A WOMAN IN WORKSPACE Have you ever thought when will someone truly love you? All of you? Have you ever stayed seated in your chair till lunchtime, and although you drink lots of water your body took the shape of a chair? A woman in workspace, the space changes, the work changes, companies rise and fall. Now, for example. You can close the door behind you but you will still hear the three-dimensional machine working, it assists in the manufacturing of single models, it saves time, and the cost is low. I remember, I once had a job interview, they designed and built three dimensional-machines like this one there, I didn’t remember they made so much noise. The interviewer looked at my resume and, after asking me a few professional questions, said to me, so, have you ever shot a gun? I told him that I had but only at cardboard targets. He was asking the questions and I was giving the answers, and that was the right answer. A woman in workspace, have you ever loved? Truly loved, and all of you? You no longer hear the sound of the three-dimensional machine, it’s the kind of sound you get used to after a few months, the walls are all made of plaster so you can hear everything, everything you say, and the others, you can hear them sigh when they do that. A woman in workspace, you can hear the gate beeping, the gate for entrance of suppliers, customers, clients, workers, and DHL delivery men. Some lose their patience and honk their horns, complementing the rhythmic beeping of the gate, at some point one of us goes and opens it for them. A woman in workspace, sometimes I think I should better begin the story here: a woman in workspace with the shape of a chair who most of the time doesn’t get up until lunch, who has ADHD, and of all the beeping and talking and noise she is especially bothered by people. A woman in workspace, have you ever been in a state of love and not absence? The space changes the people change the workload is heavier or ends. Sometimes they refurbish the office, not your office necessarily, bring potted plants from IKEA, the kind you don’t have to water. Launch a new software to control the inventory, the processes, to control the files, to control everything really
Company 1
The CEO jumped on the table and hollered at us. He said: You are not working hard enough. He jumped on the table and stabilized his legs on the receptionist’s desk. A long white desk. He said: We are losing time and you are not meeting the group’s goals. Said: You must retain your focus. He emphasized: Our success is dependent on you and on you solely. Also: You must increase your speed. Then he said: The time is crucial, and I won’t let us enter stoppage time. We stood and looked at him silently. Then he added, over my dead body. Some of us exchanged looks with some of the others. He stood very stable on the desk, with his legs straddled. He talked for half an hour, maybe more. The majority of the things he said was addressed to us, the technology department team. He repeatedly warned us of last minute smugness. His eyes were shining. Then he said, we are one step away from realizing the dream, there is no time to rest. You’ll sleep when you’re dead. He repeated the same sentences over and over again. And all the time he stood on the receptionist’s desk, his legs firm, his hands moving at the speed of his speech, which grew faster and faster. We scattered as soon as he was done. It was eleven in the morning, about one hour and a half before lunch and an hour past the first coffee break. I went back to my cubicle. I passed my manager’s cubicle on the way. He was busy on a conference call. He spoke loudly into a microphone and his ears were covered by large headphones.
We must push the delivery time, he yelled, his face glued to his computer screen. I continued to walk toward my cubicle. The open space was very noisy, keyboards and conversations. The coffee corner was empty. When I got to my place and sat in front of the computer, my inbox filled with a lot of new emails. I remembered that I should never start with the emails. I once read a newspaper article about it. Ten Rules to Increase Productivity at Work. Rule number one, never start your day with answering emails. I opened the notebook and flipped through the pages until I got to the last page I wrote in, the one with the to do list. It had a long list of topics for the weekly meeting. I started to prepare for the meeting. I opened the relevant computer files. One of the neighbors in a nearby cubicle relentlessly pressed his keyboard keys. He was hitting it hard. I was still able to focus, ignoring all disturbances. I hit the keys quickly myself, and at the background his fingers were hitting his harder and harder, almost breathlessly.