Hot-Desking Dehumanizes Work Place

In my 2006 science fiction short story Virtually Yours, Kathryn works, drone-like and faceless, in a corporation where workers like her typically find random virtual workstations and access virtual support and form virtual relationships. Anonymous to even her own overseer—she is just a number to him—Kathryn pines for a sense of place, identity, recognition and purpose. I won’t tell you how it ends. In any case, it’s just a science fiction story. Or is it?...

In his September 11, 2014, article in the Financial Post, Garry Marr introduces professional services firm Deloitte’s intention to rid itself of offices and have no permanently assigned desks in what’s called hot desking. Described as a “growing trend” in the corporate business sector, the model mandates a worker—including the bosses—to stow their personals in a locker and get assigned a random desk to occupy that day (never the same one—that’s what random means).  The concept, according to Mark Whitmore, managing partner with Deloitte, creates more meeting rooms and collaborative space and less personal room, presumably taking advantage of a fairly large office vacancy (30%) during any given day (due to field work, meetings, etc.). The idea is to cram as many workers as possible in an open-space concept where they do their so-called creative thinking and use their locker—down the hall—as their main resource-centre. Whitmore likens it to high school—when students showed up at school, put their stuff in a locker and then figure out what they had to do the rest of the day. “You had gym, you grabbed your gym stuff. You’re going to the library, you’d grab your books,” said Whitmore.

The workers and the machine

This is utterly ridiculous. And extremely ineffective. It also lacks “heart”.

Promoting hot desking demonstrates a severe lack of understanding of—or consideration for—the importance of “a sense of place” in engendering a creative working experience. Just as recognition of identity and merit in the work place promote a productive and meaningful working ethic.

The argument against hot desking is not about “territoriality,” as Adam Wasilewski, head of design at Toronto-based W designlab Inc. suggested in the Financial Post article. What is at stake here is something much larger; our very sense of place, of belonging, and of humanity.

Metropolis Tower

Deloitte and other corporations who promote the hot desking model have re-invented the migrant-worker. Someone, who wanders from place to place, never able to ground herself. Never sensing her place—or giving her loyalty. Hot desking destroys worker morale and camaraderie. It also annihilates the ground-breaking creativity that arises spontaneously from co-worker discussions. The creative discoveries generated through casual co-worker interaction cannot be planned by booking a boardroom. You can’t compartmentalize creativity. 

I predict that hot desking will not only reduce creativity at work, but it will exacerbate worker absenteeism, sickness, a cavalier attitude and lack of loyalty. In effect, hot desking will produce someone who doesn’t care: at the most, a “rubber-stamping” drone and at the least a slacker who cheats.

The Australians created the term solastalgia to describe the terrible sadness caused by environmental change or loss. It is a very real distress caused by the lived experience of the transformation of one’s home and loss of a sense of belonging. It’s like feeling homesickness when you’re still at home. Given how much time and effort people regularly put into their workplace, this is Germaine to the office experience.

 

Drone workers of the Metropolis machine

Metropolis, the 1927 classic dystopia by Fritz Lang, is about the social crisis of a world where the selfish “dreams of a few had turned to the curses of many” (Fritz Lang, Metropolis). 

There is a scene in this evocative film where creative men of antiquity decide to build a monument to the greatness of humanity, high enough to reach the stars and reminiscent of humanity’s hubristic construction of the Tower of Babel. Metropolis is a world dominated by technology and greed, where the bulk of the people are dehumanized workers, who more resemble machines in their jerky rhythmic movements and laconic faces than the oppressed humans they are. The “heart” is missing between the “brain” and the “hands”.

worker drones in Fritz Lang's "Metropolis"

When a corporation removes “the heart” of the workplace from the worker (citing increased efficient use of space) the cost is the very humanity—and productivity—of that place and ultimately the worker in it.

Hot-desking is just another version of Metropolis.

References:

Marr, Garry. 2014. “Hot desking trend grows: no offices or assigned seating at new Deloitteheadquarters”. Financial Post, September 11, 2014. 

Munteanu, Nina. 2002. “Virtually Yours”. First appeared in Issue 15 of Hadrosaur Tales (Dec., 2002); reprinted in Neo-Opsis Science Fiction Magazine (Issue 3, Spring 2004); translated into Polish and reprinted in Nowa Fantastika (January 2006); translated into Hebrew and reprinted in Bli-Panika (2006). Selected for The Best of Neo-Opsis Science Fiction Magazine Anthology (Bundoran Press, 2006); nominated for Canadian Aurora Prix and the Speculative Literature Foundation Fountain Award. Reprinted in “Natural Selection: a collection of short stories” (Pixl Press, 2013). Reprinted in Amazing Stories (Amazing Stories, 2014).

Munteanu, Nina. 2008. "Climate Change--Part 2: Solastalgia". The Alien Next Door, April 1, 2008.

Lang, Fritz. 1927. "Metropolis". Paramount Pictures.

Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of novels, short stories and essays. She coaches writers and teaches writing at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. For more about Nina’s coaching & workshops visit www.ninamunteanu.me. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for more about her writing.

Treacherous Ice Storms in Kentucky—What is Gaia Saying to Us?

Keeping with the theme of climate—and climate change—this time last year (January-end, 2008) I was in Louisville, Kentucky, unknowingly braving the devastating effects of an unseasonal tornado. Commanding a 100 mph wind, it tore up concrete and roofs off houses, uprooted trees and flung huge signs hurtling into cars. The tornado set down twice, once just metres from my friend’s house and knocked out the power in large sections of Louisville for days. How did I not know, you ask. It was night time and I’d never experienced a tornado before…And I was in Kentucky—not Kansas (LOL!). I remember huddling in the dark cold of my friend’s house for hours in the dead of night (while she worked the graveyard shift at the airport), writing to the flickering light of a candle, with a blanket wrapped around me to keep warm, and listening to the raging wind.

Flash forward to this past week (January, 2009), as Kentucky faces its worst-ever natural disaster: over 600,000 Kentuckians are without power (200,000 without water) following major ice storms that struck a large section of the Midwestern United States across nine states, including Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, and Virginia.

Last week (January 25th and 26th) about two inches of ice covered trees, power lines and the ground. It snapped branches, uprooted whole trees, and spread debris and ice sheets across roads. Power was cut in over 1.3 million residents and businesses. The storm moved into the Northeast, dropping snow from Ohio to Main and ice in Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Kentucky was the hardest hit in what is being called the worst power outage in that state’s history, and only months after Hurricane Ike ravaged the state. Governor Steve Beshear ordered the largest call-up of National Guard forces in Kentucky state history as over half a million homes and businesses remain in the dark, including close to 200,000 in Louisville. Said Beshear, “Because of the severe winter weather condition, this will be a much more difficult and dangerous restoration task than what we faced following Hurricane Ike.”

"Louisville residents on Sunday — without power for yet a sixth day in a row — described a city struggling to adapt to a new status quo. Fuel shortages and restrictions were common at the busiest gas stations. Along many city streets, entire rows of cars were frozen in place, trapped under fallen tree trunks and branches," reports James Snyder of the Times.

I have a few dear friends in Louisville and I hope they’re okay. I haven’t heard from some of them in a while, so I’m just praying that they are warm and safe. This too shall pass…

Power may not be restored until mid-February in the hardest hit areas of Kentucky and Arkansas. Meantime, people are trying to keep warm and many have fled to hotels (which are giving people a break in cost) or shelters. The ice storm has already caused over 40 deaths related to traffic hazards (e.g., slippery roads, faulty traffic signals, etc.), hypothermia, and carbon-monoxide poisoning. As the power outage continues and supplies run out, Kentuckians who can travel are being urged to go south out-of-state to warmer climates until power, water and associated services can be restored.

But, just as with the treacherous fog in Vancouver last week, Kentuckian photographers stepped into the chaos of the ice-damage to marvel at Nature’s cruel beauty…and take pictures.

Well, you knew I had to bring up my thoughts on climate change, didn’t you?

I posted several articles already that touch on this subject. I touched upon the chaotic nature and interrelatedness of climate and weather in my post on chaos theory. In two blog posts, “Climate Change & the Nobel Peace Prize” and “Blog Action Day—Truth”, I devote lengthy discussion to the dedicated work of Al Gore, his film, “the Inconvenient Truth” and generate lively discussion on the topic (check out the comments pages!). In “Tornadoes Connected to Global Waming?” I described my own personal experience with the historic unseasonal tornadoes in the US earlier this year and how some believe this is related to climate change and is a sign of more to come. In “Polar Cities” I describe Dan Bloom’s concept for surviving the aftermath of global warming and explore the need for paradigm changes. Then in “The Complexity of Nature” I discuss how perspective plays a role in our perception of both our future and that of our planet.

In my series on Climate Change, I quoted Clive Thompson of Wired Magazine in a compelling article on “How the Next Victim of Climate Change Will Be Our Minds”. Thompson described the psychological phenomenon of solastalgia, coined by Glenn Albrecht (professor at the School of Environmental and Life Sciences at the University of Newcastle) as “The homesickness you feel when you’re still at home,” to suggest the impact of climate change on our mental health.

I left off with a discussion—actually a series of questions—related to “scale” and whether or not we should intervene, when everything that we are and do is PART of the global network already. Is it simply that we are being hubristic once again by seeing things from a strictly anthropomorphic view? Perhaps, it isn’t our place to succeed, but rather to secede to something more suited to what is yet to come… I’d like to think that it may be neither, rather that these global events will hasten our own evolution into a higher form—But, as with the last time I brought this up, I am getting ahead of myself…I promise to address this in a later post. I PROMISE.

Meantime, my burning question is this: What is Gaia saying to us? ...Or is the proper question: What are we saying to OURSELVES?

Because, aren't WE GAIA?...

Climate Change--Part 2: Solastalgia

Solastalgia: the sadness caused by environmental change or loss.

Solastalgia: the distress caused by the lived experience of the transformation of one’s home and sense of belonging and is experienced through the feeling of desolation about its change.

“Australia is suffering through its worst dry spell in a millennium. The outback has turned into a dust bowl, crops are dying off at fantastic rates, cities are rationing water, coral reefs are dying, and the agricultural base is evaporating,” wrote Clive Thompson of Wired Magazine last December in a compelling article on “How the Next Victim of Climate Change Will Be Our Minds”.


Glenn Albrecht (professor at the School of Environmental and Life Sciences at the University of Newcastle) described his fellow Australians’ reactions:

“They’re getting sad.”

Australians described a deep sense of loss as they watched the landscape around them change and deteriorate: familiar plants not taking; gardens not growing; birds disappearing… Albrecht believes this to be a new type of sadness, a feeling of displacement. “They’re suffering symptoms eerily similar to those of indigenous populations who were forcibly removed from their traditional homelands,” said Thompson.

Albrecht gave this syndrome an evocative name: solastalgia. It encompasses the roots of solacium (solace) and nostos (return home) with algia (pain)—yet another paradox that aptly conjures the word nostalgia. In essence, says Thompson, it’s “pining for a lost environment.”

“The homesickness you feel when you’re still at home,” says Albrecht.

“It’s fascinating…to think about the impact of global warming,” says Thompson. “Everyone’s worrying about resource management and the spooky, unpredictable changes in the ecosystem. We fret over which areas will get flooded as sea levels rise. We estimate the odds of wars over clean water, and we tally up the species—polar bears, whales, wading birds—that’ll go extinct.” But, Thompson warns that we should also be concerned about the huge toll climate change will inflict on our mental health.

During his research, Albrecht noticed that the more quickly environmental change occurred, the more intense the solastalgia. For instance, in the Australian outback, where open-pit mining has created moonscapes seemingly overnight, the suicide rate in the region skyrocketed. In New Orleans, a Harvard study revealed that survivors of Hurricane Katrina reported suffering a “serious mental illness” at about double the rate of the city’s residents three years earlier. Although trauma and personal loss played a large role, one should not discount the powerful effect of physical environmental loss as well.

All this reminded me of the nightmare I suffered last month and the nagging thoughts of climate change that have lingered with me since then…nay, since my earlier experience of that unseasonal tornado in Louisville, Kentucky. Albrecht has given what I feel a name: Solastalgia.

Where I live I don’t personally experience strong environmental change (with the exception of the odd weather mishap like ice storms and atypical snow for this Mediterranean climate). In fact, we are having a wonderful spring season here, with the cherry trees and the crocuses in my garden already blooming and tulips not far behind. But, while I don’t see the devastation and change around me, I feel it. Acutely. Since childhood, I remember having this feeling, this emotional link to my beloved planet and a growing sadness for what we are doing to it (the reason I pursued a science degree and became an environmental consultant). I still remember being sternly lectured by a high school teacher about my “misdirected” efforts to enlighten my school about global pollution. “You’re putting up posters about taking care of the planet when you should be focusing on your neighbourhood,” he chided me. It was then that the penny dropped for me: not everyone thought about their planet like I did.

But, surely, we are all part of Gaia. Let me rephrase: surely, we ARE Gaia…the woman walking her child to school…the young grocery boy taking your bags to the car… the blooming cherry trees growing along the side of the road…the birds singing on the power lines...the clouds scudding overhead or the rain spattering our faces… We ARE the planet, the living, breathing planet Earth. And the malaise of our planet is our own malaise. Humanity’s malaise.

Most of us reading this post live in a fast-paced stressful world, where many of us find ourselves coping day-to-day to “survive” the copious demands on our time, energy, brains and feelings. How can anyone in that frame of mind be expected to willingly take on the burden of thinking about the entire planet?!? Are we trapped in a shockwave of fretful living without even realizing it? “In a world of cheap airfares, laptops, and the Internet, we proudly regard mobility as a sign of how advanced we are,” Thompson quips sarcastically, “Hey, we’re nomadic hipster capitalists!...Only losers get attached to their hometowns.” Only losers care about their environment...

I am reminded of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, the 1927 classic dystopia about the social crisis of a world where the selfish “dreams of a few had turned to the curses of many” (Fritz Lang, Metropolis). There is a scene in this evocative film where creative men of antiquity decide to build a monument to the greatness of humanity, high enough to reach the stars and reminiscent of humanity’s hubristic construction of the Tower of Babel. It is a world dominated by technology and the greed of few; where the bulk of the people are dehumanized workers, who more resemble machines in their jerky rhythmic movements and laconic faces than the oppressed humans they are. It is a world whose “heart” (the intermediary) is missing between its “brain” (those who conceive and run the city) and its “hands” (those who labor to make it a reality).

And I am reminded of Sodom and Gomorrah, destroyed by “brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven.” The rabbinic tradition, described in the Mishnah, teaches that the sin of Sodom was related to property: Sodomites believed that “what is mine is mine and what is yours is yours,” which was interpreted as lack of compassion. Classical Jewish texts describe the sins of Sodom as cruelty and lack of hospitality to the stranger.

In the Bible, God said: Now, this was the sin of Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen—Ezekiel 16: 49-50.

Some Kabbalistic mystics (e.g., Menachem Tsioni; others) described the Tower of Babel as a functional flying craft, empowered by powerful magic and/or technology and originally intended for holy purposes but later misused to gain control over the world. An escape ship, perhaps? A kind of arc? We have no flying tower. We just have Gaia. Our home. And what are we doing to our home?

Laments Thompson, “In a world that’s quickly heating up and drying up, you can’t go home again—even if you never leave.”

Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of novels, short stories and essays. She coaches writers and teaches writing at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. For more about Nina’s coaching & workshops visit www.ninamunteanu.me. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for more about her writing.