Cathy Guisewite - Work

WORK 2001 by Cathy Guisewite. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or repro-duced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC
an Andrews McMeel Universal company
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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2001090619

ISBN: 0-7407-2062-7

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Contents

Introduction

Nothing sums up the last quarter centurys explosion of social and technological change in the workforce like the heap of dirty dishes in the office coffee room sink.

Its all right there.

The enlightenment: I am woman. Wash your own dishes.

The expansion: Filthy dinner plates must not be piled on top of the filthy latte pot and the filthy food processor.

The restructuring: Heres a 300-page manual on office policy regarding dish washing.

The streamlining: From now on, one filthy mug will be allowed per employee.

The prioritizing: I will wash the mugs, but Im not touching the microwave platter with Bruces breakfast burrito welded to it.

The teamwork: Fred didnt do the dishes on his day so Im not doing the dishes on my day.

The sink in the coffee room links who we used to be (people too busy to do the dishes) to who we have become (people too busy to do the dishes).

It links what we dreamed of having then (a multibillion dollar corporation with a staff of people to handle the coffee cups) to what we dream of having now (time to sit down and have a cup of coffee).

Its the one area whereafter 25 years of research, seminars, workshops, training sessions, retreats, and heated legal debatemen and women actually have an equal voice in business: Its not my turn to do the dishes.

Twenty-five years of evolution is written all over our unwashed mugs.

From thinking of others (Have a Nice Day) to thinking unpleasant things about others (Men Are Pigs) to ordering others (Get a Life) to cheering others (Go Girl!) to affirming we are worthy of others (I Believe in Me) to pleas for contact with others (Visit me at www.aack.org).

Look on the counter next to the sink and you see a microcosm of where all the time went that we saved with the invention of Wite-Out.

Where there was once a little container of coffee cream there are now 42 options: nondairy creamer; low-fat, fat-free, and/or lactose-free nondairy creamer; hazel-nut, fat-free nondairy creamer; vanilla bean, cholesterol-free low sodium creamer; powdered mocha creamer-like substitute; skim milk, 1 percent milk, 2 percent milk, whole milk, half and half, soy milk, lite soy milk, vanilla soy milk; four types of fake sugar; two kinds of real sugar; and six types of organically harvested honey.

Look at the lineup of coffee makers in a big office and see where all the time went that we saved when Wite-Out got replaced by the self-correcting typewriter.

Regular? Decaf? Espresso? Latte? Mocha latte? Mocha latte decaf? Tea? Herbal? Homeopathic? Yogi? Chinese? Chai? Bag? Leaves? Mulberry? Mango? Lemon Spice? Chamomile? Spearmint? Ginkgo biloba?

Look how we grew.

The classic coffee room guilt-ridden doughnut box (140 calories per doughnut) became the self-righteous giant bagel (400 calories), giant croissant (500 calories), giant fat-free, cranberry-bran muffin (600 calories), and giant chocolate-chip scone (800 calories) platter.

Look at the empty wrappers on the floor: Once there were 25-cent, fabulously satisfying, gooey chocolate vending machine candy bars. Now we have $3.50 mega-protein-boost, calcium-enriched, high-fiber nutrition bars that taste like dried grout.

Look at the abandoned water coolergrand symbol of office peer togetherness, the gathering point, the common meeting ground... literally, the original think tank.

Abandoned because those puny four-ounce cups are a joke for the modern 2.5 liter thirst.

Abandoned because water is now divided up into individual hydration systems and strapped like extra appendages on people whose only human contact in the workday may be getting an IM on their PDA re: the IPO.

Open the office refrigerator and simultaneously experience the brave new and brave old worlds linked with very familiar and unfamiliar aromas.

Two-week-old doggie bags from swank three-hour, two-martini lunches are now two-week-old delivery bags from the order-in vegan Thai place.

Stale, half-eaten pastrami sandwiches are now stale, half-eaten nine-grain buns with lite soy cheese and nonfat mayo-like spread sandwiches.

Old, wilted, fermenting salads are now new wilted, fermenting salads. At some point in the late 80s, we ran out of time to chew, so order-in salads all started being chopped. This still required lifting a fork to the mouth, unless you were a real overachiever and ordered your chopped salad stuffed in a pita, in which case you could eat, work and never even look down at the plate.

Ancient, moldy cottage cheese is now ancient, moldy artificially sweetened, reduced fat yogurt.

Now, look back at the sink full of dirty dishes. A mon-ument to how far we have and havent come. A reminder that we will always need our people, even if its just someone to get the mug from the sink to the dishwasher.

A symbol of the fact that the there are some challenges too big for technology: that the warp-speed Pentium Processor down the hall never has and never will have one nanosecond of impact on how fast Harold gets around to scraping the petrified drippings from his nuked pizza off his plate.

The sink is the exact same problem in giant conglomerates as it is in one-person home offices. The sink is the same in hip dot-coms as it is in funky mom and pops.

The sink represents 25 years of grandiose human potential, leveled by a really gross cup.

Twenty-five years of struggling to be, to achieve, to prove, to create, to enlighten, to prosper... a frantic, high-powered rat race that comes to a screeching halt at an icky Tupperware container.

Twenty-five years of looking at the exact same sink and believingwith one grand team spiritthat tomorrows system will get it under control.

When I look back at our history, I see a comforting common thread. Unless its my turn to do the dishes, Ive always found something very reassuring about that sink.

The Late 70s