
Down with fun: The depressing vogue for having fun at work - blasdel
http://www.economist.com/node/17035923/
======
1337p337
The last two places I worked did this kind of thing. The most recent (not to
be too hard on them; I did love them, but forced fun is as depressing as the
article says,= even at the best companies) had a few bizarre practices. The
worst, which I discovered on my first Friday, was a surprise round of
questions, one from each employee, to the newest hire. A corporate truth-or-
dare ambush, without the option of dares.

I was caught off-guard and somewhat upset at being put on the spot, so I
answered each question either as literally as possible or with a meandering,
humorous story about wanting to punch out Michael Eisner. I was initially the
only one not having shadenfreude-fueled "fun", but possibly the only one
having fun by the end, to my later regret. (I admit, it was somewhat
childish.) I heard that my answers were the reason it was more or less
discontinued, so it was a minor victory if a moral loss.

We habitually stopped working around 4 on Fridays to drink beer on the roof.
This, too, could have been lots of fun if it were optional, and often was
anyway. But if you enjoy your job (or just want to finish this one module so I
don't have to do it Monday, dammit), this sort of concentration-break is
annoying at best. Eventually, I realized it couldn't possibly be a firing
offense to work instead of drinking, so I did when I could get away with it.

Not long after the new VP of Engineering arrived, the partying and beers often
became Powerpoint presentations about the company's Bold New Direction and ice
cream sandwiches, complete with a pep-rally furor, prolonged on-cue applause
of the type that made one feel as if the first to quit clapping would be
executed, and the occasional singling out of teams that were behind deadlines,
with the death-march resuming after the meetings.

Off-topic epilogue, don't read: I hear the death march has stopped (three or
four months total; I didn't participate on weekends, or care if I got fired at
that point, which I did immediately in the purge after the Great Rewrite
launched) and people are back to a sort of normal schedule. I guess forced fun
is a good indicator of attempts to freeze or create company culture, maybe
even the canary in the mineshaft, warning you that the company's culture is
approaching dangerous toxicity. I still love most of my old colleagues and
most of the management, which is part of the reason I stuck around long enough
to get fired.

------
jimbokun
"The most unpleasant thing about the fashion for fun is that it is mixed with
a large dose of coercion. Companies such as Zappos don’t merely celebrate
wackiness. They more or less require it."

Made me remember this scene.

<http://movieclips.com/watch/office-space-1999/flair-minimum/>

------
gruseom
It has always seemed to me that if the work is good then it doesn't need sugar
on top. What one wants is hard, interesting problems to solve and great people
to work with. Once you have that, work is more fun than "fun".

Edit: But I have to say something about that asinine first paragraph. First,
judging history by recent television dramas? He's joking, right? Second, the
corporate culture of the early 1960s was notoriously soul-destroying and its
loss is nothing to moan about.

~~~
maxawaytoolong
Having done a 2 year stint at an ecommerce startup, I will have to say that
there is not too much fun or goodness to be found in the work itself. In a
solid but fundamentally boring business idea like this, there are two
approaches I've seen work for employee retention: vastly overpay everyone (the
"wall street" strategy) or create a weird corporate "FUN" atmosphere (the
"zappos" strategy.)

As much as the zappos strategy freaks me out it probably works better in he
long run than overpaying because the shrewd but overpaid programmer will
simply stick it out a few years, amass a bunch of cash, and then bail to go
back to school or start a startup or trek across the world or whatever more
interesting thing they had plans on doing with he money. The weirdos who
really like the nerf ball fights will stick around forever on average wages.

Also with big ecommerce operations there are a huge number of specialized non
programming roles like "merch planner: womens' flats" who are stuck working
for one of maybe 5 companies in the world so even a corny, but positive
culture change is an HR win over a competitor.

~~~
gruseom
Good points. It does make me wonder, though, what would happen if everyone
simply began refusing to do meaningless work. Would the world grind to a halt?
I doubt it. I bet we'd eventually figure out how to reorganize things.

~~~
c1sc0
You have a revolution brewing there, brother. I'll add to that: what if people
would just stop sugarcoating everything & tell what they _really_ think.

~~~
gruseom
You know, there's a wonderful line from the Gospel of Thomas (one of the
Gnostic texts which were originally rejected by the church and then dug out of
the desert 60 years ago) in which Jesus' disciples ask him, "What must we do
to be saved?" and he answers "Do not tell lies and do not do what you hate."

------
jat850
The first time this happened:

"The company engages in regular “random acts of kindness”: workers form a
noisy conga line and single out one of their colleagues for praise. The
praisee then has to wear a silly hat for a week."

I would make it very clear it shouldn't happen again. If it did, I'd leave the
company.

~~~
Cushman
Does anyone else see the irony implicit in "regular random acts of kindness"?

~~~
pjscott
If I had to implement something like that, I would make sure that the
recipients of these acts of kindness were chosen uniformly at random from the
entire workforce, and that the times between acts of kindness were
exponentially distributed random variables. It would just feel right to be
able to say that our "random acts of kindness" are a Poisson process.

Or better yet, abandon the entire idea and get a rock climbing wall instead. I
love those things.

------
seldo
This article tries to say that fake-fun at offices should be banned, but what
it actually says is that what modern companies do for fun isn't their idea of
fun (their idea of fun seems to involve smoking and drinking and sexually
harrassing co-workers).

Believe it or not, Googlers love the ball pits and the massages, and Twitter
peeps are very appreciative of the HR people whose job it is to make sure
everyone's happy (contrary to the E's report, it more often involves firing
people who suck than handing out cold towels).

~~~
houseabsolute
Drinking is very good, and not all office romance is sexual harassment,
although it's true the article's examples are . . . unfortunate. I think the
article's message is a sound one: Googlers talk about how much they love the
ball pits, but I don't know anyone who's gone in more than once. However, we
all enjoy the team bar in the hallway. There is something to the idea that
"fake fun" is not as fun as "real fun" -- the kind people opt to enjoy when
left to their own devices.

I do agree that fake fun is still better than no fun at all. But I think, as
someone who works at one of these places that tries to make everything fun,
that I enjoy the types of fun I have with coworkers that aren't engineered
more than the types of fun that are.

~~~
seldo
As a non-drinker and non-smoker I can't speak to the fun of those things
anywhere, far less at work. Sexual harrassment would be super-entertaining but
probably less so for my co-workers.

So, I guess it's a ball pit for me.

------
ImperatorLunae
This reminds me of a group of roommates I had in college. They played Super
Smash Brothers: Melee for the Nintendo Game Cube perpetually. They played the
same level--a flat level without platforms or items--over and over again for
one reason--to get better. They had little interest in having fun and cared
more about being the best.

One of our other roommates suggested that they play the game to have fun. They
liked the suggestion and, as they began playing again, started to compete over
who was having the most fun. My other roommate's comments had completely
missed them.

~~~
Goosey
Just sounds like your "other roommate"'s idea of what is fun was in different
alignment from theirs. Rather than accept different tastes an attempt was made
to coerce them (by use of negative language - "why not just play for fun")
into playing for the same purpose he did. Unsurprisingly they found a way to
have fun despite being forced into a new playing style.

------
keyle
I don't know about you, but Mad Men isn't exactly scientific research. It's a
tv show about the advertising industry. I worked in that industry a few years,
it's still a lot of fun, and they still drink at work, sleep with each others
and treat women badly.

Also from my parent's perspective, they didn't have much fun at work, they
were working long hours and put up with so much because switching job wasn't
exactly as easy as today.

Finally, I don't require a rock climbing wall at work, I just want to do good
work with good people and I will have fun naturally.

~~~
martingordon
Good coworkers can make up for a bad work environment, but a good work
environment can't make up for bad coworkers.

------
msg
shorter Economist:

Fake fun: ball pits. Real Fun: smoking and drinking at the office, office
romances shading into sexual harassment. Why can't boys be boys?

"While imposing ersatz fun on their employees, companies are battling against
the real thing. Many force smokers to huddle outside like furtive criminals.
Few allow their employees to drink at lunch time, let alone earlier in the
day. A regiment of busybodies—from lawyers to human-resources functionaries—is
waging war on office romance, particularly between people of different ranks.
Hewlett-Packard, a computer-maker, recently sacked its successful chief
executive, Mark Hurd, after a contractor made vague allegations—later quietly
settled—of sexual harassment. (Oracle, a rival, quickly snapped up Mr Hurd.)"

~~~
neilk
Always remember that the Economist is written by 24-year-old grad students
trying to sound like wise old men.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist#Editorial_anonymi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist#Editorial_anonymity)

~~~
3pt14159
Don't pass off other people's speculations as facts and then quote Wikipedia
as if there is a reliable source in there that backs up what you are saying.

~~~
Perceval
It's true. My old boss used to get interviewed by _The Economist_ from time to
time. Their editors really are a bunch of 25-year-olds.

------
al3x
There are people who like a "fun" office culture, and there are people who
don't. What these companies are doing is creating workforces that are, in
part, self-selecting.

I have my opinions about the value of workplace wackiness, but it gets the
hires in the door. The question is, are those the right hires?

------
blasdel
Tony Hsieh's presentation at Startup School 2009 came off exactly like this to
me, but I don't come to the same conclusion as the author — encouraging your
employees to do jackass 'fun' stunts with attendant PR isn't much worse than
just stocking the office with alcohol, though at least the latter is more
honest and self-directed — at least they aren't going to show up at your cube
as a mob and cajole you into doing a keg stand.

During the QA period I tried asking him what he thought about apparel startups
that are going for the same no-discount high-touch model but starting with
original goods instead of competing with retail (<http://www.bonobos.com/> is
most prominent, but there are a whole bunch). He interpreted that as if they
were "copying the culture" and gave an obviously stock answer that set it up
as a strawman doomed to failure.

------
krschultz
Corporate "fun" and team fun are two very different things. Just let each team
do what they want to do and if you have good coworkers, the fun will happen
organically.

Last thursday my team decided to go to a bar. About 15 of the engineers went,
and it was a decent time. Was it as fun as my college days with my dorm
friends? Of course not. Was it better than the company picnic? Hell yes.

A few of the "fun" things that I've done with companies that actually worked:

I worked in an office that was a converted residential house, we had a BBQ
every friday in the summer. Simple, cheap, but honestly taking an hour and
enjoying the summer weather on the back porch in the middle of your work day
goes a long way for moral.

Pranks. This can go too far, but in moderation really is funny.

Going out to a bar if you actually like the people you work with.

Skydiving, not everyone did it but you want to talk about a "team building"
exercise, have everyone jump out of a plane together.

Almost all of those that worked were organically started by the guys in our
team. My current company has no "fun" policy as I see it, but my coworkers are
fun, and that makes all the difference.

------
swolchok
I can't speak for everyone, but based on my experience, regularly drinking
(even lightly) during the day would be likely to cause significant
productivity loss. Duh?

~~~
enjo
Not true for me. I'll often have a beer or two at lunch. The company itself
has developed a high-end beer day tradition every week. I've noticed very
little difference in my productivity... except that I'm a bit more relaxed and
probably able to focus slightly better.

Of course there is a line to walk between a couple of beer and the three
martini lunch.

~~~
rudasn
> Of course there is a line to walk between a couple of beer and the three
> martini lunch.

That is true for productivity but what about your health? I like drinking as
much as the next guy but drinking a couple of beers every day, at work, just
to "relax" and "focus better" seems like a bad tactic.

~~~
tcskeptic
Really? Almost everything I have read indicates that moderate consumption of
alcohol (both beer and wine, dunno about spirits) has positive health effects.
Heart disease, brain function, blood pressure, etc. all seem to benefit.

~~~
rudasn
I wasn't referring to consumption of alcohol in general, I was referring to
doing it at work.

If you moderately drink at work and then drink outside of work, does that
count as moderate consumption?

------
caf
Even if you do accept the dubious assumption that Mad Men is an accurate
depicition of "the good old days", the author seems to have missed the point
(or just wasn't paying attention).

The constant drinking has caught up with several of the characters - one
character has his foot mashed, permanently disabling him, during drink-fuelled
office "fun". In the latest episodes, even Don is cutting down...

------
PaddyCorry
Great article, enforced corporate 'fun' is always horrific, couldn't agree
more.

Perhaps slightly off-topic, but recently enough where I work, there was an
attempt at measuring the happiness of the workforce. Everyone was encouraged
to register how happy they were, once per day, by clicking on a survey link.
The choices were: 0% happy, 25% happy, 50%, 75% or, yes, 100% happy.

The results were aggregated (a basic average I believe) and emailed to
management, who then supposedly knew how happy >everyone< was.

Putting aside the obvious problems with this approach, it kicked off some
funny quasi-philosophical debates each day (e.g. am I 50% or 75% happy?, Do I
register how happy I am with work, or in general?). Bizarre stuff, it didn't
last very long.

------
mgrouchy
Where I work is pretty fun, however, I feel like as a company/startup grows it
becomes harder and harder to keep it fun.

Not in the sense it that it is no longer fun at all, but keeping the same
"culture" fit with new team members is hard. Your companies "culture" is
something that grows organically with early employees, but as you hire more
people, eventually much of your company "culture" moves towards ritual, which
while is intended to improve the culture it is less genuine.

------
angrycoder
The thing about fun is that is only really fun when you aren't supposed to be
doing it. Corporate mandated fun rarely is.

------
cmoylan
Rather than force fun, I think it's much more effective for management to
simply loosen up and let people be themselves. I work at a large company where
management doesn't really care how people go about their work, as long as it
gets done.

~~~
roc
A planned, documented 'team building exercise' has knowable risks and
liabilities. "Letting people be themselves" is the stuff of nightmares to HR
people.

"organic fun" in workplaces is great while it lasts, but that seems to only be
until the first lawsuit.

------
adorton
My office has a few pool tables, foosball, and some high-end gaming PCs. These
things are nice, and I enjoy them, but I've worked where I work for almost
four years because the pay is excellent and I enjoy my work. To me, money and
job satisfaction are key.

Unlimited coffee doesn't hurt either.

------
balding_n_tired
I have seen drinking lunch and pretty blatant sexual harassment in the work
place. (Drunk boss chases female subordinate around the room; bosses sleep
with secretaries; computer operator consumes 5 mixed drinks at a company
party, then bollixes an upgrade.) So the old-timey fun as The Economist seems
to define it is something I don't much miss.

------
lumisura
Seems strange that these companies are taking this approach to promote "fun".
I always thought it was all about the people you work with, the best companies
I've ever worked for had the best teams. Going to work everyday and having
those smart people to talk to was always fun, even if the work itself was
sometimes boring. No need for a cheer squad. If they feel the need to do
something like this...makes me wonder about their teams.

------
howard_yeh
reminds me of what George Bernard Shaw said, "do not do unto others as you
would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same."

------
Tyrannosaurs
I have no issue with corporate fun, so long as it's opt-in.

I've seen very few things companies do for "fun" to be universally hated and
similarly few are universally loved - most fall somewhere in the middle.

Make it opt-in and it's all fine, enforce it and you're likely to do more harm
than good.

------
CallMeV
That's not fun. That's smoking, drinking and having sex - adult activities,
not the regressive infantilism one usually associates with "workplace fun."

If you smoke at your desk, someone will complain about catching secondary lung
cancer or it might trigger an asthma attack. Also, the workplace will stink of
cigarette, cigar or pipe smoke - not a good sign if you're trying to win a
contract from a health store.

If you drink, you'll get drunk at work. Fights could break out, and you'll
screw up work that you should be concentrating on. And if you have to get into
a car and take off for the client at a moment's notice whilst still drunk,
that's deadly lethal.

Other kinds of drugs? Not really. Drinking at work is close to lawbreaking
especially where you might need to drive to a client, but smoking a joint in
the office is right out.

As for sex ... forget it. You're not going to work for that. You go to work to
earn money for you and the company. Where does that sort of adult activity
end? Do you allow open displays of sexual activity? Does your firm only allow
straight affairs, or do you still go all Victorian if two lesbians or two gay
guys take off on some torrid affair, all open public displays of affection in
the workplace?

Think about all those employees at your workplace. Think of the one or two
that always crop up, even in the most enlightened offices, who will sneer and
grumble "Disgusting" under their breath at the sight of two guys locking lips
in the copy room.

I know that firms need policies of fun at work to prevent them becoming grim,
isolated monasteries. But smoking, drinking and sex are not the best choices
of "fun" to allow in the workplace, any more than conversations about sex,
football, politics or religion at the watercooler.

------
brown9-2
Isn't it a bit dangerous to assume that Mad Men accurately reflects workplace
culture from the 60s?

~~~
blogimus
One could argue that it is inaccurate, but how is it dangerous?

~~~
brown9-2
I mean dangerous to the article's central thesis.

------
MartinRedford
One very important thing about the concept of fun is that you do what you
want, when you want to. The fact that they need impose simply creates a
disposition in the minds of all who fall under such a constraint.

But let's be honest, this is clearly not the best way to boost productivity.
If what is needed are better ideas and the best of ones effort, what should be
done is to fill employees pockets with money, shorten work hours, remove
authority positions. Let's not turn a blind eye, invest money and a work
force, in trying to devise a better method for such a purpose. It's just a
waste of both.

Visit my blog! <a
href="[http://www.theperfectmaleblog.com>](http://www.theperfectmaleblog.com>);
The Perfect Male Blog </a>

------
_delirium
Seems like Disney was ahead of the curve: this "corporate wacky fun"
employment atmosphere used to be a trademark of theirs. They still do it, but
it's no longer the _only_ place like that.

I'd be curious if there's any direct link/borrowing, or if it's an independent
invention.

~~~
joshuacc
I'm not sure if it's still done, but businesses used to send groups of
management to Disney World or Disney Land to watch the training/cultural-
initiation of new Disney employees in order to bring ideas back to HomeCorp.

------
MartinRedford
One very important thing about the concept of fun is that you do what you
want, when you want to. The fact that they need impose simply creates a
disposition in the minds of all who fall under such a constraint.

But let's be honest, this is clearly not the best way to boost productivity.
If what is needed are better ideas and the best of ones effort, what should be
done is to fill employees pockets with money, shorten work hours, remove
authority positions. Let's not turn a blind eye, invest money and a work
force, in trying to devise a better method for such a purpose. It's just a
waste of both.

Visit my blog! www.theperfectmaleblog.com

------
ibejoeb
> workers form a noisy conga line and single out one of their colleagues for
> praise. The praisee then has to wear a silly hat for a week.

Where can one who is postpubescent go for a decent day's work nowadays?

------
JoeAltmaier
I ride a bike for fun, or hike a trail, or sleep under the stars. Please don't
insult me with hats and balls and fake parties.

------
docgnome
"The ad-men in those days enjoyed simple pleasures. They puffed away at their
desks. They drank throughout the day. They had affairs with their colleagues.
They socialised not in order to bond, but in order to get drunk."

Uhm... That sounds pretty terrible to me. I don't want to work with those
people.

------
nadadenada
To be fun at work there must be plenty of options to communicate with
coworkers. Sometime to be slow is the funniest thing.

------
melissamiranda
Would you rather work at Twitter (or other fun obsessed office) or 37Signals?

------
jacquesm
It's really simple: forced fun isn't.

------
ahoyhere
I think I may have worked at the most "fun" corporate environment ever. The
parties! The BBQ! The evenings on the roof top deck in Tribeca! The pillow
room! The Wii! The wall-o'-drinks! The buddha statues! The one-team-cooks-a-
full-lunch day once a month! The expeditions to South's! That one guy who was
always napping in the weirdest places trying to be polyphasic! The singing,
the dancing and the hilarious coworkers.

The key difference between that workplace and the others I've
experienced/observed, was that the fun was bottom-up instead of top-down. It
wasn't cheesy, but it was real. If an institution is the lengthened shadow of
one man, well, Limewire had a pretty whacky shadow, but the air of freedom was
what led us to all bring our own flavor to it. We weren't whacky, even though
the guy who ran it was whacky. We just did what we wanted and made our own
fun. The biz-sponsored parties were the only orchestrated element, other than
the cooking.

Ah, Limewire, I miss you sometimes.

~~~
m0th87
Hah, as I read your comment I thought "this description sounds exactly like
Limewire." Did you work with Mike S?

~~~
ahoyhere
Don't think so. Was he part of Store? Cuz I left before their hiring really
picked up steam. Heard it really went downhill right after I left (not
claiming that was why).

