Flex and Frooms, Flex and Frooms. This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast. Am I am I, Am I the Asshole. It is fun to lament work. Lament yeah, yeah, to complain about work, to really really feel glum about the working environment. We condone it. But if you own your own business, don't feel sad when your employees also hate working for you. It's just the nature of work. It's terrible. Here's anwy the Asshole from a listener of ours.
They want to know if they're in the wrong for not wanting to participate in office fun days off the dome. They're in the right, but to do the am I the Assholes service, Let's read the whole thing. They say. They work for a company that values team cohesion, and every year a mandatory fun day is organized where attendance is seemingly compulsory. It's a class corporate team building bullsh icebreak. Because of the people I've known for years falling over
and being caught that sort of crap. This is perfect God trust for baby. The event was announced with less than a week's notice, and my manager Greg emphasized its importance, insinuating it would impact our performance evaluations. That's a threat. I didn't really understand this, but not at a long mood. I was frustrated and felt coerced as I have a bunch of ongoing projects and pressing deadlines. So I expressed my concerns to Greg, explaining the inconvenience and the impact
it would have in my workload. He was dismissive of my concerns, asserting that the event was crucial for team building and that missing one day of work wouldn't help, wouldn't hurt. Sorry. I agreed to attend. The day before, I was stuck working late and ended up deciding I'm not going to the team building event. That evening I pinged, pinged, you're in deep, babe. That evening, I pinged a colleague i'm friends with, saying as much. I slept until nine am.
The next day worked from home. It was pretty productive all things considered. This wound Greg up. The next day. He confronted me, accused me of being uncooperative antisocial. Fine, but I don't see why I need to socialize with my colleagues, especially when it feels so forced. He was very aggressive, basically shouting at me in the office in front of the whole team, so I'd be happy to come to more reasonable social stuff, but I won't be going to team building days since they're a waste of time.
It'd be easier and nice for us to get lunch somewhere instead. Yes, after all of this, Greg effectively punish me by telling me I'd be getting coffees for the entire team. People just do this for themselves normally for the next week. I'm a mid thirties senior software engineer, not some intern, so this is pretty embarrassing for me. I get that I shouldn't have decided I wasn't going to go last minute, but the day is a complete waste of time, and going would have meant I'd be
working Saturday most likely. I also think that Greg is trying to embarrass me with coffee duty, which doesn't sit right with me. So Flex and Frims please tell me am I the asshole.
Okay, I'm just gonna kick it off straight off the bat. This is the modern day adult equivalent of having to do this swim carnival. Nobody enjoys the swim carnival. If I have to tell you that I've got my pizzo d on the clock, just to not go to your stupid your stupid activity. Also, unless it's go karting or laser tag, I'm gonna play laser tag and kill buy of me. Never never choose violence, y'all. But like, if I have a chance to shoot someone with a laser
tager afterwards, then I'm gonna laser tag. But if I if you're accosting me with deadlines that you know I can't hit, and then you're saying let's do a little half day soccer tournament, honestly shut up.
Unfortunately, here is the frustrating thing about working environments. People have to work to live, So no matter how enjoyable you think you're making working, it's in hinging and infringing on their rights as people. Yes, like, no matter which way you want to spin it, we'll give you extra snacks, will make it fun. It always feels like a burden
because fundamentally people shouldn't have to work to live. But here we are also the irony in your employers forcing you to do something under the guys, but being for your own personal benefit. When you were explaining all the ways it's not beneficial to you, popes, sus. We have ranted about hr before. We won't be doing it again.
There were some ten poles in the lift.
When I say we it was rooms, I was nodding along silently.
It did very well on the socials.
And you ate if you are someone who is older than high school age, still living in your parents' house and you don't want to follow their rules, so that I would say their house, their rules, because I understand if you don't want to abide by their rules, you need to leave. Similar to working environments, for the most part, when you sign a contract, you got to abide by the rules of the workplace. But the difficulty about that
is the rules get changed constantly for no reason. Things that are supposed to be mandatory, like your one hour lunch breaks or getting like having staplers and office stationary and things that getting overtime, getting over time, getting your time and lou things that are there to make sure you can do your job well get like confused in
the frame. So I can understand that fundamentally, there's a confusion between what you have to do and what it's implied you should do for the benefit of your job. That's the confusing bit because there's so much that people do in their jobs they don't have to do, but it's implied that it'd make their working life easier. To that, you ask, who is going to make your life harder
if you don't do it? There's like an implied threat. So, for example, let's say your boss says, I know you start at nine o'clock, you work nine to five, but we notice when you get at nine o'clock you're shuffling around, you're not getting ready, getting a coffee, and by the time you're really sitting down it's nine thirty. So to make sure that you're not cutting into your worktime, come at eight thirty. I've been here with that before, have you. Yeah? Damn.
So imagine you don't start work at eight thirty. You start at night. So now if your boss is implying that you should come at eight thirty because from their perspective, it would make you do your job better, what if you just didn't do that, who's in the wrong. Not quite sure. Also, the confusing thing is we have contracts to ensure that you do what's on your contract. Things like maybe come at eight thirty, maybe go to the office fun day. They're not in the contract. So do
we have to do it. The other thing, the thing that I told you the story before about when I had that performance review at my job and I didn't drink either, and all they did. We worked in prs, so it was like every day, let's go get pissed for seven hours. I don't want to do that. And so my boss at the time was like, but it's really bad from morale because the girl you see you out and about, you know, in your own time, having a good time, and they just feel like they don't
get that side of you. And like, yeah, because we're employees, we're coworkers, and what they're observing is finding their way onto my Instagram that I didn't share with them to observe my life. Like I'm also getting fomo, you were meant to see that that was never gonna be you. But when she said to me, oh, you should consider going to these office fundays because it'll improve morale, I'm like, that's your job. If morale is funny, I'm sorry, boss, Like,
that's on you. So I'm gonna need you to start stock in the kitchen extra things or bit of teaching bags play how to make the work environment better so your employees don't have to overcompensate with overtime to reverse the damage of poor management. Do you know what I'm saying?
Yes?
And so also in this instance, Greg the in the listener, DM Greg is now out for you, which is an actual tangent touch in your back, you know. So you know, maybe you have saved five hours by not going to the office Funday, but now you've got a superior on your back, to which I say, how much power do you actually have to wield? Honestly, I feel for you.
You're saying like you're seeing your management mid thirties. We don't want to be embarrassed with coffee runs, but you're actually doing them now, So it seems as though you've got yourself in a funny place, not the asshole. But I hate what my mum used to say to me, like what's the better outcome like doing something you don't want to do and things being fine, or just doing what someone's telling you do and you being annoyed? In
some instances, you being annoyed is not worth it. Usually when you have power and dynamic, when you can be annoyed and know that you've got in your way, But being annoyed and not getting your way and still working. Not fun choice words. You've been listening to The Flex and Froom's daily podcast.
For more, Tune Indicator on DAB or stream it on iHeartRadio.