking, ‘Somebody doesn’t like me, and who could it be, and why?’” Carroll told The Washington Post at the time.
There are plenty of other tales of boorish behaviour – and not just at the water cooler. In Boston, a senior employee discovered that the office had turned into a circus while she was away on vacation this summer. The manager, who is in her 50s, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss workplace conditions. (For all our big talk when work has us angered, everyone clamps up when it’s time to go on the record. That should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever had a job in an office. Or has watched The Office.)
One colleague had taken to using the long-idle treadmill desks – and had developed the habit of changing into a full spandex bodysuit to go for “a real run, right in the middle of the office”.
‘Just the casual nature of work, sometimes people take it too far.’
Kate Zabriskie, president of Business Training Works
Another had fashioned a makeshift bed out of three desk chairs and had used them to lie down while she worked on her laptop.
Worst of all? That would be the pile of toenail clippings on the office carpet, which had prompted the workplace experience team to be called in.
“I’ve been around forever,” the senior employee said. “But even the people who are younger, who were in the workforce prior to 2020 and used to come into the office every day, have noticed that there [is] an ignorance … truly a non-knowing of office norms.”
People are more likely to talk loudly about work-inappropriate matters, she said. A woman who sits near the senior employee, for example, complains frequently about her boss.
“It’s kind of stupid behaviour,” she said. “Not a lot of common sense, I think, is probably what it is. And I hadn’t seen that before.”
Meanwhile, social media has become a hotbed for frustrated workers to air their grievances – sharing stories of stolen lunches, shady emails and parking-spot wars.
According to a Gallup analysis in February, only 38 per cent of employees felt respected at work, down from 44 per cent in March 2020. At the same time, only 30 per cent of workers polled in February viewed their organisation as having a positive impact on people and the planet, a five-percentage-point drop from June 2021. Combined, these numbers point to an environment where employees may feel both less supported and less committed to their work, factors that can lead to less-than-ideal behaviour.
“I think part of this may be people got so used to working alone,” said Kate Zabriskie, president of Business Training Works, which provides soft-skills training and conflict resolution services for clients. “When you have more shared space, these things come up more.”
People got so used to working alone (or with their pets) during the COVID-19 pandemic.Credit: iStock
Also: “People are people, and they’ve been people-ing since the beginning of time,” added Zabriskie. “But you’re hearing about it maybe more now just because of the viral nature of social media.”
On Reddit, one user’s story recently went viral after the person claimed that they were the only one in the department to not be invited to a colleague’s wedding. While they were told by the bride that the wedding was being kept small, according to the Reddit post, the rest of the small office was told that the user couldn’t make it. At a department meeting, a co-worker told the person that it was a “shame” that they hadn’t been there. When the snubbed employee said out loud that they weren’t invited, their relationship with the bride soured.
“Now she is mad at me and [our] working relationship is cordial at best,” the person wrote.
TikTok is no better. One woman has a series, totaling almost 1.5 million views, to recount her chilly interactions with a snarky colleague she calls “the evil witch”.
And another user has complained about a problem that experts say has been a nuisance in workplace settings: stolen lunch from the office mini-fridge. She said she buys her prepared meals for several days at a time, while her co-workers typically bring home-cooked food. But when she went to heat up the chilli crisp chicken she had purchased earlier, it was gone. “I am livid right now,” she said. “... I make probably less than everyone who has access to that fridge. They make money! They can afford to go buy nice food.”
Issues involving food, questionable cleanliness and personal space are among the biggest complaints Zabriskie receives at her firm.
Among the most memorable incidents Zabriskie can recall: an employee who was planning to host a summer barbecue at her home decided to pick up groceries during her lunch break. “She put a bunch of things in the [office] freezer,” Zabriskie said. “And they were all gone, because somebody took them. I never did find out who it was.”
In another, more horrifying example: one employee was bathing herself with the office’s kitchen sponge, Zabriskie said. “Just the casual nature of work, sometimes people take it too far.”
Over the years, Business Training Works has offered services for email etiquette and appropriate Zoom conduct – especially during the pandemic, when Zabriskie said some clients reported that employees would join virtual meetings from their beds.
“This is typically when we’ll come into the picture,” she said. “There’s a lot more level setting that needs to happen in workplaces that we’re seeing some demand for.”
The Washington Post
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