My search or research (sounds more appropriate) for finding
a new model of entrepreneurship and work culture in 21st century made
me wonder why people always worked the way they did. My experience and those of
many others tied to air-conditioned cubicles and a desk is not a very pleasant
story to go gung-ho about irrespective of the nature of work. I have also been
puzzled with why any new business, innovation, venture or design idea fails to
reflect the same in the area of work be it culture, spaces or strategy? Why does
it seem to leave business owners and entrepreneurs just content and sufficed
with creation of employment and workplaces that differ from one another only
superficially and conceptually but practically and structurally are quite same
even historic and primitive. Are they traditionalists, or indifferent, or ignorant,
or left at the mercy of the construction economics and the skills of architects
and engineers that create such workplaces?
As an architecture
graduate, it amuses me how as students we dreamed loftily of being able to create
stupendous designs with the oh-so-glamorous ‘Architect’ prefixed before our
names. If only we were given the chance we’d build fabulous wow-worthy
structures and spaces with mesmerising interiors and fine details such that it
balanced both spiritually harmonizing beauty and intelligently functional
systems that the occupants would fall in love with. And... one fortuitous day
in future, all the fancy prodigal dream crash lands into the real world of
work. Every cotton candy of our dreams is mercilessly gnawed at and battered
and the residual stick trashed back at us for its imbecility. But why? Simple,
the world just doesn’t work that way! So, how does the world work anyway?
Welcome to the place where 80% of ‘adults’ for 60% of their
lifetimes mill their way to a hopeful retirement in which they can blissfully
lead the remaining 20% of their lives away from the dreary rigmarole of work
and it’s temple: ‘the Office’. The office as we know it today is worth learning
about and I can only look back into history to learn how exactly it became such
an important part of our lives and economic existence. Well, technically the
word means a work place. Which leads me to the next puzzling question of the
kind of work that happens in this place? Well, way back in the hunter-gatherer
days, work was all outdoors hunting animals, gathering berries, planning for
migration/ hunt seasons, much later even cooking food, fighting and protecting
territories etc. It is difficult to strictly call it work because it was so
closely related to life and sustenance.
Jump to times when life was a little settled with men
managing herds, women partaking in farming, some others who had time to spare
learning and trading crafts and lifestyle goods. There again, most work happened
outdoors whether in the farm, fields, streets or bazaars or in the quiet
comfort of houses. Work now took on more meaning, it was life and sustenance
but it was also growing into an occupation or profession. Later, primitive
times gave way to civilisations with defined structures and hierarchies of
power and roles and one begins to see the seed of what we know as feudalism,
bureaucracy, corporatisation and the likes. We see a striking similarity of a
monarchist way of life reflected in the work culture followed by so-called
evolved humans for centuries to come. If the feudal system wasn’t enough along
came the golden age of discoveries and inventions followed by a rigorous phase
of employing these inventions in industries that could mass manufacture by
employing large human resources.
Humans were resources in the most valuable sense as they
could collectively create value for the industrialist to send his produce overseas
and win great profits. To him his resources were humans who laboured in
exchange of meagre wages that they received in regular intervals. This set off
a range of socio-economic changes in the way work was perceived as industrial
work and had fixed timings and hours and every hour was metered and compensated
as monetary remunerations or incentives. With the socialist and communist
movements the formation of trade unions did only so much to protect these
resources from being exploited and under-compensated but there never is something
as a perfect job. All this started with the 9-5 industrial set-up and extended
across all disciplines some even applying this logic into day/afternoon and
night shifts.
From administrative point of view it makes perfect sense to
categorise work and manage a group of individuals in such conformations and
pretty efficient too....after all they had inspiration coming in from nature.
The busy bee and the laborious ant are superb examples of excellent use of
numbers for efficient working regiments. And then came the information age when
suddenly more machines could take care of what humans could do....analog to
digital has not just transformed work flows but also work cultures. When the
millennium bug of IT and the power of internet crept into the modern work
culture it gradually began shaking the very foundation of workplaces, so much
so that we now question the need of a work place such as the ‘Office’? What
makes the office of today different from those we had in the last two
centuries? What happens when work we do in today’s times becomes a blurry bubble
that can happen at any time, with any number of people from any part of the
world? What happens to the way people learn on work and grow with unlimited
unrestricted access to information that no longer regards the old world
hierarchy of roles at work? Why is work suddenly being viewed as work and not
as a job that pays the bills?
This information age has made us take a leap as a
civilisation but also made us look back at times when work and life went hand
in hand...when work and life never needed to be balanced...they were happily
married as one and the same. Even the mundane of the mundane chores were fun
and done with a beautiful rhythm, song and enthusiasm. Even today in the
information age, there are many who enjoy this work-life marriage because they
are the ones who have truly understood the meaning of work and life. They are
not swayed by the mathematics of economics. All they know is to live life and
work in this direction to enjoy life. They enjoy every work they do and also
choose work that they enjoy doing. Without enumerating those who enjoying what
they do, lets sum them up as professionals who live to work but aren’t
workaholics either. They are wise in acknowledging how work and life are so
closely intertwined and what it takes to balance all this with the economic
reality of sustaining oneself in this pursuit of a balanced life.
With the information age, there are many who understand the
spiritual side of life so where is the typical office culture headed? Office
designs? What must an office be? A building, a room, a lab, a workshop, a
meeting room, a set of computers, a room full of servers? A captive
congregation of thousands of people? Shouldn’t the workspace reflect the work
culture? With the work culture diluting into a loose, forward thinking,
non-mechanical set-up what must the work space for such a culture be? Is it any
different from a comfortable home? It can’t be too cozy but must it be too
rigid and cold? What is the workplace of tomorrow? This is to me a topical and recurring
unsolved problem which I wish to revisit with more examples from real life. Out
of ordinary workspaces and unique open-minded work culture/ practices that
inspire people to love their work (mind you not jobs) at the same time let them
be humans free to attend to their myriad pre-occupations. Until then the
solution to this 21st century lifestyle issue remains elusive.
No comments:
Post a Comment