Bob Goldman
If you work at Amazon, my sympathies. Andy Jassy, the CEO of the retail behemoth, just issued an ukase demanding that all employees come into the office five days a week.
This refers to employees who work in offices, of course. The hordes of Amazonians out on the roads, delivering packages, are exempt. While it must annoy management to free these employees, even the most gung-ho exec must eventually realize that it is difficult to drop off 50 pounds of Dr. Elsey’s Premium Clumping Cat Litter on some excited customer’s doorstep when you’re chained to a desk.
Beyond Amazon, the tension between working from home and working from your office is a major issue. Employees believe they deserve the freedom to decide where they can best do their jobs and live their lives. Employers believe that their employees are chattel, human inventory they have bought and paid for. Like any 4-year-old, they want their toys in their toy chest, where they can see them and play with them.
Not that I’m prejudiced.
The change at Amazon, which used to be satisfied with their toys — er, employees — coming in three days a week, will surely create a lot of unhappiness among a workforce which doesn’t enjoy commuting as much as their managers. Guess it’s more fun to sit on the I-5 in a Porsche than in a Kia.
The new order attracted the attention of Monica Torres, a work/life reporter for Huffpost. It was her recent article, “In Defense of ‘Coffee Badging,’ The Controversial New Office Trend,” that introduced me to the concept.
As Torres explains, coffee badging “is where you show up at the office long enough for a coffee or a meeting, expressly to fulfill office mandates — while primarily continuing to work from home whenever you can.”
Personally, coffee badging strikes me as a pretty slick jujitsu move in the endless battle between management and labor, but if you have a badge and you have to check in and out, you definitely have to deal with it. I can help. While my three strategies may seem far-fetched, remember that nothing is more mindboggling that the idea that anyone would come into work for the coffee served in most offices.
Before drinking a cup of that swill, even Juan Valdez would switch to matcha.
No. 1: “Hello, I must be going.”
The famous patter song from pop star Groucho Marx will give you the magic words you need as start walking backward out of the office, one minute after you walk in. Allow me to quote: “Hello, I must be going, I cannot stay, I came to say, I must be going. I’m glad I came, but just the same, I must be going.”
Is your manager smart enough to realize that while you look like you’re walking in, you’re actually walking out? What do you think?
No. 2: Throw a fit.
If you want everyone to know you were in the office on any given day, break free from your usual meek-mouse behavior and start yelling. It doesn’t really matter what you yell about, though the follies and failures of marketing are always good. Throwing a fit not only shows you were there, it shows you care. (If you’re in marketing, yell about HR. That always works.)
No. 3: Send in a substitute.
This scam only works if your company is big enough (Amazon, with 1,525,000 employees, is definitely big enough). Hire a gig worker. Give them your badge. Have them check in for you at 9 and check out for you at 5. Easy-peasy.
It won’t be difficult to find someone who would rather sit at your desk, pretending to work, than bike around town, fighting traffic, delivering Chapula Supremes. The only problem is that in hiring, supervising and paying your bogus you, you will have become a manager. This means you can stay home all day, but, at night, you will have horrible nightmares.
If none of these strategies appeal to you, consider bending the knee and actually going into the office. Just be yourself. Seeing you slumped over your computer, surrounded by gum wrappers and Q-Tips, hearing your Nickelback playlist, smelling the Salmon a la Roquefort that you are microwaving, should be enough for your manager to suggest that you work from home.
How long will this take? I estimate two weeks, but if you want to make it shorter, start working overtime. Come in on weekends, too. That kind of abuse, no manager can survive.
Bob Goldman was an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at bob@bgplanning.com.
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