As we navigate the aftermath of the layoffs, there is (as can be predicted) a certain amount of uncertainty (or, to get Rumsfeldian, a lot of known unknowns) — what gets picked up, what gets redistributed, what we do in the interim. “Interim” is doing a lot of work here – there is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution, and the desire to have certainty — at the expense of a more solid plan that takes longer to navigate — is understandable.
It’s overwhelming.
If you are a person who has to-do lists and likes to check things off with a satisfying finality, this stage of corporate life is not for you. It’s a bit like having a super-long list of to-do’s, identifying that, “Wow, that’s a long list”, and then writing “get coffee” on the list because at least that is a box you can check with certainty and finality. Although with coffee is there ever really finality?
I was talking through the recent changes with a coworker, and we were discussing what we do to decompress — there’s the extended workouts, there’s “setting boundaries” (though for one tethered to one’s laptop, boundaries are fuzzy). (Side note: Any tech company you work for will take from you everything you give to it: if you want to work 80 hour weeks and compromise your home life, they will not stop you).
At any rate, as we talked through coping mechanisms, I shared one of my deepest, darkest secrets: I have been playing one of those farming games. You know, the kind where you start out with a little barn and like four squares of field and you grow wheat, and then after a bit you get to grow corn, and then after a bit you get to have a cow and make “cow feed” from the corn and wheat to feed the cow which then gives you milk, okay so now you have milk so you can make cheese, and with the cheese you make a burger, which you can then sell at the market and put on a train, etc…
It is *addictive*. It offers certainty – Wheat takes five minutes to grow in the game, and two wheats and one corn equals one cow feed, which takes 15 minutes to make. Things happen at a predictable rate, with a designated formula, and it is a box-checker’s dream.
In this game, you can throw money — real money– at it. There’s “town cash” which is purchasable or earnable, and of course all the good stuff — stuff that helps you grow faster — is for sale. I, however, am stubborn, and am refusing to give this game any real money – so I have to patiently wait for the trains, or boats, or what have you. I have a plethora of nails but not enough hammers to expand my barn, but I will NOT be giving this game any real money and instead force myself to wait to check the box. The advantage here is *I* get to control when the box is checked and if I really wanted to, I could throw money at the problem.
In the corporate reality one can throw money at the problem, too, but much as with me and my little farming game, there is a discipline not to do so. A forcing function of “do more with less” in which there is considerably more and considerably less, combined with an eye towards efficiency, means fewer boxes will be checked, and we will have to have patience to load the trains.
I’ll be writing “get coffee” on my to do list today.
Bobbie Conti 