Ken left for off-site meetings for the rest of the day and then Anne took Brandon and I aside for a little meeting. The main purpose of the meeting was to communicate to us that Ken is displeased that we are using company time for personal use, AKA we’re surfing online, writing personal emails, and sometimes working on our own writing and we shouldn’t. And it must stop. And we have been put on notice. He had chosen Anne to deliver the news (and I’m glad he did) because he “knew that Anne would be nicer.” When she dropped the bomb, even though we weren’t making eye contact I could feel both Brandon and I subtly bristle.

Now, Anne handled the whole subject in the most delicate, considerate, non-confrontational manner possible. But I was still inwardly groaning. Brandon spoke up first (thank you!) and insisted that, since this is now the official policy, starting immediately we both need to have SCHEDULED breaks and SET LUNCHES. As it is now, we pretty much take all our time “off” at our desks; we might say “Hey, I’m going on break now” but inevitably the phone will ring, or a coworker (or Ken) will stop by our desks and issue a task or a question. Which means they’re really not breaks, and we’re really not taking a real lunch, because we end up being “on call” just in case.

At the end of the meeting I told Anne, for the record, that of course it’s true that Brandon and I could do BETTER at our jobs (everyone could) but that at the moment we aren’t doing a BAD JOB. In fact, we’re doing a VERY GOOD JOB. I just had my job performance review (seven months late I might add) and was rated favorably on every category. As was Brandon. Therefore (though I did not say this) this is not about current job performance. It is about POTENTIAL job performance.

Anne agreed that we both work hard and take our jobs seriously. And of course she’s more or less caught in the middle on this. Because even though she is office manager, Ken is the big boss. As she said today, “It’s his perception that counts.” And his management style is pretty darn prickly. With Anne it’s pretty much live and let live: you do your job well, you get everything done in an efficient manner, it’s really not a big deal to have a few pockets of downtime. Some jokey banter and anecdote-sharing is just fine; some unscheduled microbreaks don’t really disrupt things. Whereas with Ken, you COULD always be doing more; there MIGHT be some task you haven’t thought of that you could undertake to increase sales, support the sales staff, and make the company more successful. Downtime equals a wasted opportunity.

Okay, so I’m spoiled, because naturally I favor Anne’s approach. I do my job very well, I have even undertaken increased duties in the past year, and everything gets taken care of by the end of the day. Whenever I’m dealing with a customer, I try and do it in the most focused, direct way possible; I do not procrastinate or push it off to the side to do it when I feel like it. As a reward, yes, when there is a free moment I DO surf online, I DO write emails, I DO post on livejournal. And none of those affect my job performance. I’m not chatting on gay.com or indluging in online gambling or reading the Anarchist’s Manifesto.

But, according to Ken’s management style, that’s not good enough. I should be whipping up marketing materials, drawing up sales reports, and coming up with more stuff to do. I am the employee, and on company time I must do what the company tells me. When I’m off the job I can do whatever the hell I want, but from 7.30 to 3.15 my responsiblity is to be one with the office.

The meeting ended with an agreement to start the “new” break/lunch schedules tomorrow, and we agreed to come up with ten new things for us to do during our downtime.

I kept my calm, but the rest of the day I was pretty fucking nonplussed. I’m very attached to the … hearty income my job provides, to be frank, and when it is a well-functioning machine and everyone’s in a good mood it can be a fun place to work. And I believe in what we’re doing as a non-profit, and the goal of it. But when I get my wrist slapped over my use of the internet for personal use (which, let’s face it, 80% of you desk jockeys out there are guilty of) I just feel pessimistic. It just makes me look bleakly ahead to my future at this office.

Ken is not in the office everyday. So I guess if we wanted to risk it, Brandon and I could sneak around here and there. But it’s the someone’s-over-your-shoulder feeling that causes me to realize that I am not trusted anymore; my judgment on how to do my work in the best way is no longer trusted. And every job I’ve ever had where that was the case has not ended well.

So what will change? Well, probably Brandon and I will not be surfing anymore, and we probably will do a few extra tasks, but mostly we will just devise ways to appear busy now. Because 80% of the time we are too busy with actual work to even think about slacking off anyway. I think I speak for both of us when I say that the remaining 20% is important to our mental health. And we are loathe to part with it.

And we will probably both be polishing our resumes.