I left the downtown office completely over a year ago, after being pushed out of the functional workspace I was in two days a week (I worked in an office space at a hatchery near where I live the other three days) and was faces with a return to an open and exposed desk in an open, distracting, and chaotic environment. Something I long ago realized I couldn’t be productive in. I was given a somewhat weak rationale…even if a closed office was empty that day, only someone at X level was now allowed to use it…., and I was offered noise canceling headphones to cope.
A few problems with all of it.
1. I have about 8 hours of recurring scheduled meetings that are private and under the conditions I was told I would have to work in, privacy was impossible so I’d need to book board rooms on similar recurring schedules, but the powers that be had already identified that such bookings were to be limited because there are not enough boardrooms to meet the demand for all of the meetings that now take place over video.
2. I learned a long time ago that the only place I can wear/use noise cancelling headphones is on a plane. Even when I listen to music I keep my earbuds on transparency mode. But I can’t listen to music and think/work at the same time, I need a calm and quiet environment to make headway on anything that needs thinking skills, but the excessive silence of noise cancelling headphones means that my brain fractures as it focuses on the sound of my own heartbeat and blood flow.
I realized a long time ago that I have a weird hypersensitivity to the things going on around me. A hyperawareness. It’s great when out and about, on a motorcycle, on a boat, driving…..places where it is a bit of a survival skill. But that same survival skill overloads my brain in an office environment when there is activity. And strangely, it’s the quieter activity that is often more distracting. A few months ago there was demolition activity at the hatchery; trees being felled, boulders being pulled and dropped into metal bins. The building shook on a a regular basis. Someone asked how I stood it. Oddly, that noise didn’t disturb me because it was somewhat predictable, and therefore my brain seemed to filter it out.
I’m not at all opposed to working in an office environment. I just need a quiet space, out of a direct line of sight, where I can tuck in and feel safe, where I can have privacy. That sense of mental safety is what I need to be able to think and process information, and write. I can be productive, and that gives me a sense of being effective at my work. Being effective gives me satisfaction and pride.
It’s frustrating that a world largely designed and run by extroverts seems to think that forcing introverted thinkers into close quarters will somehow “fix” them, that they will “get used to it”. We don’t tell someone that they will get used to eating something they are allergic to. But we assume that a personality trait, a hardwired nervous system with some differences, is made up.
And so I retreated.
I was harassed and threatened by management for that retreat. Trying to explain it didn’t draw any understanding or compassion. Only my stubbornness and willingness to argue facts, logic, and fairness had an impact. “Do this to me, and here is a list of all the others that are being permitted to work from somewhere other than the location their position is located as identified on the organizational chart. Some of those are in other cities…. make a blanket order that as of now, officially, all must report to their place of position number, put it in writing, and apply it equally, and I’ll acquiesce to this order“. The threat died.
Now the hatchery is getting closer to its rebuild, and the offices will be demolished and rebuilt, and I will be out of there for a year or more. I need to find a new place to work from. I am not a big fan of working from home, I really don’t want to. In addition to being a frustratingly distracting environment in which I struggle to work effectively, the downtown office has also become a bit of a toxic work environment in the past few years. It’s just a rally unpleasant and unwelcoming place to be.
But I thought I’d give it a shot again. I asked for a desk one day a week, Thursdays, a day that I know is quieter and on which I know contains less of the toxicity because there are fewer of a particular group that are in that day. The majority seem to have chosen M-T-W as their three in-office days, Thursdays are quieter, and Fridays are a ghost town. But two of my immediate team, and one or two others of a parallel team, are in that day and so there are at least some of “my people” to feel comfortable with.
I was greeted with a lot of “What are YOU doing here?!” and “Is this going to be ongoing? Are you coming back to the office?” “Will we see you every Thursday?” today. From me, a shrug, and a “we’ll see“.
I don’t know what April will bring. I don’t really know what my job will be when so many terms lose their positions, when the acting assignments all end, when the program tries to figure out how to continue its business activities with a smaller work force. I also don’t know who my manager will be. So I might as well show my face again, try to find a day that I might get a little bit accomplished, and plan for the chaos and uncertainty ahead.
I also chose Thursday because it’s my least productive day of the week due to recurring meetings; I don’t typically expect to get a lot of my own work done on Thursdays. And I didn’t. I tried to work on something one of my team sent me for review. Someone behind me was on a call for the better part of an hour. I think I read the same line 8 times and still didn’t register what I’d read. That’s what happens to my brain in the downtown office. It’s not easy to struggle to concentrate when your entire life has centred on the ability to concentrate and process information. It’s frustrating. It makes me angry. And being angry means I am irritable and short tempered towards others but put on a happy friendly face because of the expectations. It’s just a shitty spiralling vortex. But I can probably do it one day a week if I accept that I really won’t get any work done that one day a week. Accept it as more of a social day…except I’m not a terribly social person.
I looked at my watch and my movements over the course of the day. Zip. Low steps, low stands. Sitting at a desk at the downtown office was how I gained 30lbs over 10 years. I lost it in one year during COVID, working between home and the hatchery, because I went outside and ran, walked, or hiked for an hour every day. That movement increased blood oxygen delivery and made my brain work better. My resting heart rate dropped by 20bpm. Downtown? Can’t do any of that. Sit at a desk in an office and breathe recycled air and deteriorate physiologically. My resting heart rate is consistently higher.
And then I go out for drinks and snacks after work.
Going back to the downtown office full time could, literally, kill me through stress and unhealthy lack of activity.
So…how to engineer my own best-work environment in advance of the upheaval on the horizon, and still be a productive biologist in poor work environments designed to break the ability of close to half the workforce to function effectively.
I have come to realize that the system is not compassionate, it is not supportive, it pays lip service to mental health and well being. If an introverted thinker wants to be effective, they need to be willing to push and find their own way….or accept being miserable and unproductive.
I have a few months to figure out a plan and a rationale for when it all comes to a head. There are fewer days ahead than behind now, and life has a way of putting the important things into a clearer light. There are three choices: Give up and suffer in silence and try to cope, call it a day and pack up and leave, or find a way to modify the parameters so I can continue to be useful. I’m not ready to pack it in, I’m too stubborn to give in to stupid directives, I don’t suffer well and I am rarely silent, so I suppose it’s time to find a way to look for ways around the coming obstructions.
A day downtown at the office gave me a lot of things to think about.
