Fun in work ... not fun at work

Just came out of a meeting with the center head. He called a meeting (basically a presentation) with all the new joiners at ION. The presentation was meant to discuss the work culture and management expectations.

Like every organization, we were told to work hard, be professional and diligent. There were few things that made sense to me. First, he (center head) told all of us to have fun in work – not fun at work. He said he can’t understand the concept of people having fun at work. Stuff like, playing games or just hanging around. We all are coming to office to work ... and we are getting paid for our time and services. So if we are working fully and giving high quality stuff, we justify the salary or any increment/bonus thereof. If we don’t work hard ... or don’t have much work, then we should assess the situation and act accordingly. He also added that if people don’t have much work, then they should escalate it. There is no point in wasting their time in office ... they should simply raise an alarm and go home. This way they would make a statement to the management and the management then will have to plan better. Also, he said that he cant understand the concept of “fun at work” – stuff like frequent team outings, playing games in free time, personal interaction with people ... etc ... etc. He emphasized on having fun in work ... and said that this fun at work concept is a conspiracy of big organizations that have to retain the people of bench. Firms like Infosys or TCS have a good number of people “on bench”. So to keep them motivated, they need to have such fun filled policies.

I agree to most part of the presentation, except for the last bit. I don’t think that fun at work is a conspiracy or any such thing. There might be some truth in it that people do need to be motivated/chilled when they don’t have much to do. I hate to admit it, but the truth is truth ... its bitter. We all are simply getting paid for the services we sell. The organization buys our services in return of salary. Its simple economics. When we go out to buy apples in market, we try to choose the best apples. Even if there is a spot on any apple, we chuck it out of our basket. So if the same logic is applied in organizational level, firing underperformers doesn’t seem such a drastic step. No one wants bad apples ... in it. Also, we get irritated with the fruit vendors if he tries to charge extra ... because it is our money. Similarly, no organization is paying the salary just for having fun ... except a few like entertainment ... ahahaha. Trust me ... I am the one who believe in having fun in and at work ... but the economic downturn is throwing bitter truth pills ... and like it or not ... we all need to digest it. It’s for our own good.