The Wit's Guide to Office Work

Or, skiving, socializing, and eyeservicing

What was the office? And more specifically, what was office work? In the last issue’s poll, a slim majority (have you cut out carbs, majority?) requested The Wit’s Guide To Office Work. And so we’ll distill a dozen quips on the subject into a watercooler’s worth of wisdom. Or at least a conical cupful of gently chewed information. 

“I always arrive late at the office, but make up for it by leaving early.” — Charles Lamb

The great wits tend to split evenly into workaholics and shirkaholics. Predictably, this divide correlates with how clever their jobs allowed them to be. Lamb was a brilliant essayist stuck in an accountant’s role, such a bad fit that he couldn’t even watch the clock, “a dead thing, with its ponderous embowelments of lead and brass, its pert or solemn dullness of communication.”

“Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can’t I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?”
— Philip Larkin

This was before the formal invention of skiving, a particularly English form of not-working. It’s not to be confused with slacking, because as one of Geoff Dyer’s characters explains in The Colour of Memory, skiving can be “even more boring and tiring than doing the work but the urge to attempt it is irresistible.” As the author wrote:

“All I’ve ever wanted from a job is to skive. Maybe the word doesn’t exist in America but it certainly does in England. England is built on skiving. Skiving is like bunking off — but with a certain amount of dedication thrown in. Skiving is a whole way of approaching — in the sense of avoiding — work.” 

This practice can actually be traced back to Biblical times — Joshua Glenn and Mark Kingwell did this in The Wageslave’s Glossary —  when it was called “eyeservice,” as per when Colossians 3:22 commands servants to “obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God.” And there were almost certainly no free snacks in that office.

One man’s skiving can be another woman’s creative collaboration, if the job includes moderately rewarding labour, decent coffee, and above all interesting colleagues. Katharine Whitehorn, one of Britain’s first female newspaper columnists, described the 1970s offices of The Observer as a terrifically fun place “full of intrigue, friends, the tea trolley, things to try on from the fashion department and people asking why you haven’t accounted for your expenses since July.” That said, it wasn’t at all conducive to writing:

“I yield to no one in my admiration for the office as a social centre, but it’s no place actually to get any work done.”

Great co-workers can make offices worthwhile, and working alongside Dorothy Parker did so for Robert Benchley. Still, when they freelanced together in a tiny office at the Metropolitan Opera Building, he observed that alongside was closer than camaraderie required:

“One square foot less and it would be adulterous.”

Regarding the bed-desk distinction, it’s worth noting that the term “hot desking,” in reference to work stations shared by several employees derives from “hot racking” bunks on submarines, because the bed would still be warm when your sleep shift started.

“Work is much more fun than fun.” — Noel Coward
“Work is the province of cattle.” — Dorothy Parker

If you want a finding to support office work, consider the Hawthorne Effect, whereby people are more productive when they think someone’s paying attention. If you want a finding to deride office work, consider the Ringelmann Effect, whereby people work less in the company of others. Or as the old joke goes:

“How many people work in this office?”
“Oh, about half of them.”

The best thing about most office work is that it’s not physical work. It may destroy your soul but provided you have an ergonomic task chair, it shouldn’t break your back. Thus, it falls into the second category of Bertrand Russell’s definition: 

“Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.”

Viewed from this perspective, even the skiver must have some appreciation for the office. The key, as Benchley noted, is to remember that “Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.” And if you’re (not) doing it in a workplace, consider what a great poet asked himself in the midst of a rhyme:

“I sit in an office at 244 Madison Avenue
And say to myself, You have a responsible job, havenue?”
— Ogden Nash

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Speaking of…

Not remotely working

Zooming with Truffaldino

Office hierarchies

Cursing and the bloody class struggle

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Quote vote!

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
— H.L. Mencken

“Sing along with the common people/ Sing along and it might just get you through.” — Jarvis Cocker

Let’s have another Wit’s Guide, shall we? But what shall it cover? Exercise your franchise until you break a sweat, then leave write-in candidates in the comments.

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Get Wit Quick No. 160 avoided as many ponderous embowelments as possible, and would never confuse skiving with bunking off.  Skive rhymes with Clive, btw. Hot rack this newsletter by sharing it with a friend. If you’re OOO, remember that Shakespeare coined the term in Henry VI: “But long I will not be Jack out of office.” Feel free to drop Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting into an Excel sheet for ease of office eyeservice. Tap, tap, tap the ❤️ below like the spheres of an executive’s Newton’s Cradle.