Speaker 1: Flex and Frooms, Flex and Frooms. This is the Flex
Speaker 1: and Frooms catch up podcast. Am I am I, Am
Speaker 1: I the Asshole. It is fun to lament work. Lament yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: to complain about work, to really really feel glum about
Speaker 1: the working environment. We condone it. But if you own
Speaker 1: your own business, don't feel sad when your employees also
Speaker 1: hate working for you. It's just the nature of work.
Speaker 1: It's terrible. Here's anwy the Asshole from a listener of ours.
Speaker 1: They want to know if they're in the wrong for
Speaker 1: not wanting to participate in office fun days off the dome.
Speaker 1: They're in the right, but to do the am I
Speaker 1: the Assholes service, Let's read the whole thing. They say.
Speaker 1: They work for a company that values team cohesion, and
Speaker 1: every year a mandatory fun day is organized where attendance
Speaker 1: is seemingly compulsory. It's a class corporate team building bullsh icebreak.
Speaker 1: Because of the people I've known for years falling over
Speaker 1: and being caught that sort of crap. This is perfect
Speaker 1: God trust for baby. The event was announced with less
Speaker 1: than a week's notice, and my manager Greg emphasized its importance,
Speaker 1: insinuating it would impact our performance evaluations. That's a threat.
Speaker 1: I didn't really understand this, but not at a long mood.
Speaker 1: I was frustrated and felt coerced as I have a
Speaker 1: bunch of ongoing projects and pressing deadlines. So I expressed
Speaker 1: my concerns to Greg, explaining the inconvenience and the impact
Speaker 1: it would have in my workload. He was dismissive of
Speaker 1: my concerns, asserting that the event was crucial for team
Speaker 1: building and that missing one day of work wouldn't help,
Speaker 1: wouldn't hurt. Sorry. I agreed to attend. The day before,
Speaker 1: I was stuck working late and ended up deciding I'm
Speaker 1: not going to the team building event. That evening I pinged, pinged,
Speaker 1: you're in deep, babe. That evening, I pinged a colleague
Speaker 1: i'm friends with, saying as much. I slept until nine am.
Speaker 1: The next day worked from home. It was pretty productive
Speaker 1: all things considered. This wound Greg up. The next day.
Speaker 1: He confronted me, accused me of being uncooperative antisocial. Fine,
Speaker 1: but I don't see why I need to socialize with
Speaker 1: my colleagues, especially when it feels so forced. He was
Speaker 1: very aggressive, basically shouting at me in the office in
Speaker 1: front of the whole team, so I'd be happy to
Speaker 1: come to more reasonable social stuff, but I won't be
Speaker 1: going to team building days since they're a waste of time.
Speaker 1: It'd be easier and nice for us to get lunch
Speaker 1: somewhere instead. Yes, after all of this, Greg effectively punish
Speaker 1: me by telling me I'd be getting coffees for the
Speaker 1: entire team. People just do this for themselves normally for
Speaker 1: the next week. I'm a mid thirties senior software engineer,
Speaker 1: not some intern, so this is pretty embarrassing for me.
Speaker 1: I get that I shouldn't have decided I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to go last minute, but the day is a complete
Speaker 1: waste of time, and going would have meant I'd be
Speaker 1: working Saturday most likely. I also think that Greg is
Speaker 1: trying to embarrass me with coffee duty, which doesn't sit
Speaker 1: right with me. So Flex and Frims please tell me
Speaker 1: am I the asshole.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm just gonna kick it off straight off the bat.
Speaker 2: This is the modern day adult equivalent of having to
Speaker 2: do this swim carnival. Nobody enjoys the swim carnival. If
Speaker 2: I have to tell you that I've got my pizzo
Speaker 2: d on the clock, just to not go to your
Speaker 2: stupid your stupid activity. Also, unless it's go karting or
Speaker 2: laser tag, I'm gonna play laser tag and kill buy
Speaker 2: of me. Never never choose violence, y'all. But like, if
Speaker 2: I have a chance to shoot someone with a laser
Speaker 2: tager afterwards, then I'm gonna laser tag. But if I
Speaker 2: if you're accosting me with deadlines that you know I
Speaker 2: can't hit, and then you're saying let's do a little
Speaker 2: half day soccer tournament, honestly shut up.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, here is the frustrating thing about working environments. People
Speaker 1: have to work to live, So no matter how enjoyable
Speaker 1: you think you're making working, it's in hinging and infringing
Speaker 1: on their rights as people. Yes, like, no matter which
Speaker 1: way you want to spin it, we'll give you extra snacks,
Speaker 1: will make it fun. It always feels like a burden
Speaker 1: because fundamentally people shouldn't have to work to live. But
Speaker 1: here we are also the irony in your employers forcing
Speaker 1: you to do something under the guys, but being for
Speaker 1: your own personal benefit. When you were explaining all the
Speaker 1: ways it's not beneficial to you, popes, sus. We have
Speaker 1: ranted about hr before. We won't be doing it again.
Speaker 2: There were some ten poles in the lift.
Speaker 1: When I say we it was rooms, I was nodding
Speaker 1: along silently.
Speaker 2: It did very well on the socials.
Speaker 1: And you ate if you are someone who is older
Speaker 1: than high school age, still living in your parents' house
Speaker 1: and you don't want to follow their rules, so that
Speaker 1: I would say their house, their rules, because I understand
Speaker 1: if you don't want to abide by their rules, you
Speaker 1: need to leave. Similar to working environments, for the most part,
Speaker 1: when you sign a contract, you got to abide by
Speaker 1: the rules of the workplace. But the difficulty about that
Speaker 1: is the rules get changed constantly for no reason. Things
Speaker 1: that are supposed to be mandatory, like your one hour
Speaker 1: lunch breaks or getting like having staplers and office stationary
Speaker 1: and things that getting overtime, getting over time, getting your
Speaker 1: time and lou things that are there to make sure
Speaker 1: you can do your job well get like confused in
Speaker 1: the frame. So I can understand that fundamentally, there's a
Speaker 1: confusion between what you have to do and what it's
Speaker 1: implied you should do for the benefit of your job.
Speaker 1: That's the confusing bit because there's so much that people
Speaker 1: do in their jobs they don't have to do, but
Speaker 1: it's implied that it'd make their working life easier. To that,
Speaker 1: you ask, who is going to make your life harder
Speaker 1: if you don't do it? There's like an implied threat. So,
Speaker 1: for example, let's say your boss says, I know you
Speaker 1: start at nine o'clock, you work nine to five, but
Speaker 1: we notice when you get at nine o'clock you're shuffling around,
Speaker 1: you're not getting ready, getting a coffee, and by the
Speaker 1: time you're really sitting down it's nine thirty. So to
Speaker 1: make sure that you're not cutting into your worktime, come
Speaker 1: at eight thirty. I've been here with that before, have you. Yeah? Damn.
Speaker 1: So imagine you don't start work at eight thirty. You
Speaker 1: start at night. So now if your boss is implying
Speaker 1: that you should come at eight thirty because from their perspective,
Speaker 1: it would make you do your job better, what if
Speaker 1: you just didn't do that, who's in the wrong. Not
Speaker 1: quite sure. Also, the confusing thing is we have contracts
Speaker 1: to ensure that you do what's on your contract. Things
Speaker 1: like maybe come at eight thirty, maybe go to the
Speaker 1: office fun day. They're not in the contract. So do
Speaker 1: we have to do it. The other thing, the thing
Speaker 1: that I told you the story before about when I
Speaker 1: had that performance review at my job and I didn't
Speaker 1: drink either, and all they did. We worked in prs,
Speaker 1: so it was like every day, let's go get pissed
Speaker 1: for seven hours. I don't want to do that. And
Speaker 1: so my boss at the time was like, but it's
Speaker 1: really bad from morale because the girl you see you
Speaker 1: out and about, you know, in your own time, having
Speaker 1: a good time, and they just feel like they don't
Speaker 1: get that side of you. And like, yeah, because we're employees,
Speaker 1: we're coworkers, and what they're observing is finding their way
Speaker 1: onto my Instagram that I didn't share with them to
Speaker 1: observe my life. Like I'm also getting fomo, you were
Speaker 1: meant to see that that was never gonna be you.
Speaker 1: But when she said to me, oh, you should consider
Speaker 1: going to these office fundays because it'll improve morale, I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's your job. If morale is funny, I'm sorry, boss, Like,
Speaker 1: that's on you. So I'm gonna need you to start
Speaker 1: stock in the kitchen extra things or bit of teaching
Speaker 1: bags play how to make the work environment better so
Speaker 1: your employees don't have to overcompensate with overtime to reverse
Speaker 1: the damage of poor management. Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: And so also in this instance, Greg the in the listener,
Speaker 1: DM Greg is now out for you, which is an
Speaker 1: actual tangent touch in your back, you know. So you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you have saved five hours by not going to
Speaker 1: the office Funday, but now you've got a superior on
Speaker 1: your back, to which I say, how much power do
Speaker 1: you actually have to wield? Honestly, I feel for you.
Speaker 1: You're saying like you're seeing your management mid thirties. We
Speaker 1: don't want to be embarrassed with coffee runs, but you're
Speaker 1: actually doing them now, So it seems as though you've
Speaker 1: got yourself in a funny place, not the asshole. But
Speaker 1: I hate what my mum used to say to me,
Speaker 1: like what's the better outcome like doing something you don't
Speaker 1: want to do and things being fine, or just doing
Speaker 1: what someone's telling you do and you being annoyed? In
Speaker 1: some instances, you being annoyed is not worth it. Usually
Speaker 1: when you have power and dynamic, when you can be
Speaker 1: annoyed and know that you've got in your way, But
Speaker 1: being annoyed and not getting your way and still working.
Speaker 1: Not fun choice words. You've been listening to The Flex
Speaker 1: and Froom's daily podcast.
Speaker 2: For more, Tune Indicator on DAB or stream it on iHeartRadio.