Friend of my who works for an American Investment Bank (Important Enough to be in Capitals) defined a new word for me. I called him one evening for a beer. (beer is big in my world, being a portable recreation that does not vary much with different countries). "Sorry Chuck, not tonight, we're suffering a round of presenteerism." Know what absenteeism is? Presenteerism is the opposite. People sitting round doing face time, for bonus, fear, desperation or lack of imagination reasons.
Now, this seems to be variable in different parts of the world. In Japan, well, I get into the office at 09:00, and I am neither the first nor the last. I leave with one of my German colleagues also working here, at about 20:00. To me that is an 11 hour workday, and the limit of what is reasonable in terms of being productive. Anything after that, in my opinion, and you are working with a fried brain that needs food sleep, and maybe beer, to help get it back in mode.
America. Meetings that go on for days, and have no apparent purpose of any kind, apart from allowing people to talk about the great things that they were doing before they got the meeting, and the great things that they will be doing after this meeting, and therefore how important they are to the current meeting.
Britain. Football, beer, jokes. Good fun, but not much good on the productivity front.
Northern Europe. (Scandinavia, Germany, Holland, etc.) Arrive 09:00. perfunctory greeetings, (sincere enough) to colleagues, get on with it. Work steadily through list of things that need done. Meeting is to discuss an issue, person with best line of reasoning usually wins, but gets the penalty of making it work...
Southern Europe. Perfunctory meeting about something or other. Glance at watches, start big lunch at about midday. Start talking. Talk about what needs done over a long lunch, in a relaxed fashion. Maybe have a beer or glass of wine. Keep talking. Plot how this is going to work. Decide if avarice is going to overcome cynicism, and that something will actually get done, as opposed to looking like it is happening, when really it isn't.
Home Working. Turn on computer. Look at list of projects that need done. Pick the interesting one. Go off and pick at that for a couple of hours. Scratch arse. Make another cup of tea. Change out of pyjamas into tracksuit bottoms and Motorhead tee-shirt. Have phone conference. Scratch arse. Pick up the boring project, and trudge through that for another hour. Decide that PC needs a back up. Buy software off the web to do that. Get it started. Scratch arse. Make more tea. Back up finished. Another phone conference. Book travel to another country. Scratch arse. Go downstairs and get jumped on by small child, who is keen to see you now that you have finished.
What do all of these have in common?
The need to balance effective working with the need for social contact and a place in the tribe. I wonder what the right balance really is. I am quite indepedent, or as my wife, a psychiatrist would say, "quasi-autistic", and can work like this for a while, but I do need to see hear and feel people around me. (Actually, feeling the people around you at work gets you into trouble, and given that I mainly work with male German Software Developers, that isn't all that much fun for anyone really. "Hello Juergen, Fancy a Fondle!")
I am enjoying seeing the different modus operandi of the various cultures, Xenophile that I am. But what is going to happen to the workplace, with the internet, and the fact that I have a work-socialisation network that is in ten countries, with working across national boundaries getting more and more common. Reputation is coming back to the fore. Hugh (Gapingvoid, and the guy who eventually tipped me into blogging would say it was a Hughmark, or wiki, or whatever.) But what is reputation when the people outside your door do not know who you are, and you are feted in some virtual community?
I see interesting problems with all of the workpractices I mentioned. The twenty first century is looking very interesting already. The corporation is perhaps about to take a reverse, as the need to have a middle management led command and control structure is fading fast.
Imagine JP Morgan, or Saatchi and Saatchi, when they suddenly realise that most of the staff they have do not need to exist in their premises. What then is the company? A brand? Maybe. A place? Needn't be. In the end, it is a bunch of people that wish to associate, and are led by someone who has the reputation good enough that the others wish to follow. There has to be a legal entity for many purposes, but even in some cases that is breaking down. Microsoft is incorporated, but Linux sure as hell isn't, even if some of the distribution effort is.
So what then is a business?
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