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[anthroanon-blog]

Office Observations Entry #1 “Make Everyday Friday”

It’s been a little over two months since I started work at my first office job with a very large Fortune 500 company.

I’ve made many observations in that time. 

The people at the bottom of the heirarchy hate the people at the top. The people at the top think the people at the bottom are expendable—or worse, don’t think about them at all...

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We’ll circle back around to that later.

I don’t plan to stay for too long in this place (no more than a couple years,) as I hope to apply for a PhD program in anthropolgoy this fall, but while I’m here, I figured I could take some field notes and study the office culture. As the admin here, part of my job description includes doing things to “improve the company culture.”

Well, culture, as a budding anthropologist, is sorta my thing. So I thought I’d give it a shot the proper way—collect field notes, study the population, and analyze the data I collect. (I spoke with the senior director about this, and he was all for me giving it a go if I thought I could improve the atmosphere. As anthropologists, our subjects always know that we are studying them, so while I’ll be omitting/changing names for the sake of privacy, all the interviews I include will have been conducted with full knowledge on the part of the participant.)

So here’s to killing two birds with one stone. Working that 8-5 while doing field work for grad school.

Now, onto observation number one...

It’s Friday.

I know it’s a Friday, because on Fridays—every single Friday, without fail—everyone announces that it is indeed Friday.

I sit at the front desk of the building, and see every person who comes and goes. This morning sounded like this:

“Good morning!” says random coworker.

“Good morning!” I reply.

Smiling, “It’s Friday!” says random coworker.

“It is Friday,” I agree.

I repeat this process maybe thrity to forty times throughout the day, just so that no one here forgets that it is Friday.

Because Fridays are sacred in Office Land. On Fridays, everyone has a bit more pep in their step, a little less force in their smiles. The obvious reason for this is because the weekend is fast-approaching, the idea of not-being-here already offering its precursory euphoria. 

Is that the only reason, though? Is there a way to capture this Friday-feeling on, say, a Tuesday, or—gasp—a Monday?

And why is it that humans seem to find the anticipation of something as enjoyable, if not more so, than the actual thing itself?

So, I’ve had my first break-through on how to repair the (currently miserable) office culture around here.

It’s simple:

Make every day Friday.