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 find really annoying. After all, they’re the ones who constantly champion open plan and tell the rest of us how great it is.

      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