Open plan workplaces. How do we feel about them? Now, we’re all up for modernism and advancement but when it comes to actually being able to get work done, open-plan workplaces SUCK. And there’s a lot of science to back that up. Basically, nobody gets shit done if they’re distracted all day long.
There’s nothing worse than really being in the zone and then your colleague decides it’s an appropriate time to tell you about the annoying wart on their foot. No privacy, no quiet space to actually think and don’t get us started on the germ factor.
So how the hell are people meant to survive in the workplace without murdering everyone around them? One proposed solution was for employers to enforce quiet time for a few hours daily. No crunchy snacks allowed! Or perhaps grow a hedge around your desk so people don’t even know you’re there.
Or how about your very own enormous, spine-crushing, privacy helmet?
Enter The Isolator invented by Hugo Gernsback in 1925. Gernsback was a Luxembourgish-American inventor, writer, editor, engineer, designer, businessman, and magazine publisher. He was a machine and boy did he go to town with this invention.
The Isolator was designed to minimise visual reach, granting the wearer absolute concentration on whatever they were doing. Picture a helmet that looks like a cross between Darth Vader's headgear and a Victorian diving bell. Despite its steampunk aesthetic, the main issue was that the helmet was so sealed that it would fill with recycled carbon dioxide, causing people to get sleepy.
Not to worry. He fixed that issue by adding an oxygen tank extension to the front, making it one humungous noise-cancelling diving bell helmet. Very appealing.
Unsurprisingly, Gernsback’s middle finger solution to open-plan offices didn’t get the uptake he might have expected. Workers would just have to continue to put up with the cesspool of TMI, obnoxious laughter and disease-ridden sneezes from their colleagues.
Well, not if the Ukrainian design company, Hochu Rayu, has anything to do with it.
Introducing the "Helmfon," a blend of "helmet" and "phone" that burst on the scene in 2017. It's not just noise-cancelling; it's a compact isolation chamber with a microphone, Bluetooth, camera, and room for your smartphone. A personal oasis of focus in the midst of a bustling office environment.
Solitude in the midst of chaos. Every introvert’s dream.
So are distracted and disease prone workers finding solace in these oversized tech-nerd’s-dream helmets?
Perhaps the only solution is to just get rid of bloody open office spaces altogether.
previous episodes mentioned:
SOURCES:
Why the Inventor of the Cubicle Came to Despise His Own Creation HISTORY
7 Fullproof Ways to Block Out Noisy Coworkers for Good Zenbooth.
10 proven hacks for laser-guided focus in a busy office Creative Boom
This Vintage Anti-Distraction Helmet Looks Like a Creepy Horror Show Prop
This Isolation Helmet Completely Blocks Out Workplace Distractions
The Isolator – A bizarre helmet from 1925 designed to improve work productivity The Vintage News
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[00:00:00] Rod: The dude had been sitting in the middle of the open plan, whatever, suddenly wasn't there anymore. The scuttlebot’s, like what happened? Why did, what'd he do? It started with I was busted looking at porn on
[00:00:08] Will: his computer. No, no, no, no, no, no.
[00:00:11] Rod: And then people kept talking and digging and then someone said, uh, he was, he was masturbating to porn.
[00:00:16] Mm-hmm. Under his desk in the open plan office. And so for some reason that organization said, look, we don't like the cut of your jib anymore off your go sport. It's your productivity. That's
[00:00:28] Will: the problem here. Yes, you're too good.
[00:00:31] Rod: What's your trick? How do you stay so focussed? He goes, well, I do this nine times a day.
[00:00:35] I gotta say, part of me goes, damn man, that's impressive. How did he do that? Mm. And it took time to be busted.
[00:00:41] Will: Did that, I don't wanna be impressed by that. That's not
[00:00:44] Rod: impressive. But I can see the look in your eye. You're like, oh, that's pretty impressive. Oh my God.
[00:00:53] I'm one to whinge about the office. I, I ranted about the shit show of open plan offices on this very, uh, podcast you have? I have. And that was 29 November 2018.
[00:01:02] Will: In, in fairness, this was you, you preemptively whinging. I dunno when the last time you had an open plan office was, but you don't have one now. I really don't.
[00:01:10] And I know that we are in an o Open Plan podcast situation right now, but uh, yes. You, don't suffer through this, but you are so worried. I care
[00:01:17] Rod: about others. I dunno, I dunno. It's me caring about others. There's a lot of science to back up how much they suck. Hmm. A few reminders. Office spaces until the 1950s.
[00:01:27] They were often, you know, hierarchical puke scapes of, uh, horror. Yeah. Most people, you know, secretarial and drudge types sat in long rows of clattery metal desks bashing away at their typewriter and or abacus a factory for typing. Yes. So, they were bashing away typewriters. They were basically shoulder-to-shoulder decks in, uh, desks, in long rows.
[00:01:45] Horrible. And maybe your floor manager had a little pseudo officer or cubicle thing on the edge. But the few big offices were for the big, big bosses who were of course males and very powerful, corner suite,
[00:01:56] Will: corner suite up above them
[00:01:57] Rod: or something like that. Suite, probably the next floor or 20 floors up. So then a guy called Robert Probst came along and he wanted to democratise the office, or as he would call it, the Bürolandschaft or office landscape.
[00:02:07] Will: Ah, okay. What gives a vote on who goes where?
[00:02:10] Rod: Uh, yeah, that's it. All right. It's like, look, I might be the lowest, but I wanna be in the big office. Sure. Let's have a vote. Who agrees? We all agree. Off you go. But he is just trying to, they were trying to, it was sort of post World War II and you know, industrial drudgery was kind of being stared at ance.
[00:02:25] Mm-hmm. So did some research, commissioned design experts, and efficiency specialists, and they showed that people in offices were the most productive people in the offices, not in the rows. Okay. As you'd expect, as we are, ah, very productive
[00:02:39] Will: look. Okay, I'll, I'll believe it. I'll believe it a bit. I'm, I'm still a little bit sceptical on this.
[00:02:44] I think there's something nice about an open plan, but, okay.
[00:02:47] Rod: Have you ever worked in one? Yes. They're c cous horrible garbage places of poo. I like people,
[00:02:52] Will: they're horrible, and I admit me. Saying, me saying it's great is, you know, just as
[00:02:57] Rod: facetious. Yeah. But of course, so, so yes officers are most productive, but they couldn't offer it to everyone, so they thought, how do we, I dunno, facilitate.
[00:03:04] Other spaces. Yeah. To make them at least better, at least make a bit more flexible, customized something better than a great, big, heavy immovable desk in a long, long row of horror. Okay, people walked up to it, so Action. Office One was Born. Action
[00:03:16] Will: Office One. Action Office one. Boom.
[00:03:20] Rod: Terrible movie. Sure because the hero of a bureaucratic movie's not
[00:03:25] Will: great.
[00:03:25] They couldn't get Schwarzenegger, so they got no his, his twin Danny DeVito. And there there is the Action Office one.
[00:03:31] Rod: It was really expensive to try and mess with stuff they wanted to do, like customizable spaces, a little bit of acoustic panelling. I. And maybe a place where people could take phone calls or something, but it was hard to do particularly, you know, in the olden days.
[00:03:42] Mm-hmm. And very expensive. So they went, hang on. Action. Office two. Yeah, the sequel. So this one recognized people are more productive with a territorial enclave that they can personalize.
[00:03:56] Will: Fuck, I agree. I'm, I am so, That's great. That's, uh, territorial enclave. It's, it's not about me. It's not about me and my territorial enclave.
[00:04:04] I'm doing this for the team. I'm being more productive by having my territorial enc enclave.
[00:04:08] Rod: Yes, you're, yes, you're, um, but they also said it also. But you require vistas outside your space, so you shouldn't just be locked into your own territorial enclave. You should be able to see beyond. Territorial enclave plus
[00:04:18] Will: with a vista.
[00:04:20] Yeah. Is this just Vista? Is this vista to the rest of the office or vista of mountains and, and to the ocean?
[00:04:25] Rod: All offices need to be in Byron Bay or Northern. Um, so that's when they started to think about things like cubicles in the 1960s, like a cubicle rather than an office. So, you know, you've got low partitions, you're kind of boxed in, but all you could do is pop your head up like a gopher.
[00:04:38] Okay. Yeah. And go vista.
[00:04:40] Will: So halfway between office and, and open plan. Yes. So,
[00:04:43] Rod: yeah. Yeah. And these are supposed to, I love the quote, supposed to make offices breezier, less confined and more efficient. Mm-hmm. Breezier, well, the air can flow over. I thought they meant attitude, like, hey, yeah, sure. I was wafting into work.
[00:04:55] Everything's fine. Surfers everywhere. Surfers everywhere. But, um, as a nice idea as it was, people basically perverted this idea. They took only efficiency, reproducibility, and standardisation. Those bits. Mm-hmm. Ignored the flexibility and modification bits that were critical to the original idea. Okay. Yep.
[00:05:12] Welcome to Cubicle Farms. Yeah. I worked in a cubicle farm about 20 years ago for a certain government department, and the building was really, really long and I mean fucking long building. Ah. You could pop your head up at one end of the building, over a cubicle and like the, the cubicles went into infinity.
[00:05:29] Like, I couldn't see the last one. It was freaking amazing. That's the only cool thing about it. I, wow.
[00:05:35] Will: That's a, it's definitely an absurdist, uh, modernist nightmare. Yeah, absolute. You know, it's, absolutely, it's the, it's the grey man walking home from the train station or a Salvador Dali, but in, in, in an office.
[00:05:45] I, yeah. That makes me so happy. I, I, I, I confess I wouldn't wanna work in that place. You wouldn't? No. But, uh, I'm glad that spaces like that exist. I, I assume though, I mean there, there's a chunk in which Australian bureaucracies are just not on the scale that you would get in in bigger countries. Yeah. You know, like, uh, America, China, or India or something like that.
[00:06:02] I'll be insane. There could be bureaucracies in Beijing that, uh, you know, a cubicle farm
[00:06:07] Rod: that is literally, you can see the curvature of the earth if you go far enough.
[00:06:10] Will: Four kilometres. Or it's like that Canadian prison that's like a, it's like a cube and it's a, it's a movie, you know, and, and it's just, oh, you mean the cube?
[00:06:19] It's, it's, yes. That's it. And not only is it to the horizon with cubicles, but it's, it's to the vertical horizon as well. It's, and the bum horizon. And the bum horizon. Every, every direction you're, you're, you're at a desk cube within cubes in a point in space somewhere, and it's a hypercube.
[00:06:34] Rod: But of course from there is a very short leap to go and let's tear all the walls down.
[00:06:38] Because let's be more collaborative
[00:06:40] Will: back to open office, open plan. But, it's a beanbag now. Surely it's they've, that's what
[00:06:45] Rod: they've done. Yeah. So you can bring your beanbag. No, not usually, but yeah, it was all, you know, you've, we've all heard the lines, you know, it's about being more collaborative and efficient.
[00:06:51] If you work in a team, you should be right next to the team, seeing everything they do all the time. I'm paraphrasing, but only slightly. So the problems, worst problems with open plan offices. The research is clear. And yes, I did cover this or some of it in that previous episode, but just a few reminders. They have significant negative effects on employees as well as organizations.
[00:07:10] 'cause employees hate it. If employees are in the shit and hate it, they don't do their work as well. Okay. So they result in low performance, especially for tasks that require concentration of memory. Mm-hmm. They apparently lead to fewer, but not more interactions and face-to-face comms. 'cause people turn inward.
[00:07:27] Will: So you're less likely to interact
[00:07:29] Rod: with your colleagues. You, or if you do, it's like, meh, whatever. Or we wish you'd stop chewing so loud, you fuck. As opposed to, Hey, let's have a little chatty P about work. Like when we do in our day jobs, we wander down to the other office and go, how you been man? Nice pot platt.
[00:07:41] Let's talk work. Um, it also would encourage interactions that were less meaningful and less job relevant. So people more into more frequently would just kind of talk shit more frequently. That had nothing to do with the job in passing and stuff. Many workers leave the office if they wanna speak face to face 'cause they don't wanna be interrupted or overheard.
[00:07:58] So they. Oh, wander away. So you still have to go away
[00:08:01] Will: from the, anyway,
[00:08:02] Rod: Okay. Yeah. So you can't use, you know, you pick up your phone and people kind of gently glow. Yeah. They have a problem also. When you opened everything up, and they found this out in the seventies, they opened up these open plan offices and there was, but they also got better, all crumbs of food, crumbs of food stuck within the keyboards of the computers that didn't
[00:08:17] Will: exist.
[00:08:17] Yeah. Skeletons
[00:08:18] Rod: every, yeah. Okay. No, it was about, um, you know, air conditioning and, and heating and stuff. And building efficiencies also started to increase then, so they sealed the buildings more. More disease, more transmission of diseases. We can't
[00:08:29] Will: have
[00:08:29] Rod: anything, can we? No, we cannot. Oh. This is why we can never have nice anything.
[00:08:33] So, this evidence continued into the 2000 and tens. At least. People interact less, they're more stressed by the noise and distractions. Um, and the standardization that comes in perfectly doesn't quite suit anybody. It's right. The classic, here's the mean of you and none of you
[00:08:49] Will: but this is what negotiation is, where you get to it.
[00:08:51] Where we're all equally unhappy. And so maybe what this, uh, the future of the office is just finding a place where everyone is equally
[00:08:58] Rod: unhappy. So you say on a scale of one to 10, where are you at five, the whole office farm puts a thing up. The cubicle farm that we're all at five, then that's what we're doing.
[00:09:05] Success. Or at least not unsuccess. This makes me feel bad. The culmination of all this was probably hot desking. Did you ever experience hot desking? Yes.
[00:09:14] Will: Yes. So in the cubicle farm that I was in, um, and, and, and when you said open plan before I actually took that as I, I didn't have a, uh, an idea of the difference.
[00:09:22] Yeah. So the cubicle farm has little, little half walls. You have something. Yeah. Whereas open plan is, is no walls. So I was actually in a cubicle farm type situation, but it was a hot desk sort of, sort of thing. So, you know, you don't get one spot, whatever. I don't care. Like what Did you work full time? No, that was, I was, I was, um, yeah, it was about part-time.
[00:09:39] I was like half, half the week, so I was, um, when I was doing my honours project, so, oh, that doesn't count. That's cool. Look, sure. Do whatever you want. Yeah. Yeah. I get it. I get it. I, I was, I was, I said work, man. I was
[00:09:48] Rod: a baby. Not bludgeon the taxpayer's dollar while smoking the marijuana. Thinking about it, I'm doing that shit.
[00:09:53] That doesn't matter to Tony Abbott. No. Okay, I get it. I worked in one, I worked in an office that went from very high-walled cubicles, so it was okay. Then they went, oh no, we're gonna put you in little. Lots of four could all see each other. Yeah. And then they went, oh, actually, because you're supposed to be dealing with clients, which I never did 'cause that wasn't part of my role.
[00:10:10] No one should be permanently in the office, so you are gonna go hot desking, which meant you always had to lock everything away at the end of every damn day. Yeah. It's really disruptive. You don't feel good, and this is a nine to five, at least job, et cetera. And you can't put your
[00:10:21] Will: little, your knickknacks, your favourite things on your desk.
[00:10:23] You can't, you can't, like your,
[00:10:24] Rod: the butt plug you got from Berg Festival 2001, did you put that on your office desk? Well, 'cause it looks like a paperweight. Mm mm Yeah. And it's probably the most psychologically counterintuitive, mentally and physically disruptive way to emotionally brain fucking office workers.
[00:10:38] Like you put someone in a hot desk and try to get them to be consistent. That's not great. This isn't just personal experience. I know a guy also, what if, what
[00:10:46] Will: if they were consistent in sort of disappearing into their work and, and the space around them didn't matter and they just became one with their computer, you know, their email and they just, they just smashing it out.
[00:10:57] Yeah. Why does it matter? To have that
[00:10:58] Rod: 0.01% was fine. Yeah. Okay. Probably liked it. But most of us aren't like that. So of course you can enter the whole debate nowadays in the, in the wake of recent covid, ups and downs, you know, the arguments over work from home, um, doing meetings online and whether you know what effects they have on us, our abilities and stuff.
[00:11:15] So of course there are pros and cons, pros and cons, pros and cons, how we work. But in many workplaces, of course, people are now starting to come back to being required to go to the office. Yeah. Which isn't all bad. Yep. There are pros and cons, but it means the open plan or the cubicle stuff is starting to become.
[00:11:30] Many people's day-to-day lives. I'd say about 900 billion people now. Sure. Give or take. You check the numbers on that. I did check the numbers. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, so, the problems that are associated with these work environments also come back. But here on this podcast, we are not interested in problems We broadcast from Canberra.
[00:11:49] Mm-hmm. Not RA can't as in cannot, it's a very small joke. Don't look at me. And that's all I got. And we want solutions. It is a small joke. But I thought, I'm out of touch. I'm gonna make jokes. We're solutions. So today I'm gonna have a little chat about some of the more and less expected ways to help poor souls counteract the problems of 21st century office space and the evil it inflicts on them.
[00:12:18] Will: Welcome to the Wholesome Show, the podcast that, uh, pledges its life to help out office comrades. Discover life supporting lessons hidden deep within the whole of science. Do, don't
[00:12:29] Rod: we? See, it's not even dirty.
[00:12:31] Will: It's not. You're welcome. And look, we are here for you. Office comrades.
[00:12:33] Rod: We are. You're listening to us right now in your cubicle or open-plan desk.
[00:12:36] Oh, it's possible. He's Will Grant. I'm Rod, Rod Lambert. Ah, we are both. There you go. We are neither. I am. No one. So this episode starts with an assumption and that is that various perversions of the open plan office are here to stay for the foreseeable future. We're not suddenly, magically gonna get rid of them.
[00:12:53] So let's assume that they're here, they're in many people's lives, and they've gotta put up with them. So in support of these, uh, white collar bureau men, our comrades, I went a little hunt to find ways in which they could make their lives better while they're, you know, rather than freaking out, murdering themselves.
[00:13:08] And then other people they could, you know, Make things better for themselves in the workplace.
[00:13:12] Will: So is this, is it the individuals themselves? Yeah. Making it better or are the bosses sort of doing something? It's always individuals.
[00:13:18] Rod: Okay. You gotta look after your own. Yeah. Because if, if we assume that this is the state, for many people, this open plan or semi-open plan is the state.
[00:13:25] Yep. Then how do they work within it? And fuck me. Are there is lot of advice
[00:13:30] Will: Is this like a take your shoes off or something, or you know, and your socks and rub your angry feet on the carpet? Imagine angry people get it. Might make you feel a lot better if you're working without your
[00:13:39] Rod: shoes on. I, I would, but I, I think some people find the idea of the foot in the office to be beyond hysteria-inducing, although, God, I, I know someone who, um, they worked in an open plan office.
[00:13:52] A guy, they come up one day and a dude had been sitting in the middle of the open plan, whatever. Suddenly he wasn't there anymore. And people were talking as you do like the scuttle Botts, like, well, what happened? Why did, what'd he do? Why did Keith go, the fuck's going wrong with Keith? And they're like, started with, I was busted looking at porn on his computer.
[00:14:07] Will: No, no, no, no, no, no. And you're like,
[00:14:09] Rod: then people kept talking and digging and then someone said he was, He was masturbating to porn. Mm-hmm. Under his desk in the open plan office. And so for some reason that organization said, look, we don't like the cut of your jib anymore off your go sport. It's your productivity.
[00:14:25] That's
[00:14:26] Will: the problem here. Yes. You know,
[00:14:27] Rod: you're too good. We wanna know what's your trick. How do you stay so focussed? He goes, well, I do this nine times a day in it. I gotta say, part of me goes, damn man, that's impressive. How did he do that? Mm. And it took time to be busted.
[00:14:41] Will: That I don't wanna be impressed by that.
[00:14:43] Rod: that's, I know you do wanna, but I can see the look in your eye. You're like, oh, that's
[00:14:46] Will: pretty impressive. Oh, God. This does remind me though of that, um, the annual porn hub, uh, stats come out. We did have an episode on that. Yeah. Yeah. The peak in porn consumption appears to associate with arriving at work.
[00:14:59] Yeah. Like it's, it's like people arrive at work, put their stuff down, and
[00:15:03] Rod: that's Now who's whacking off today? You're like, what are you, how is it when you get there?
[00:15:08] I'm
[00:15:08] Will: just, what is
[00:15:09] Rod: going on there? And this was in an era of portable devices. It's not like it was the only hardwired internet connection you could have during the day.
[00:15:15] Will: Sure, sure. So, you know, yeah. Like in the seventies, people are waiting till they get to the ARPA net or DARPA net or whatever it is that you can start your point. No, with their eight-bit pornography. This is in the modern world where. People are at home and they have access to the things they need. I just, what are you doing?
[00:15:32] Rod: I love that. Like, thank God I'm at work finally. I can fire up some good stuff.
[00:15:36] Will: But it was also like, it was something like, uh, chat room stuff. Like, it was like, like, it's like you're not just casual here, you're just, you're
[00:15:44] Rod: diving on in. I know that one amused me too. Ah. Anyway, the most obvious survival tactic in an open plan office is to somehow physically put up physical ways to kind of block out the noise and the other people, et cetera.
[00:15:56] But so that's obvious. There are many ways we'll get to those. I don't wanna do them first. I'm gonna leave them until last. I wanna go for some of the approaches I saw, but I've categorised them as, let's say, Cultural, psychological hippie, or, okay. So most of these come from the, uh, Harvard Business Reviews Guide to Office Politics by Karen Dillon.
[00:16:13] Mm-hmm. And there are a couple of other sources that wander in and out, but that's one of the big ones. This is great. So firstly,, you get rules that enforce quiet hours. Okay, so the attitude is if you can't beat the noise, et cetera, you set strict rules for people that say there are these hours during this day, quiet time, no crunchy snacks and chips, et cetera, be we
[00:16:33] Will: we're getting to that level.
[00:16:34] It's not just talking, but serious, quiet, no crunchy. Look, it's like high school, you know, they, they're all, or even primary school. There's always, you know, after lunch we have the quiet time. Everyone's gotta do reading or heads on the desk. You know, you can have a little nappy poo. Oh, love a nap, I think. I think in the office it's a little bit infantilizing.
[00:16:50] Rod: Imagine that in the office, please. You, you used a swear word. Now everyone's having a fricking meltdown,
[00:16:55] Will: so no talking won't do it. This is no talking. This
[00:16:56] Rod: is quiet time. Yeah. And they, and they say, they're gonna say, be fanatical about the rules. So people know you mean it, but it doesn't go into what fanatical
[00:17:02] Will: means.
[00:17:03] Be fanatical about the rules. Yeah. That means really enforcing it and getting angry. Yes, it does. Angry at people for whispering. Hey, have you got the email on the Jonesing? I said,
[00:17:11] Rod: shut up. It's two o'clock. Here's a pink slip. If you do it again, you get a black one. I don't wanna work there. No, you don't. Uh, changing your environment is another one.
[00:17:19] Outside influences like air temperature, air quality, smells, and colours can affect your focus. So here's what you should do. Take it upon yourself to make office updates. Buy air filters like, um, lighter, a pine centered candle because apparently, that helps concentration paint the walls around you.
[00:17:35] Productive shades of blue. In an effort not to cut into your work time, do these kinds of changes at night when everyone else is gone home? No.
[00:17:43] Will: Now I, I get, I get that you're not allowed to reformat, do, do a renovation on your office while you're meant to be working or ever, but I also don't think you should come in on your weekend and go, you know what?
[00:17:54] I just wanna run
[00:17:55] Rod: office. Surprise. I painted everything. Now I'm reading this. I'm like, sure, this is tongue in cheek. But nothing other than the actual suggestions made it seem like it was tongue in cheek about that one. Like, do it in your off hours. I'm like, whoa. Okay. Here's what I really like. Focus is a muscle.
[00:18:09] So be your brain's personal trainer. Okay. So if you think of, uh, focus as a muscle and that, that works on many levels. So muscles get tired when you exercise them, so you've gotta warm up. Yeah. Um, then you've gotta be careful with your form so you don't, you know, pop a hemi. So
[00:18:24] Will: before, before you start work, mini concentrate, spend your first half hour doing a Sudoku.
[00:18:29] And then the next half hour or really figure about your week bit some video games. Yep. And then do a renovation and then maybe a couple of hours into your, some math. You are, you're ready to start. Yeah. Once you've, you've really got your focus, well,
[00:18:38] Rod: you dial up hideous noise that's prerecorded around you while you keep doing your Sudoku and, and just get used to ignoring it somehow. And exercise your focus and of course, you should warm down as well somehow
[00:18:49] Will: just to cool down from work that's called going home Drugs, like, sure.
[00:18:53] Rod: Wanna blow a joint and, you know, watch a dumb movie? It's like, I dunno if that's cooling down as so much as shutting down or switching off this whole gist of it.
[00:19:02] Like, it bothers me. I'll get into that later. But this whole, you know, you should do all these things to make it better for your work environment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, ridiculous. Another one. So directly from this, uh, Harvard Business Review again. Um, it's important to learn how to deal with unwanted noise.
[00:19:15] She says, so you need your own survival strategies, and I love that language survival strategy, like even that alone, as, as rolled into a reasonable kind of publication on mm-hmm. Business and stuff. The fact that they say that unproblematically kind of raises my antenna. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so the survival strategies, you know, you also need ground rules so you and your team can agree to do things like this.
[00:19:39] Embrace the positives. So this is all this fucking mindfulness shit too. Mm-hmm. Work burning you out. Well, then you should find out how to deal with it, not change the work. Yeah. Drives me crazy. There are a lot of benefits in this environment, getting to know your colleagues better. I don't think that's a bad thing.
[00:19:52] No, but I don't think it's true either. Someone like Keith chewing loudly on chips during quiet time. No. It might be tough getting to know you, Keith.
[00:19:59] Will: No. But it might be a way to understand why Keith chews so loudly. Maybe he's got a dental issue. Yeah. Or, maybe he loves it. He loves chewing loudly, and maybe you two could love chewing loudly as well.
[00:20:10] Rod: That other guy loved looking at porn and whacking off. Is that I got to know him better? I mean, well,
[00:20:14] Will: Sure, sure. I
[00:20:16] Rod: mean, how far do you take it? Um, and yeah, she goes on to say there's a lot of benefit in getting to know colleagues on a more intimate level. There's laughter, there's humour. You feel like the rhythm of other people's work and lives.
[00:20:27] Um, I feel like we have that and we all have offices. It's really
[00:20:29] Will: weird to me that there are researchers in office space and office culture here who have come up with the idea that office colleagues might laugh together occasionally. It's, uh, strange.
[00:20:40] Rod: Isn't it like, oh, so, but, but particularly though the benefits are, if you're always in each other's faces, then you might actually start, you know, getting to know each other.
[00:20:47] It's like, you can do that without that. It's back to that whole, you know, the reason for the open plan in the first place. If you work in a team, you should always work in a team. Yeah. And you're like, it doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. Um, there's another guy quoted in this article, uh, David Burke.
[00:21:01] He's an associate professor at Oral Roberts University On this space is a design will. They can foster collaboration by quoting and offering opportunities for serendipitous interactions with people all over the company. Cool. But you should at the very least, resist your impulse to be the first to grumble about the noise because quote, you don't want people to see you as pernickety or difficult.
[00:21:22] You
[00:21:22] Will: should resist your impulse to grumble
[00:21:24] Rod: about it. I dunno how, but even that, it's like, no, be a good little person. Just don't, don't complain. Just find the good in it. Oh my gosh. Keith had a joke. Uhhuh, who knew Keith had a joke? So I don't like it. Um, align team expectations. So this or Robert Scott Burki goes on instead of griping.
[00:21:44] Have a conversation with your team about how you can all work optimally in your office, in your open office. First, you should speak to your manager, though, since it's best if the discussion is instigated by leadership. Mm-hmm. So this you, you're taking notes. So he says you should tell your boss. I'd like to get the conversation going, but I don't think I'm the right person to bring it up.
[00:22:03] Can you help? Sorry. What? Harvard Business Review article. This
[00:22:09] Will: is how we start conversations in the, in the office with your
[00:22:11] Rod: boss. Yeah. You say I want you to bring it up because I'm not the right person. As a team, your collective goal is to come up with agreed norms and you'll all operate within them. Um, It goes on like that.
[00:22:24] And really, I just, the more I read that, it's just like you're beaten children who have to obey the parental boss or hierarchy, and I just find that
[00:22:32] Will: flabbergasted. Well, I mean, so much of this research I find just, uh, just so mechanistic about people like these a hundred percent, these workers are people making their own individual choices and things.
[00:22:43] And it's like treating everyone like a cog in a machine. And I know that the office culture has to do that a bit. Sure. But, uh, I don't know if I could do this kind of research. Or
[00:22:53] Rod: work in that environment? Maybe neither. Well, I could,
[00:22:55] Will: I could do that. You wouldn't like it because I'm gonna, I'm gonna hang out with Keith and find out about his jokes and, and why you choose and Yeah, I don't mind that.
[00:23:02] I don't wanna hang out with that other guy that's, uh, you know, the master debater. I don't want to, I don't want to. No, that's not what I need.
[00:23:09] Rod: Another suggestion, move around the office. Even the most open offices tend to have discreet spaces that allow employees to remove themselves from the commotion.
[00:23:16] Secret spots dunny. So this, uh, the, the associate professor from Oral Roberts goes on, you should take full advantage of empty conference rooms, semi-private cubicles and quiet alcoves, confront that mental block you, you have about staying in the desk you're assigned to. He says, 'cause when your chatty colleague starts talking about this kind of thing, like talking about Game of Thrones, ha ha ha up with the kids.
[00:23:37] You can just take your laptop and move to the bank mill dewy desk. Who, who
[00:23:41] Will: needs advice to tell them you can take your laptop and move. No, I know. Like I know. these are real. thanks for the research.
[00:23:49] Rod: A tip for those who work in large companies. This is a really good one. It's often helpful to move to a different floor of your building.
[00:23:55] Hey, okay. People aren't as apt to know you there and therefore you're less likely to be distracted and
[00:24:00] Will: you can hide, you can, you can not get jobs. I. But
[00:24:02] Rod: by definition what they're saying earlier is they'll get to know you there. Yeah. So you're gonna have to keep moving floors until you run outta floors.
[00:24:08] Will: I do like this, uh, this, uh, fabled person that they're imagining that is just sort of hiding in plain sight all over the place. Just is it So they're more productive also? They're hiding from work.
[00:24:18] Rod: Yes. Mm. Okay. Yeah. It's part of their survival mechanisms. Um, he also says, oh, they both kinds of, between the two of these authors ask your permanently move desks if.
[00:24:28] Isn't the open office as such, but a talkative or loud coworker. Sure. Speak to your manager about moving desks. Imagine speaking to your manager about a problem in the workplace.
[00:24:37] Will: Who would ever think
[00:24:38] Rod: of doing that? It's genius. These guys know what they're talking about. You shouldn't suffer. They go on but don't complain.
[00:24:43] I.
[00:24:44] Will: You know, I guess this is where you're not complaining, you're saying no, you know, the loud chewing that I'm experiencing is probably best shared around Yes. Everyone should have a bit of loud chewing. It's not fair that I should get it all. I have, I have got it all. Yeah. So I've had, you know, I'm, I'm using too much of this.
[00:24:58] Someone else I. Janelle can come and, uh, yeah, sit next to Keith and get some of that benefit. Yeah. So you're not complaining
[00:25:03] and
[00:25:03] Rod: she's a really quiet chew. Maybe they could teach each other something you can't even tell when she's
[00:25:06] Will: eating. It's weird. They can equal each other. It's like noise-canceling headphones.
[00:25:09] It would be like, yeah, Keith and Janelle chew at the same time, and it comes to nuts
[00:25:12] Rod: and suddenly everyone thinks they're deaf. So she suggests like, uh, you talk to your boss about, you don't, you don't complain. This is kinda like what you were saying. You talk to your boss about how you'll be more productive in a new space because they're idiots and can't tell what you're doing.
[00:25:25] Yeah. No, no, I'm not whining. It's just, oh, I really, Hmm. I'm just, I wanna give more. I wanna give 110%,
[00:25:31] Will: but that's what everyone does. 10%. All you have to do is have a conversation with your boss. I wanna be better at the job. How can I be better at the job? Yeah. And my solution for being better at the job is to work from home or Yeah.
[00:25:40] Not wear pants or whatever. And, so long as you're saying so that I'm better at the job for the job, then you, then you get it.
[00:25:47] Rod: It's Ricky Bobby and Talladega Knights. I said, with all due respect, you're a total shitbag and I hate your guts and your family suck. But with all due respect, um, she says, um, talking about how you'll be more productive here.
[00:25:57] It'll be easier for me to stay on a deadline if I move to a place that is quieter. Oh, okay. Whatever you do, don't let your annoyance bubble up so that you one day scream at your colleagues to shut up. She says an outburst like that is very hard to repair. Sure. Uh, and look, the article ends with a whole bunch of, uh, uh, key principles.
[00:26:16] I'll go just the don'ts, you know, don't be difficult. Mm-hmm. Try to embrace the positives. It's everything about this sucks, but at least I'm not dead. Uh, don't go it alone. Ask a trusted colleague to run interference for you from time to time and promise you'll do the same for them. How so? Oh, there's that annoying shit about to talk to you.
[00:26:37] I'm gonna run in and block and go, oh, look at that window.
[00:26:40] Will: Oh, okay. So you've got, uh, when there's a terrible colleague, you don't wanna be near Yeah. So you're getting your other mates at work to sort of head that off? Yeah. Yeah. To
[00:26:47] Rod: somehow block them and then you do the same for them. Okay. Like, imagine having to go to these lengths, and I'm sure a lot of people do.
[00:26:53] There'd be people listening going, oh yeah, we, we can do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:26:55] Will: All the time. Uh, is that shithead? Janelle and I have to do that to cope with Keith chewing or,
[00:27:01] Rod: or Fred's reaction to it, which is not great. Um, and whatever you do, don't suffer in silence. Speak to your manager about moving desks if you feel it will improve your productivity.
[00:27:10] So, I gotta say, most of that stuff shits me royally. You probably haven't picked that. It's so passive. Docile. Submissive and just like, you know, but I'm a rebel. I'm a, I'm an idealist, so I say rebel. Yeah, sure. Easy for me though. 'cause I don't have nine children. And I was gonna say, I could easily get another job somewhere else, but I don't think that's true anymore.
[00:27:30] Imagine me lining up, I'd like to be reads script manager of blah blah. And like what experience do you have? I'm older and I've worked. You'll be all right. No, I'm fine. Like I'm not whinging about this, this is me not whinging about my workplace. Okay. So you can build little barriers like with whiteboards, small bookshelves, stuff like that.
[00:27:46] And people do this if they've got, a mini cubicle or at least something they can put little barriers around themselves. One source suggests you grow plants. Nice. Try creating a forest around you made of various plants, or perhaps grow a hedge. Yes,
[00:27:58] Will: please. Yes, please. I, I, I like a hedge
[00:28:01] Rod: at work. Nice. I think it's great.
[00:28:02] Like, this is the best one I've heard. I'm like, grow a little hedge. That sounds nice. And sometimes it flowers,
[00:28:06] Will: it's, it's, uh, not exactly easy to grow a hedge inside. No. At all.
[00:28:10] Rod: Hedges aren't easy and they're not quick.
[00:28:12] Will: Uh, yeah, sure, yeah.
[00:28:14] Rod: Listeners don't go with, um, but you gotta plan your box. A hedge is very slow growing
[00:28:17] Will: plan for the long-term bamboo.
[00:28:19] You know, if you're gonna be at work for the next 40 years, you might as well get your head started now. Get your non
[00:28:23] Rod: clumping bamboo. That's my advice. Um, they also go and say, you won't be able to look out, but no one will be able to look in either. And they won't even know if you're in the office.
[00:28:31] Will: I, why are you holding the pictures away from me? Because
[00:28:34] Rod: I, I'm not ready yet. I'm very close.
[00:28:36] Will: I want to see some, uh oh, the pictures. Some office hedges,
[00:28:39] Rod: pictures aren't what you think. Ah, earplugs of course. Or of course, headphones. And of course, headphones, as they put it, tell the world, I'm too busy for other people's noise.
[00:28:48] But we know this. I mean, people who are using headphones all the time, noise counsellors in particular in these cubicles and open plans, and then they go on. I'm not gonna go into the detail of, you know, what kind of music should you play? What? Come on. If, if you, what would you play? The
[00:29:01] Will: music that you like?
[00:29:02] Yeah. So what you do in playing music is you go through the music that you have in your collection, that one. Or your streaming service. Yeah. And you play the one that you like and that you feel like right now, why does a researcher need to say the best
[00:29:14] Rod: type of music? I really don't dunno. But let's go back to our opening assumption if these office spaces are gonna be around for the foreseeable future.
[00:29:22] Sure. And people have to find ways to do it. So we stop pussyfooting around and we get into ways to physically, and privately embarrass ourselves. How do we physically make it better? Yeah, okay. None of this fluffing around agreements. Go to your manager and go, I just wanna be productive. What do we get? What do we get?
[00:29:41] The real invention that really kicks this off was from a hundred years ago, in 1925. Mm-hmm. It's kind of inspired or rather kind of mimicked by a picture here that I think is worth showing you. It's quite amusing. Oh, wow. That's an
[00:29:53] Will: computer privacy hoodie. A knitted sleeve connects your head.
[00:29:57] Rod: Yeah, so what we're looking at here is a person with basically, the ginormous sleeve over their head.
[00:30:02] It goes all the way down to their laptop and little slots for their hands. So they look like they're wearing a weird, perverse jumper and staring down at the groin. Which is definitely a laptop.
[00:30:11] Will: I'm feeling very hot like that. Is, that is oh, sweaty. That is a super beanie. Yeah. And I, I, that is a very knitted, woollen thing going all over your head.
[00:30:19] Oh my God.
[00:30:20] Rod: Look, the, the real, the real legend comes from this 1925 thing. So a fellow called Hugo Gernsback. Now he was, he was an American inventor, writer, editor, engineer, designer, businessman, and magazine publisher. Mm-hmm. And one of his magazines was called The Science and Invention. Um, an encouraged scientific curiosity, amateur scientific Experimentation.
[00:30:43] And he started it as a way to showcase all this stuff. And it was, it was around from 1913 to 1929. So, you know, early stuff. Mm-hmm. Now Gersback himself is a super interesting dude. A whole bunch of stories about him, which I can't cover here. So I'm gonna do another episode on him quite soon. Okay. 'cause it's worth it.
[00:30:59] Alright. But he's, yeah, he's earned the credit, but, so for now, I'm just gonna talk about one of his 80-plus patents and inventions. Yeah. That's relevant to this. Um, and it addresses a personal solution to your office problems. Mm-hmm. That is the next bloody level. Come on. So, in 1925, he showcases his new invention.
[00:31:19] It's perfect for concentration in the office, the anti-distraction helmet. He called the isolator.
[00:31:25] Will: It's fucking spectacular. Oh, is this like a horse, horse blinders or something?
[00:31:30] Rod: like that? Oh god, that's unambitious. Oh, okay. Alright. The pitch before I show you, here's the pitch, it's designed to minimize visual, uh, reach, granting the wear absolute concentration and whatever he is doing.
[00:31:41] 'cause obviously dudes, so it has eyepieces that are mostly painted black. And then there's a small scratch in both of them so that you can only see right through them.
[00:31:53] It's pretty hefty, thick, well sealed for soundproofing. And he
[00:31:55] Will: was doing this seriously, right? Seriously? Oh, a hundred percent. Seriously. He's not, he's not doing this as some, wait till I show you pictures, some art project or something?
[00:32:02] Rod: Nope. This is a hundred percent. He's an inventor, you know, fabric. He's, he's an everything guy.
[00:32:06] He's one of those Renaissance dudes who's into sciencey things. Um, yeah, so it's pretty well sealed up for soundproofing and when they tested it, he found that people who stayed into it stayed into it for lengths of time, started to get really sleepy ah, because it would fill with recycled carbon dioxide.
[00:32:21] Okay. Okay. So the obvious solution was to introduce an oxygen tank extension to it. So it's great unless you're claustrophobic. Yeah. So picture one is from the magazine cover. So the magazine cover where he showcases it looks like that. Oh,
[00:32:37] Will: damn. Oh, damn. Ooh, this is, this is advertising. Well, I suppose it's, so what do we get here?
[00:32:43] We got a dude in a suit, uh, sitting at his desk, and he's got an old fashioned telephone next to him, but he's literally got, it's closest to a welding helmet, but it goes, it wraps around your whole
[00:32:52] Rod: head, kinda like an artillery shell that's been cut off at the bottom
[00:32:55] Will: and Yeah. And you've got like two little slits for your eyes, and then the, the oxygen is being piped straight to your nose and then, yeah.
[00:33:03] Oh damn.
[00:33:04] Rod: Imagine walking into an office and seeing someone with this half artillery
[00:33:09] Will: show. But all this is doing, all this is doing is making you more focused on the thing right in front of you. Yes. So like, couldn't you just perfect look at the thing in front of you?
[00:33:19] Rod: Not with distractions.
[00:33:21] Will: This is, but he can still be distracted. He can turn his whole head.
[00:33:24] Rod: I don't think he can turn his head easily. Well, here's, here's an actual photo that can't be, here's the actual helmet. Jesus Christ. So it looks like a 1970s Dr Who villain. It looks horrifying like it really looks like a weird early sci-fi alien.
[00:33:40] Will: I just. You know, the idea of a whole office space full of people wearing that Wild, you just, just wild,
[00:33:48] Rod: wild.
[00:33:49] Oh, I bet. I mean, if you take a, again, to paint the word picture, if you take those old school diving helmets where, you know, you put that big heavy bugger on your shoulders and someone's buffer in the air, so, so I, it's that, but bigger and with far fewer ways to look out. I, uh, I reckon it weighs a lot too.
[00:34:04] Will: This says that there's a photograph, um, So I want one. Of course, you do. And if anyone can find a link to the isolator, yes, I would a hundred percent. Uh, be keen to find that. It's, it's a weird moment where, you know, and a lot of science history is full of this. Yeah. Where someone has a brain fart idea, you know, they're, they're waking up in the middle of the night or they, they hit their head on the toilet bowl or they take some drugs and they have an idea.
[00:34:30] Yeah. And then let's do this the next morning they go, oh, that was a good idea. I'll follow through with that. Yeah. And then, you know, this takes them. Three weeks' worth of making something. And at no point did they think, hang on, this is fucking stupid.
[00:34:42] Rod: This is terrible. This is terrible. What I'm doing here is insane.
[00:34:45] But look, points for just going for it. Just going for, it's like, look, the problem is I can't concentrate and there are people and noise around me everywhere, and I'm sure other people suffer this way, fixed it.
[00:34:58] And he, um, this, this helmet also featured in the American Physical Society Magazine same year, 1925. And apparently despite, as they put it, it's gas mask aesthetics, and it's true, one fucking big gas mask. I mean, this thing goes almost to the edge of your shoulders. It's big. Yep. It's big. Um, so despite that aesthetic, the isolator was a widely promoted idea and it encourages focus and productivity.
[00:35:20] Widely promoted. Yeah. Promoted. They didn't say sold.
[00:35:24] Will: Promoted is doing. Yeah. But okay, there's, there's the next bit. You know, so you, you wake up in the middle of the night with a dumb idea. Yep. Then you get up in the morning and you spend the next three weeks making this thing. Then, then you go to widely promoting this.
[00:35:36] You're like, I, I, I believe in this so much. Yeah. I have, I've seen no indication that this is dumb. I'm gonna invest my life savings. This shit's gonna work. Trying
[00:35:45] Rod: to get people to buy this. No, no, mate. I'm not only gonna be rich, that's secondary. People are just gonna say, you've saved me. I,
[00:35:50] Will: I love the idea of someone ignoring all criticism.
[00:35:53] 'cause surely everyone sees this and says, ah, no, dude. Um, but what it, but you have to be belligerent with your, your belief in yourself. Yeah. To just go, no, this is, this is,
[00:36:03] Rod: but I imagine him, and we'll get, when, when I do this full story on him, my, my impression is he was quite an outspoken, confident man, and he was doing things all the time.
[00:36:09] So this would've been like, Throw that on the pile with the other inventions. 'cause here's the next one, here's the next one, here's the next
[00:36:14] Will: one. Okay. Alright. If you are against any, the level of distraction that we're talking about here Yeah. Then you should be putting your catheter in. You should be, you know, chaining yourself down and you should be like, why would be the point of leaving my desk, you know, to go to the toilet or something like that.
[00:36:28] Rod: Oh no, I understand. I'm thinking you just wanna torture yourself further. No, no. Like this is if you, so a catheter and an IV like feeding through, feeding tube down your nose and
[00:36:36] Will: Yep. You should tube yourself in if you are at this level of actually commit. Yeah. This guy's awesome. I agree. If you really want, agree, if you really want to be the least distractible person mm, then uh, go for it.
[00:36:49] And the most productive, go hard. Put yourself in pipes and chains. Yeah. Then go.
[00:36:54] Rod: I, I, wow, you've taken it to a level. It really scares me. So of course, this, uh, this is the ultimate fuck you to workplace distractions and what to do with it. And, um, it soon disappeared into the midst of time. Or did it? Flash forward to 2017. Uh, the Helmfon,
[00:37:14] Rod: The Helmfon by Ukrainian Design Company, obviously flawless Ukrainian accent. They named, the name comes from Combining Helmet and Phone Helfmon. Okay. Uh, and apparently it has the perfect mix between these two key design features according to their website. It would allow you to be in two worlds, just sitting on your chair in the office, in a meeting, or everywhere you feel like just wearing your helmet.
[00:37:38] Okay? Everywhere you feel like it, it's a fibreglass shell with a polyethene cloth to keep the interior safe. And the pitch is, it's more than a noise-cancelling tool. It comes equipped with a microphone. It has Bluetooth capabilities, it has a camera for virtual meetings, and it even has room for your smartphone.
[00:37:55] It is your own compact isolation chamber. How did it happen? We'll get to it. I'll show you. 2016, uh, a company nearby approached this, the, the Haku Raya people saying, look, our meeting rooms are really small. Mm-hmm. We don't have a lot of room for this. And obviously, they couldn't afford more space. So the design company said, look, their effective meeting spaces were like three meters by three meters, which is really only enough for one employee to have a call, apparently, like Scott call, whatever.
[00:38:22] So they set out to fix it without having to spend money on office space. Renos. Et cetera. Yeah. Okay. And it looks like this. It's kind of cool. That's 'cause you can't tell how big it is. What you're looking at now is the kind of pitch you'd see with little icons to show what it does and doesn't do.
[00:38:39] And clearly the two that have a hammer with a cross through and a weight through the cross through are saying it's not a safety helmet. Yeah. So don't get hit on the head with a hammer with it. Here it is basically in use and with a bit of context. That's how big it is.
[00:38:50] Will: Oh. So you can get your hand up under the helmet to hold your phone
[00:38:54] Rod: up.
[00:38:55] Yeah, it's giant like, I mean, how big would you describe that? It's kinda like the size of a reasonable Swiss ball you'd use at the gym. Yeah, yeah. Something like that. Like, yeah. Yeah. Big round, giant helmet. It's kind of if you're a Space Ball’s, Mel Brooks, ancient fan. It's dark. Helmet's.
[00:39:07] Will: Helmet's. And again, are you saying this is a serious product?
[00:39:09] Serious.
[00:39:10] Rod: It's not a product, serious product. And if you go to their website, obviously the links are in the notes. You can see people. Sitting at their desk and looking at their laptops
[00:39:21] Will: and stuff and, and can you see out? You can't see out of this thing. We
[00:39:24] Rod: can tilt and kinda look up. This is so
[00:39:27] Will: dumb. This is really not a problem.
[00:39:30] This is really, I, I, I don't get the epic scale of this
[00:39:33] Rod: problem. No, but what they do, they have a little, uh, diagram next to the person nonchalantly leaning with their helmet on, against a wall, taking a phone call, and they show the three-by-three-meter space with one person. Yeah. And below it, if you're all wearing the helmets, apparently you get six people in there all having Skype calls next to each other.
[00:39:48] So what we're
[00:39:49] Will: saying is you can have a call centre or something like that. Yeah. And everyone's wearing this helmet. One's disturbed. No one's disturbed. So you've got six times as many people jammed into the room. Yeah. Cram the fuck. As in this is, you know, you know the thing that always gets me this is, this is the way, and we might have mentioned this when we talked about the Taylorism, um, a while ago.
[00:40:06] Yeah. But it's, it's the way that, um, capitalism or off office planning or, or managerial science, capitalism, But it solves problems. But then goes, okay, how can we, now that we don't have that problem anymore, in, you know, working with humans, with bodies, yeah, we can just cram more people in. It's,
[00:40:23] Rod: yeah. Why don't we say the brains drop me in a jar?
[00:40:25] Oh my God. It's, yeah, it's perverse. Um, apparently it went through testing at the, in Ukraine, their largest IT event, the IT arena. This is what, 2017. So obviously pre-war and the executives of the company noted in a press release, several companies approached them to get helmets in their own offices, and apparently at the time a bunch of investors were interested too.
[00:40:47] Um, so, and there's a YouTube vid too. We'll put the link in if you wanna go and have a look at their sales pitch. Okay. I could find nothing useful about it. Maybe there were a couple of Ukraine insights after about 2017, so I don't know. It didn't say it's shit and it didn't say it's working. I don't know.
[00:41:00] Will: Vladimir Putin, he, he went down. He wanted, that's why he went in.
[00:41:04] Rod: Have you seen the helmet? I, I'm, I'm here for the helmet. This will sell like hotcakes. So basically there, there are all these solutions to make the open office better. Solutions. But to me this is, this is the classic case.
[00:41:17] It's like, um, you know, I'm diabetic so I'm gonna keep eating shit loads of sugar and look for a drug that will stop it. Yeah. Or carbon capture and storage. Yeah. Yeah. Don't stop releasing carbon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Find a way to capture it later.
[00:41:27] Will: Or how can we genetically engineer our cattle so they don't have horns?
[00:41:30] Yeah. So we can cram more of them into
[00:41:32] Rod: the feed lots. Yeah. Yeah. This is, this is, to me, this is no different. This is no different. How do we make it possible? And so, I, I don't accept those solutions. My, my, to me, the solution is don't make people work that way. Get rid of open-plan offices. No. That's it.
[00:41:46] And I know Idealist who has an office, but
[00:41:49] Will: No, I bet there's a bunch of people out there that are like, I'll take the helmet. And in fact, you know, at first the, the, the device that you didn't cover here is the device made by the giant company, uh, that is quite successful at making consumer tech that, uh, maybe it's ticking all of these boxes.
[00:42:05] Rod: Could be anybody, I don't know who you mean. Yeah. Do we use any of their products only every day? All the time.
[00:42:10] Will: Yeah, every day. All the time. Ah, that, uh, you know, Electrolux. Not Electrolux, but Apple moving into this space suddenly has a device that a lot of people are thinking of. Uh, actually that's not the worst.
[00:42:23] I can imagine that in a flight. I can imagine that in the office. Yep. So, you know, it's the same sort of thing. It's a helmet that goes over your eyes, but you can see through it and there's noise cancelling and you, all of this sort of technology, maybe it's still coming. Maybe there is a world where everyone in, in the cubicle farm, is sitting with, um, an Apple headset
[00:42:40] Rod: on.
[00:42:41] You don't, I, I've got, I'm not going. I've got nothing against the tech and the innovation and the VR glasses, all that good stuff. I'm not against that. It's the uses to which it's put and the idea that it makes you a better drone in an office sits uncomfortable. Well,
[00:42:55] Will: look, let's, let's step away from the drone language and go the idea that maybe this makes you more able to achieve your career dreams.
[00:43:03] Maybe, maybe these people can, uh, be more productive in this way, in, in a, in a way that some could, yeah. So, not
[00:43:10] Rod: me. Not me. I, I, nothing. I mean, I look, I feel soul crushed when I see government workers with their little, um, swipe cards around their next one. I landed and I think, oh, you poor things. It's a symbol for me.
[00:43:23] It's a symbol to me, man. It's the chain around the neck, man. Oh, oh my God. You hippie. I, no, I can't help it. This is why, I mean, do you know why I forgot
[00:43:29] Will: to declare my bias? You, you were, you were saying there are some hippie solutions to this. You're not good ones though. And, and, and I thought there was gonna be like bead curtains.
[00:43:36] I wanted to see a bead. I'll do that. I wanted to see bead curtains around someone's office cubicle, like all the way around.
[00:43:41] Rod: And every time you move it to the rattling of beads, you're like, fucking, but God would look cool. Oh hey. Yeah, I know. And look, I'm an idealist and I'm not into that, so it's very hard for me to be unbiased about this stuff.
[00:43:56] But, oh God, look
[00:43:56] Will: of all your solutions. I just think, okay, the isolator is really, really dumb. The helmet is pretty dumb, but you know, the combination of noise-cancelling headphones. Mm-hmm. And going somewhere else when you need to take a phone call. Uh, it probably answers pretty much 90% of a lot of dramas here.
[00:44:13] Rod: Although it is weird though, that you're at a point, if you think about it, you, you're now in a modern office where you've gotta wear essentially protective ear gear to be able to do your job better. It's like, what the fuck? This is in the office, but now you've gotta wear headphones in your office. It's just interesting what we normalize.
[00:44:28] An idealist man's two office workers listening to this right now. What, what, what
[00:44:31] Will: the big feel? What is the big problem?
[00:44:32] Rod: A drone wearing earphones in your office. It's office only. A droney
[00:44:35] Will: Or wear it. Wear. What is the problem with wearing earphones and listening to some? I get it's gonna be music
[00:44:40] Rod: without legs.
[00:44:41] Having to, having to, is what I like. Ah, having to, ah,
[00:44:44] Will: and you know what, you also, you have to put on clothes to go to the office.
[00:44:48] Rod: I, I
[00:44:48] Will: object. You, you have to physically move your body even
[00:44:53] Rod: if you work from home. How far do we go with that? Oh, how far do we go? It's a slippery slope from pants. To implant to severance.
[00:45:01] It's really not, it's a slippery slope,
[00:45:03] Will: man. It's really not. We're gonna die. This is, there's a deal that we have with each other in society that we all work a bit. Yeah. So even, even in don't like that, even in your utopia, where we have solved the idea of what that there is this idea that maybe we put our shoulders to the grindstone nose to the mill and help make society together.
[00:45:22] And I get there. There are a lot of workplaces that aren't great and there's a lot of shit jobs that shouldn't exist.
[00:45:28] Rod: It's them that I
[00:45:29] Will: worry about. But, uh, the idea of stepping into society and going, you know, I'll put clothes on. Why do you think I always record with no pants?
[00:45:34] Rod: Sticking it to the man, but not, not directly.
[00:45:40] I, I, I know I'm biased. I'm,
[00:45:42] Will: I'm, I'm sorry about him listening, so, no, I know, I know that, that most people are like coping with modern life, but, uh, this guy, some of it
[00:45:49] Rod: I like. I like television.
[00:45:50] Will: I'm free to air. If you find one of those isolators, I will 100%. I will. 100%. Uh, it depends on how much it is. Uh, I was gonna say,
[00:45:59] Rod: that's a, that's a big talk.
[00:46:00] Can
[00:46:00] Will: I will 100% consider buying it
[00:46:02] Rod: if it's less than 58 us? Well else, I don't know. How much would you spend more than 58? What if I said I can find one for 500 US
[00:46:12] In perfect condition with two oxygen cylinders? Full.
[00:46:17] Will: I want someone's face imprint still in it. On the other side, it's
[00:46:19] Rod: screaming. Yes, of course, I would get, I would die from claustrophobia. I'd put that on and immediately like to start vomiting and that'd be the enemy.
[00:46:29] Will: We'll be back next week, listener. You just enjoy your job and, and, uh, you gotta do, keep, keep your battle suit on, but don't worry like him.
