The Road to the Office

The fundamentals of the office are nothing new. Over 100,000 years before we begrudgingly accepted the concept of ‘Team Spirit’ we were dancing around a freshly slaughtered animal celebrating ‘Tribal Survival’. Life was hard, but success actually led to euphoria. We had next to nothing, many of us didn’t live long, and those that did adapted to survive. As we evolved, our social networking skills shifted from snarling, biting, banging fists and grunts to hand-shakes, language, and literacy. Now we have advanced so far that we have pre-nuptial contracts, resolutions on non-existent weapons of mass destruction, and climate change treaties that are full of hot air. The art of the profitable allegiance, extracting the most from our enemies, and grouping together in times of need, are all second nature to us. In addition, there are laws, codes, and an established order in our society that keeps us safe from the savage and chaotic ways of life and nature that we think are safely in the past. All along the goal was plain and simple: survive and advance – and we did it. Congratulations.

Now that we are safely in the future, fed and employed, and marvelling (or complaining) at civilisation’s ingenuity we have time to take a good look at how we got here and the system we have established. The current system is a life sentence (usually referred to as a career), and like any system that serves so many, it is not without faults. Someone profits, someone loses, wheels fall off, things go pear-shaped, and people get left behind. Hopefully, the worst that can happen is that you fall from one system and bounce up and down in another – the welfare net. Again, we must learn to adapt to survive and prosper. Life has always been a constant struggle, only now it’s played out in the office, and even though a time of luxury seems to have arrived, time doesn’t stand still.

Think of the impact of technology. In the last century, our minds have advanced with the take-up of new inventions designed to aid society, the workplace, and enhance our leisure time: telephones, facsimiles, computers, email, instant messaging, the conference call that links multiple time-zones, new stimulating content: film, television, internet, and computer games, which are all increasingly complex. Today we are supposedly sharper, able to instantly grasp distinct threads of information that are part of a wider all-connected-web, formulate a succinct answer that somehow aids an overall strategy, and deliver it by eight AM tomorrow. We’re the same species, but the speed at which we’re operating is accelerating. Now if you have got your head around all the new technologies and think you’re sharp enough to take on more, check out your younger competition. Is technology making things easier, or is life universally competitive as nature intended it?

Not to be forgotten in the package of life and work is chaos – creator and destroyer. You may be a high flying executive soaring with the eagles, or embedded like a lazy tick sucking a nice income from your employer, but if the economy has a hiccup then you could be thrown out onto the street staring down the barrel of unemployed frustration, endless job searching, mind draining re-training, and anything else irritating. Your job today determines your job tomorrow, and regardless of whether you perform like a star or a mindless robot, if the shit hits the fan you’ll be taken to the cleaners. Your only hope in the office is to evolve, keep ahead of the new blood, be open to change, pray everything turns out all right, and hammer away every day while chaos patiently circles above you.
So how to get ahead and stay ahead in the office? The pen is sharper than the sword and the game is really the same as it ever was, but the pace and environment are changing. There are guides to help you build confidence and expand your mind, but there are also brutal unwritten truths that are too ‘un-civil’ to be circulated for the benefit of all in the office. But before you set out to learn anything you also have to know what you want.