Office Space

We spent 40 minutes of a 60 minute meeting last week considering whether or not “using” or “managing” was the right word for a site’s secondary navigation. Normally this could be a fun exercise involving Mr. Roget’s most famous product, handwaving, and a lot of colored markers but in this case it mostly consisted of Management talking and the rest of us staring into space. Management, after all, calls these meetings primarily to hear themselves talk and really don’t want our opinions or input.

Our weekly content project meeting followed this and was made extra, extra special this week by DeputyDirector insisting that the visual design of a web site “didn’t necessarily” have anything to do with the site’s CSS.

While I understand that it is possible to institute standards for a web site that mandate things like minimum and maximum size or font for certain elements (e.g. body text should be no smaller than the equivalent of 10 pt and all headings should be in a serif font such as Georgia or Times New Roman) you are placing constraints on a site’s visual design when you do this.

These constraints placed on a site’s visual design do not mean that the design is not expressed in the style sheet. They simply mean you are starting with an existing set of styles already in place when you create new sites.

The people in my group largely focus on content. Some of them have a bit of experience with front-end web development technologies (i.e. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) but for most of them their understanding only goes as far as knowing that when they request that “developers” add new content to an existing site they need to match the new content to the site’s structure with respect to headings, lists, and the like. Most of them, however, know enough to know that Management doesn’t like to be challenged. The net effect of this is that we all sit around while pronouncements that are if not obviously untrue are so dodgy they border on mealymouthed become the basis if decisions we are required to implement and use as a basis for our daily functioning. I’m also finding that such pronouncements and the lack of challenge to them are affecting my confidence in my subject matter knowledge and skills. As such, I’ve decided to lay out what I know to be true so that I can consult it as the months wear on and, hopefully, maintain my ability to be hired somewhere outside this hot mess of a web group.

1. HTML controls the structure of documents on the web.
   Describing the structure of a document – what is a heading, what is a paragraph, what is a list – is the unique and specific job of HTML. XHMTL is just HTML written to particular, slightly stricter standards than the HTML 4.01 specification requires. Even if a piece of software is written in another language when its output is displayed on the web 9.9 times out of 10 it is displayed in HTML. 

   I have been hand coding HTML since version 2.3 was the specification and know the how to create well-formed, semantic HTML documents. I also know that the term “inline link” has various meanings none of which include using the id attribute to link from the top of the page to a specific section of a document.

2. CSS controls the presentation of documents on the web.
   Cascading Style Sheets allow the front-end coder to separate a document’s structure from its presentation. They express the visual design of a site.

   For media=”screen” expressing the visual design is the only purpose of a cascading style sheet.

3. Usability and Accessibility are related but they are not the same thing.
   Accessibility is about making the web available to people with disabilities. Usability is about making the web easy to use. 

   It is possible to have an accessible web site that it totally unusable. It is also possible to have an intuitive, well designed, easily learned site that is totally inaccessible.

   The fact that both of these conditions can exist precludes usability and accessibility from being the same thing.

4. Standards are generally a good thing to have but not for the sake of having them.
   It’s important to have standards. They are the foundation of any good work. In order to be good standards, however, they have to flex at least a little based on need and situation.

   If your metrics show your audience is primarily accessing your site using a mobile device you optimize for mobile. A site optimized for mobile may not allow for your precious social media geegaw with the icons that jump up on mouseover.

   There is no point in applying standards simply to apply them. Ralph Waldo Emerson would agree with me on this.

5. If you don’t treat people with respect don’t be surprised when they return the favor.
   While it possible to motivate people using fear, true leaders understand that motivating people by gaining their respect and trust is often an easier, more effective tactic. They way to gain people’s respect is to make them believe they are valuable. Once they trust you and like you they’ll bend over backwards to implement your vision. 

   If you motivate through fear the only reward you offer your staff is their pay checks and what you instead create is an operant conditioning system in which the reward phase is completely disconnected from actual behavior. The nearly 100% turn-over rate in two years within your full-time staff should be a clue that whatever you’re doing isn’t working.

OK, so maybe that last one isn’t really something concrete that I know but is more of something that I’ve observed with regularity during my working life. Regardless, these are all things I need to keep in mind as I attempt to retain my sanity, my dignity, and my skills.

Our educational system in this country has from the primary grades right through post-graduate education many, many deficits among them:

• teaching to the middle;
• teaching to the test;
• an improper balance of structure and openness to creative thinking;
• outdated materials;
• politicians interfering with the exploration of ideas and concepts.

All of these things combine to shortchange students in preparing them for life as an adult.

Among its many flaws, though, the one that never gets discussed is the fact that despite the web of them that surround us in a modern society students aren’t taught to recognize systems and to think in terms of systems.

Systems are everywhere, from computer networks to the ecology of the natural world. They can be extremely simple or incredibly complex depending upon the factors and components of the system.

A systems’s boundaries, the availability of resources, feedback and control mechanisms within the system, the degree of openness in a system, whether or not a system takes on new qualities via interaction with other systems and non-systemic elements, and constraints on the system are all factors taken into account when learning the rules of a given system and evaluating its health.¹

Systems also exist in places most people don’t recognize, such as in the relationships among staff members and between staff members and management. This type of system, like all systems, has rules.

Some of those rules are externally imposed: you have to show up for work and do the work in order to get paid. Some of those rules are internally and organically generated: we have staff meetings on Wednesday afternoons. Many of those rules, particularly in a dysfunctional system, are unspoken and shift at the whim of those who obviously hold the power within the system.

I’ve always been pretty good at recognizing the relationship between things and at seeing the systems. What I haven’t always been good at is understanding when a system is so hopelessly dysfunctional that my only choice is to cope within it until I can find a way out. The other flaw I’m noticing in myself recently is something I’ve known about for a while, something that trips me up in all of my relationships, systemic or not, with my fellow human beings: I want to know why.

Once you understand those rules of a given system you can figure out which of them can be bent and which can be broken without completely destroying the system or having the system take note of you². If you know a system’s rules well you can sometimes get it to do things within those rules that its designers may not have intended it to do. Why is the answer to the question “what are the rules of this system?” as often as it is the explanation for how those rules came to be. In some systems, though, why is impossible to determine.

I find myself in one of those situations in which why is inexplicable. I’ve been at the new job for about three months now. My boss, UberDirector, has finally signed my PMAP document and told me that while I have been “doing a good job so far” now is the time when I need to find something to “specialize in and excel at” the same way many of my colleagues have taken on areas of specialty like SEO or video or social media. She wanted me to do this not just for the good of the team, because it’s obviously useful to have in-house experts on which to rely, but also because “if you do the same thing over and over again every day your job just becomes plodding and work should be interesting.”

It was at this point that I told her I was 1) glad to hear that, and 2) that I’d already been thinking out this very thing. I mentioned for the second time in the context of a discussion like this that I was a little frustrated with my duties, that I felt like I was doing a lot of project management but not really using any of my other web related skills and that maybe it would be a good idea for me to try to bridge the gap between the content group where I sit and the operations group that runs the technical side of my division’s business.

It was an interesting gambit as I’ve already been told by my colleagues that as a content manager showing any hint of technical interest or prowess is the fastest route to Management’s shit list. My boss countered with a suggestion that I take a look at the list of subjects generated when the content group met last Fall and discussed the areas in which they felt they needed more instruction or depth of knowledge. As counter moves go, this was pure manipulative genius.

The content group had met the previous week with UberDirector and DeputyDirector to discuss this very list. Because this particular system, the group in which I find myself working, is process rather than outcome oriented, the notes from our discussion, as well as the list of topics, were loaded into an online collaboration tool and we were given a chance to vote on which ones we wanted to bubble up to the top of the list so we knew where it would be best to start our discussions. It wasn’t immediately obvious from the way the poll was set up if we had an opportunity to vote more than one time but it was the discussion that made the exercise interesting.

Because the entire group had been subscribed to receive messages related to this poll when someone posted that very question about voting it went out to all of us. The mechanics of how DeputyDirector’s illuminating reply of “????” went to all of us are pretty simple: he didn’t pay attention to the fact that Reply went to a distribution list not to an individual person. The mechanics of how UberDirector’s reply went to all of us are exactly the same but her response of “I don’t have a clue but was so disappointed in the list. Not big thinking at all!!!!” was extremely illuminating, and it also wasn’t for us to see.

Her formal response to the group, which came the next morning about an hour into the business day, also expressed disappointment and nudged us in the direction she wants us to go – big picture, strategic thinking rather than all that pesky detail stuff that actually makes up our jobs.

Ignoring the fact that the topics on the list – accessibility, usability, HTML and CSS, how to help our client offices plan for new sites, how to help them plan redesigns, plain language writing, information architecture, SEO and meta data, analytics, and social media marketing (among others) – make up not only the core of what we do but can also require a lot of big picture, strategic thinking, it is the list the group created when asked where its members felt they needed help or guidance. It’s also the same list that has already disappointed her with its narrow focus and small thinking from which UberDirector explicitly told me to draw my area of specialty and to find my place to excel.

At this juncture, my need to know why ran head first into the rules of the system in which I now find myself.

My boss has deliberately set me up to fail. By directing me to pick an area of specialty from a list in which she has already expressed disappointment the very best outcome I can achieve in my efforts to meet the goal is disappointment. I can not excel, and in her eyes my efforts are already not useful.

Directing me in a task at which I am bound to fail is a waste of resources and counter productive to her stated outcome orientation for the group she manages. It doesn’t get work done for our internal clients and it won’t help my fellow staff members do their jobs any better. There is no explanation for her behavior that ties to any external goal which means that the only why for how she acts is because she derives some personal pleasure from the results of her actions.

Not being a complete idiot or ignorant of either her behavior or how Government works, I told her that I’d be happy to take a look at the list and see if I found anything interesting.

I estimate I’ve got about a month, maybe 6 weeks before she remembers that she’s tasked me with this. Depending on how things play out, I may actually have to find something on that list to work on. Or she may forget the whole thing.

The thing is that one of the unspoken rules of this system is that UberDirector likes to control everything. Despite proclamations declaring support for independent thinking, every bit of evidence supports the idea that she wants to be consulted about every move.

As I’ve already demonstrated an awareness of this rule and she has responded accordingly she knows that I know how things work. Given that, and given that her response to my statement that I’d look at the list and see if I can find something interesting was a positive one, I’ll be able to truthfully when asked how my efforts to find something to “specialize in and excel at” are going.

According to the rules of this system it’s not my responsibility to create that list and if the outcome is that I find nothing interesting the absence of any further instructions, and any light in UberDirector’s oh so busy schedule to sit down with her to discuss this problem, I have completed my task.

Because a system has rules and when you know how to work them you can make the system work for you.

Jeans. Almost everyone owns a pair. Many people, including me, regard them as their comfort clothes of choice. Jeans for me are like armor, allowing me to feel more competent and confident than I do in other attire. Jeans have also become a symbol of Management’s magnanimity.

Whether an office maintains business dress or has relaxed to business casual what both types of offices have in common is “casual Friday.” In most places this means staff are allowed to wear jeans which is fine in temperate weather but in any location that actually has summer weather being allowed to wear jeans on Friday becomes just another control mechanism.

While jeans are worn as the comfort clothes of choice by many they’re worn to do hard, outdoor work, and, increasingly, for a more relaxed but still dressed up look in social settings. Jeans are not cheap. The average cost of a pair of Levi’s 501s is around $50 with some designer pairs costing upwards of $1,000. Jeans are also not light.

Last Friday in DC the heat index at 7:00 was 79degF. At noon, when most people want to leave the office to get lunch, the heat index was 86degF. And if you’ve taken advantage of Management’s largess and worn jeans to the office, and if you’re me, you’re disinclined to leave your desk to get lunch and what do you do when you don’t leave your desk, and when the firewall is locked down tighter than a duck’s butt? Why you work more, of course!

I write this mostly in jest but it seems to me that if I can see the smallest of control mechanisms, which is what dictating what clothes people can wear really is, it’s going to be easier for me to see the larger control mechanisms and to subvert them.

I’ve been noodling with an essay about work, how the necessity of having to be at work instead of doing whatever it is you’d rather be doing can be made less onerous and about how we all have secret plans for ruling the work world. Right now it’s about 1,100 words and, quite frankly, I haven’t even gotten to laying out my ideal workplace. Part of the reason it’s taking so long is because I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that somehow I’ve managed to land myself in the most toxic, passive-aggressive workplace I’ve ever encountered.

It’s not quite Max Barry’s Company. No, that would require that Management have some awareness of the games they’re playing with staff. As it is, Management not only actively participates but is the principle beneficiary of said games.

So far I’ve spotted the:

• “conflicting instructions” game (DeputyDirector gives one instruction while UberDirector gives the complete opposite);
• “no direction” game (You’re told Management wants to have input, you ask for that input, are given none, and then held accountable when you haven’t moved the issue forward.);
• “your schedule is irrelevant” game (Manifests in two ways: Management summons you without warning for seemingly trivial matters disrupting your work flow or Management schedules meetings then reschedules them at a whim. What these two manifestations have in common is that you have no option to refuse or control your time.);
• “endless meetings” game (Long meetings that don’t start on time the entire purpose of which is to have the group, and it’s always a group, reenforce whatever decision Management wants to make.); and, of course,
• “someone has to be a target” game (Management picks someone and decides this person can do no right. There is no rhyme or reason to why this person becomes a target and who is the target shifts without warning.)

The end result of all of these games is a staff completely constrained from any creative thinking or initiative (a cause for reprimand) which does only what it is told (also a cause for reprimand). With the added addition of “there are spies among you” not only does Management not have to do all the work itself, the possibility of the staff banding together to manage up gets eliminated altogether.

The sad part about this is that Management isn’t even very good at playing these games. Usually it takes me a few months to spot that fact that this stuff is going on. This time around, I got it in the first three weeks. And this makes my work day in some ways very amusing and in others completely frustrating: I can see the man behind the curtain but he thinks I can’t see him.

Now I just have to survive my year’s probationary period so I can move to another part of the giant company I happen to work for right now.