co-workers say the darndest things!

i try not to blog about work because in general, i like my workplace and i like my co-workers. and being friendly means that some of them may read my blog. so i keep it to friendly.

that said, i work in a small office with 7 other people, mostly women. we share a kitchenette. like many offices and collective spaces, kitchen sharing is a fraught issue dependent on collective and individual responsibility. in an office of just eight people, it is immediately obvious when someone slacks on their dishwashing duties. and in an office of just 8, it is not that hard to narrow down the likely dirty dish culprits using deductive logic, inductive reasoning, or just plain common sense.

now, to be fair, everyone flakes every once in a while. eat then run to a meeting or to meet a deadline. however, it's the consistent flakers that have created an unfair situation for the rest of us. we're talking fly infestation here. flies don't discriminate between thems who wash dishes and thems who don't; they come callin' to everybody. flies drowned in my coffee. flies in the dead in the honey. flies around your face. flies when you're trying to have lunch. and we work above a chinese restaurant, so i leave to your imagination the potential for future, larger vermin.

now the rest of us are fairly aggravated, disgusted by the flies, and too busy to track the dish-offenders on a semi-daily basis. and though we all kind of have a sense of who the most consistent, most persistent offenders are (um, there are only 8 it's not that hard to figure out especially when the sink is always clean when certain folks are on vacation or out of the office), as polite well-socialized professionals, we like to give them the benefit of the doubt and really, who wants to be their parole officer checking in with them constantly? so we resort to general emails.

weo, the two people in question either don't check email because they are too busy to read generally directed emails much less wash their own dishes or because they don't think it applies to them since dirty dishes are clearly their blindspot. i'm not sure which, but the end result is the same. the dirty dishes accumulate and fester vermin, communicable diseases, bacteria, and the unsavory remainders of their leftovers which they also could not be bothered to scrape into the trash before dumping their dish in the sink/bucket for days on end.

so email reminders weren't working. then came the notes. which also did not work because the amount of dishes in the sink actually *increased* immediately after the notes were posted. go figure. granted this is all passive-aggressive ways of dealing, but if you don't have evidence of guilt, how can you go and question the two most likely suspects without them feeling "targeted" (standard defensive response)?

so as the general office manager-type person (along with my other two job descriptions), i pleaded via email for people to take responsibility and not to force it to a staff level discussion through their lack of action. to no avail. yup. it was an agenda item on the full staff meeting. yes, it took 15 minutes of precious time (overage time mind you b/c our staff meetings are always overly packed and have unrealistic time frames) to discuss. and yes, it was absolutely ludicrous.

now, i tried to forgo my usual tough love, frank style of approach (which obviously wasn't working) in favor of a diplomatic, facilitative, coaching approach because making people feel bad is not the best way to change their behavior--"okay everyone, there's a problem and how can we go about changing the situation for the positive? what do folks need?" i was able to maintain that for about halfway through the discussion until the sheer audacity of response brought about my natural attitude and my "i ain't yo mama. i don't want to be anybody's mama. do your dishes" tirade held in check only by my neighbor on the left who does do his own dishes rightly laughing at the irony of my mama-hood statement which reminded me i was trying to be more diplomatic. "i don't want to be mama for anyone at work" i amended.

okay, reality check though. why is it that the two people who most consistently do NOT do their own dishes (and who are btw self-proclaimed, obsessive neat freaks) had the most to say on the matter? and why is it that their "helpful" proposals on the matter involved everyone else on staff who already do their own dishes taking on responsibility for those who do NOT do their own dishes? heaven preserve me from folks who deflect their own personal responsibility/culpability to the group.

so the one leave-the-dishes-in-a-bucket staff member (because somehow leaving it in a bucket of stagnant water for several days makes it okay) who shall remain nameless suggested that everyone sign a pledge of good behavior (she called it "self-determination" and it included sundry organizational practice topics such as email subject headings and server file management in addition to cleaning up after oneself) ; the pledge could then be laminated and displayed prominently on the wall and then used as the basis for evaluation/self-evaluation. ... really?! i mean, reaaaally? let me get this straight, so you are not in the habit of washing your own dishes in a timely manner, and you want the rest of the organization who does wash their own dishes in a timely manner to sign a pledge that you will author with everyone's input of course, a pledge that everyone will do their own dishes, and this is a matter of organizational culture that will take four weeks to go through an organization-held proposal process, rather than this being your own personal responsibility from the minute you use a dish?! riiiiiiiiight. i wash my own dishes. i don't need to sign no fucking pledge to wash my own dishes. and really a "Drug-Free Zone" sign or "motivational" posters just tells me that there's some shady business up in the hood and is that really the message we want to convey to outsiders?

th'other leave-the-dishes-and-trash-on-the-table staff member who also shall remain nameless acknowledged, to her credit, that she was one of the messier ones, that signing a piece of paper wasn't going to change her behavior, and that the passive aggressive notes/emails weren't going to make her do her dishes either. she also noted that the larger organizational pattern of indirect confrontation was unhealthy dynamic. then she asked that everyone else be responsible for directly reminding her to do her dishes as i had done when her kid left his in the sink for 2 days. this is when i started to diatribe a little. "that only works when i know it's your dishes. if i don't know whose dishes it is, why does it become my responsibility to come around to each person and ask, are those your dishes? no? okay, are those *your* dishes? no? okay are those *your* dishes? yes? wash your dishes." then came the "i ain't yo mama" bit already mentioned above.

within the fifteen wasted overage minutes, a couple of other people who actually wash their own dishes had suggestions for those who do not, about how to create a proactive checking habit at the end of the day or change one's mental paradigm around washing one's own dishes as a part of lunchtime. very concrete, very individual responsibility-focused. why do i get the feeling that the ones who needed it, didn't get it? mine own suggestion was if you don't got the time to wash, leave it at your desk. it may be an OSHA violation but at least you have to deal with your mess instead of putting it on everyone else to deal with your mess. so we left it at the suggestions and a check in on progress (roll-the-eyes) at the next staff meeting.

if i wasn't so aggravated, had more presence of mind and was trying a little less to be a diplomatic facilitator against my nature, i would have pointed out the irony & contradiction that thems that do not wash their own dishes wanted everyone else to be responsible for thems washing their own damn dishes.

i bear no ill will and yet, sometimes the ridiculousness of the situation is like a bunion. you can ignore it, but it will get worse and there it is cramping your toes. really, there's an easier way. and sometimes, in blogs one can say things that aren't quite um, professional shall we say, in staff meetings. Like the rest of my mentally censored diatribe "this ain't about organizational culture. this ain't about organizational dynamics. it ain't about everybody else who already do their dishes. this is about individual responsibility. this is about you. are you a grown-ass woman? wash your own fucking dishes. period."

dear co-worker if you happen to be reading this, yeah, i'm clowning you. if the shoe fits...

bottomline: wash your own dishes.

sigh, just 17 more days til i go on maternity leave...