53
Men, don’t dye your hair
For some reason, it just doesn’t work for you. And most of you look pretty good grey anyway. Which, personally, I find quite annoying. Men with grey hair are always described as ‘silver foxes’—people use words like ‘sophisticated’ or ‘Clooney-esque’. Whereas when I allow my hair to go grey, the only celebrity I resemble is Meryl Streep in Into the Woods.
A word about open-plan offices
It has been a long time since I’ve had a ‘real’ job and worked full time in a ‘real’ office. My most recent in-office experience was at the ABC during the production of the show that spawned this book, The Weekly with Charlie Pickering. In Melbourne, the ABC offices are housed in a brand-new, shiny building in Southbank. It cost a lot of money and I guess they spent most of that money on the outside of the building, which is why they didn’t have enough cash left to pay for any walls inside the building, walls that would help divide the vast open spaces into individual offices for people to work in. I can think of no other reason, other than budget, that would explain why our national broadcaster would inflict one of the most universally reviled working arrangements on their underpaid, overworked and yet surprisingly dedicated and loyal staff. Pretty much the whole of the ABC is open plan. Well, except where the executives work—that part of the office got walls and doors, which the execs must
When I arrived at the ABC and discovered The Weekly office was open plan, I decided to work from home. This was not an arrangement I came to with management; rather, it was the only way I could get any work done. I never told anyone I was working from home, instead, I came in every morning, put my jacket on the back of my chair, scattered a few notes across my desk, placed my bag underneath, then took what I needed and went home to do some work. I was able to get away with this because at the time I lived only ten minutes down the road. So if I got a text or a call saying, ‘Where are you?’ or ‘Can you come to the meeting room for a read-through?’ I would reply, ‘Sure, just grabbing a coffee, back in ten. Smiley face emoji, coffee cup emoji, heart emoji, two exclamation marks.’
Ultimately, I was far more productive working from home than I would have been sitting out in the open among thirty other employees, a lot of whom were making necessary but still very distracting phone calls and some of whom were making distracting and completely unnecessary phone calls.
It did mean there was a fair bit of driving back and forth — which gives rise to my argument that the open-plan office model is not only highly unproductive thanks to the miserable employees it creates, but in my case it also contributed to global warming because of the time I spent on the road burning fossil fuels.
GENERAL OFFICE RULES
54
Don’t take your wang out at the office, ever
I realise this seems incredibly obvious but in the current climate, with everything that’s come to light about men sending dick pics, wanking in front of female colleagues or into pot plants, and showing off their knobs to co-workers like you would a new iPhone etc., apparently we do need to spell this one out. So here it is again:
55
Your penis should remain in your pants during office hours
Unless you are ALONE in a toilet cubicle using it to wee—then it can come out—but please, put it away as soon as you’re done.
56
During office hours, turn your phone to silent
It’s common courtesy; no one in the office wants to hear your Bernard Fanning, ‘I Just Want to Wish You Well’ ringtone, in full, every time your phone rings. No one. Not even Bernard.
57
Go easy on the reply - all button
We all get enough rubbish filling up our inboxes, we certainly don’t need to be included in irrelevant reply-all chains. Just because someone emailed a question to the entire office doesn’t mean you have to reply-all; just reply to the person who sent the email.
58
Don’t insert yay into Friday
No matter how happy you are that the week has ended, there’s no need to resort to using office clichés like ‘Friyay’. Especially in pointless inter-office group emails: Happy FriYAY everyone! Everyone knows it’s Friday. Everyone knows the weekend is coming. Everyone is happy. No one’s mood is buoyed by your arbitrary yaying.
‘Hump Day’ is similar to Friyay, in that there’s never any call for it. If you can’t think of anything to say to an associate in your office besides ‘Happy Hump Day!’ just give them a polite nod and pass without saying anything. It’s not compulsory to speak every time you pass one another. See rule 63 for clarification on the correct way to greet co-workers.
59
Stop the senseless ‘e - meeting’
Don’t write ‘pleased to e-meet you’ at the top of an email. You lost me at ‘e’—I’m not reading any further.
60
Team bonding activities should be optional
Some people love it when management decides that an afternoon of bowling or paintballing or (god forbid) karaoke will help everyone work better as a team. Others would rather be dead. So respect the rights of those who hate ‘forced fun’, which also includes themed ‘dress-up days’—not everyone enjoys wearing a fascinator around the office to celebrate Melbourne Cup Day. And maybe Fay from Purchasing is self-conscious about her broad caboose and doesn’t want to wear jeans on any day, let alone on Jeans for Genes Day when she’ll feel even more conspicuous in her sheets-of-denim being compared to everyone else in their teeny-tiny skinny jeans.
61
Don’t attempt humour in signs around the office
The problem with the jokey sign is that it does not withstand repeat viewings. People go to the kitchen or bathroom several times a day and there’s no way your note is funny enough that folks will enjoy it and chuckle every time they see it. What you should aim for in an office note is mild terseness. You do this by employing shouty caps and underlining:
PUT YOUR DISHES IN THE DISHWASHER—PLEASE
But avoid doing ‘gags’ like taking a poster of a cute pussycat and writing the following underneath it:
WASH YOUR CUP OR THIS KITTEN GETS IT!
And if you need to put up signs in the bathroom, humour should be the last thing on your mind. When I visit an office and see a sign like this in the bathroom:
IF YOU SPRINKLE WHEN YOU TINKLE, BE A SWEETIE, WIPE THE SEATIE
I’m not thinking, Oh that’s funny ’cos it rhymes, I’m thinking, Who in god’s name is pissing on the seat so often that a sign is required? After all, I’m in the ladies toilet. To the