A FEW days ago, I was taken aback when one of the younger guys in the office said he did not know where his boss' room was. He had been working for the company for six months already, so I found his 'ignorance' rather surprising.
Granted, it is a really big newsroom and the boss is a real Energizer bunny who always seems to be in two places at any given time, but not knowing where his hideout is seemed rather incredible.
Welcome to the virtual office, where physical location is of no import. What with e-mail-on-the-go, mobile phones and online chat, having a fixed presence doesn't really matter much any more. Not that any one of these tools is new within the workplace, but the increasing deployment of them in place of face-to-face communication still amazes me at such times.
Then again, maybe my colleague's lack of physical bearings should not come as a surprise. I've been back at The Straits Times for just under six months and I can still get lost in the newsroom.
On any given day, I'll be making unnecessary laps around the office to locate someone like a Formula One driver with no pit-stop in sight. On a couple of recent occasions, a colleague and I circled the office at least twice before realising we had been half a lap apart on the merry-go-round. It's just easier, therefore, to communicate on the office's virtual network. It saves time and energy, and prevents blisters to boot.
The thing is, when you're glued to your computer screen, you get so cut off from everything that you forget about how you are perceived by the people around you. If you're too focused, you come across as aloof. If you're too quiet, you're not ambitious enough. If you're too mobile, you're neither hard-working nor conscientious.
The trouble with being a little too plugged into the virtual system is that you tend to become a virtual worker - as in, virtually not there. You may be running around like a headless chicken on the office network but, unless you squawk out loud every half an hour, you're not going to be considered part of Old MacDonald's farm.
Among the younger generation, it is easy to see why they don't seem to grasp this concept. Having grown up on the Internet, there's just too much going on online to keep track of the physical world.
Instead of coffee breaks or water-cooler gatherings, it's much more common these days for people to spend their five minutes in between meetings catching up on Facebook or checking the updates available on their favourite blogs or forums.
Instead of going across the road to lunch, or even taking the lift up to the canteen, I'm quite happy reading Wikipedia at my desk on whatever topic catches my fancy for the day. Many a day, I forget to have lunch or even go for 'comfort breaks' - and I know I'm not the only one either, judging by the number of 'statues' I see rooted in their cubicles around me.
How can workplace socialisation be encouraged? Is it something companies want to encourage anyway? The point, I suppose, is how the migration of office operations online has affected productivity.
On the one hand, many would argue that new-generation workers tend to rely on e-mail and non-direct communication for the most minute of details, slowing down the work process and spamming everyone's inboxes. On the other hand, one can argue that people get more work done when they're conditioned to attend to things that crop up as soon as they happen. After all, many of us are now expected to reply to e-mail 24/7 or attend to conference calls in entirely different time zones.
Is it then entirely necessary to be tied to a physical location when we are expected to be virtually available and on call at any time? From an individual's point of view, it probably makes a lot of sense to be physically present to prevent being isolated in one's work community.
It's not just about being seen to be doing your work; it is also advisable to keep work in the office and out of time spent with family and friends - or, indeed, alone.
As a friend told me - while burning the midnight oil at his office two nights ago: 'At least I don't have to carry my things to and from the office if I stay back and finish it tonight.'
At the end of the day, it really depends on the individual. Perhaps my office disorientation is purely a function of how spatially challenged I am; and my lack of perception of people's views around me could well be just an indication of my self-imposed caffeine ban.
Whatever the case, it's probably a good exercise for us all to consciously sit back from the work computer and have a stretch every now and then. A little neighbourly chat and tea break probably wouldn't hurt either.
If nothing else, a few laps around the office at least twice a day might keep deep vein thrombosis at bay.
This article was first published in The Straits Times on July 19, 2008.
