There are some things that don’t make sense here in the 21st century. Things, I feel, that don’t belong in the year 2023.
Like sexism and racism and LGBTQI-hatin’ and war. Like men policing women’s bodies, like slavery, like genociding animals. Like pollution and greed and wastefulness and poverty.
Like Cape Town’s mid-20th century office blocks still being expected to be workplaces that actual living humans are expected to thrive in.
This week I had the privilege of doing some work with a group of folks at an agency I’ve really come to like. I can’t disclose anything but I can say the two-day workshop was held at their offices in Cape Town and that the offices were in a building that is now more than 60 years old.
In other words, built in a time in South Africa that didn’t elevate humanism as a primary design principle.
I loved the agency, I loved the workshop, I loved the people and their clever and enthusiastic brains, but more than that, I loved leaving that building: the suffocating air-con that doesn’t seem to do more than push decades-old fart-air around from one place to the next, the windows that don’t open (and if they ever did have been bolted shut), the oppressive fluorescent lighting, the small, boxed glass offices …
Like tough little office plants converting dead air to living, they suck the cheesy, lurgy-filled air into their steel lungs and exhale it as money
I’ve been in a few of these corporate stankhouses over the last few years, and no matter how nicely the inside gets refurbed and the outside might get a sparkly facade, the belly of these old beasts is always a soul-destroying joy killer.
Of course, there are those who are into that sort of thing.
When I’m on this type of gig, I usually find myself surrounded by a bunch of corporate types who really seem to feel into these sorts of environments, as if their bodies have specifically evolved to work in low-oxygen, low-natural-light conditions, like they expand into their true selves when they step into these spaces. As if, like tough little office plants converting dead air to living, they suck the cheesy, lurgy-filled air into their steel lungs and exhale it as money.
Maybe it’s just the adrenaline-fuelled panic of holding onto their paycheques while the country disintegrates around us all that keeps them peppy.
I don’t know.
But the group I was with this week were all creative types and, even though it wasn’t up for discussion, the topic most consistently raised throughout the day was the fact that they were expected to move from remote work to being back in the office full time.
And they were dying inside about it. Literal fear. Actual anxiety. Like animals watching the trap descend.
I totally got it. I haven’t worked in an office for ten years but, when I did, trying not to fall asleep in my chair – from what I can only imagine was my life-force draining out of me – was a daily struggle. The idea of going back to that would strike literal fear in my belly.
The type of fear for one’s soul survival that I’m not sure a fat, cushy monthly paycheck could soothe.
Luckily, I don’t have to worry about making those choices since no one is offering me a fat, cushy monthly paycheck. For better or worse, I’ve moved into the freelancer Realm of No Return, where you’ve been out of the office game for so long there’s no way back.
Which is okay. I think.
Anyway.
Where do you sit in all of this? Are you the type to convert cheesy air to money? Or are you lucky enough to work from home or in one of these new builds that love life and fresh air?
Or are you a freelancer like me wondering why you decided to be a writer in late stage capitalism and in a country experiencing such catastrophic political and economic collapse it’s difficult to see your options in the dust?
Anyone offering a cushy, monthly paycheck?
Jokes.
(Or not?)
AnyWAY.
Happy Friday!
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Photo by Lucas Hoang on Unsplash