An employee gave his parents a tour of the office, pointing out the firm's various departments to them, in an incredibly bold move that left his colleagues reeling from embarrassment.
"He brought his family right in the middle of the afternoon, and, right in front of everyone, he said, 'This is the desk where I work,'" said his boss, still red-faced from the incident. "And then, once he had walked his parents around the entire floor, he went up to the senior director and introduced his parents to him. He even called him 'a good boss'!" Another employee confirmed seeing the staffer taking his parents into the kitchen and offering them their choice of coffee or tea.
This is what is happening at one of the offices in a corporate group, you think. No. All this goes on in a Facebook group called Generic Office Roleplay, where over 5,000 members from around the world mimic and mock such narrow-minded corporate culture through self-enactment, fill page after virtual page with posts that mimic office-wide emails, share passive-aggressive notes about office dress and office supplies, and pass off tips for "improving synergy", whatever that nonsense means. All this forms part of business live action role-play, or blarp-ing, as many call it.
Here is an example of the roleplay on the site: "My meeting was due to begin at eleven. My stomach growled, though not from hunger. I had given similar talks on similar topics for years here, and yet the prospect of standing up in front of a room full of frowning faces always terrified me. For the past half an hour, my stomach had been audible right across the desk, churning last night's dinner into this morning's breakfast, and sounding like an echo chamber. I placed a palm against my abdomen and pressed, as if this would help silence it, but I would be completely within the truth to tell you I had no idea of the thunderous blast to be unleashed that morning."
Amid all this, it is weird to note that corporate workers - exactly the people being made fun of - are the ones running the roleplay show. And more and more middle managers are posting from their office cubicles to get comedy out of their own situations.
So, if an HR email goes off on work-related practices, a parallel one finds its way across the roleplay group, to ensure virtual employees stay focused during business hours, so focused that any crying at the workplace should stem from work-related issues and not household ones. The email even urges workers to limit weeping at their desk to job-oriented topics only, such as benefits, workload, or a lack of appreciation among colleagues. Of course, there are exceptions: if you cry because work has prevented you from seeing your family this festival (think Diwali), that's a grey area, and you might want to clear it with a supervisor before breaking down completely.
These games also serve as an outlet for the drama and the Machiavellian self-advancement that take place in office, and which might otherwise turn into cyberbullying. Here's a post on "thrustingly young ambitious types" clambering over the author for a promotion: "I had a plummeting moment of clarity: everything now lay before me, months, years, decades, opening up like one monumental yawn. It was up to me to do something meaningful with my life now, and at least I would need a plan, a project, a continued reason for getting up in the morning. To date, I only had a job, but that thread was about to run thin. I had been working in my job, at a successful media company, for the past 15 years. It had been my first real job out of university, and I had risen solidly: I had been assistant researcher, researcher, assistant producer, producer, and now one of two senior producers on our close-knit team. I had no private office, no company car, but it was challenging work, and fun, and the pension plan would keep me off poverty. I had once thought of my job as a career, but realised back in my mid-twenties that I simply lacked the necessary aggressive streak. Back then, as now, the company was full of thrustingly young ambitious types keen to make their mark, many of them terribly clever and terribly pretty, who would clamber over me and one another in pursuit of any likely promotion going. I just didn't possess that sort of drive, and didn't want to either."
The author of this post survives his real-life office, and fantasises his roleplay one.
Note: Posts have been edited for clarity.
ashish.sharma@bsmail.in
"He brought his family right in the middle of the afternoon, and, right in front of everyone, he said, 'This is the desk where I work,'" said his boss, still red-faced from the incident. "And then, once he had walked his parents around the entire floor, he went up to the senior director and introduced his parents to him. He even called him 'a good boss'!" Another employee confirmed seeing the staffer taking his parents into the kitchen and offering them their choice of coffee or tea.
This is what is happening at one of the offices in a corporate group, you think. No. All this goes on in a Facebook group called Generic Office Roleplay, where over 5,000 members from around the world mimic and mock such narrow-minded corporate culture through self-enactment, fill page after virtual page with posts that mimic office-wide emails, share passive-aggressive notes about office dress and office supplies, and pass off tips for "improving synergy", whatever that nonsense means. All this forms part of business live action role-play, or blarp-ing, as many call it.
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Odd as it sounds, Generic Office Roleplay isn't the first of its kind. Synergon is a satirical website about office language and culture, where, instead of casting a spell on an elf, you go up levels by doing things like discussing ROI (return on investment) in a meeting.
Here is an example of the roleplay on the site: "My meeting was due to begin at eleven. My stomach growled, though not from hunger. I had given similar talks on similar topics for years here, and yet the prospect of standing up in front of a room full of frowning faces always terrified me. For the past half an hour, my stomach had been audible right across the desk, churning last night's dinner into this morning's breakfast, and sounding like an echo chamber. I placed a palm against my abdomen and pressed, as if this would help silence it, but I would be completely within the truth to tell you I had no idea of the thunderous blast to be unleashed that morning."
Amid all this, it is weird to note that corporate workers - exactly the people being made fun of - are the ones running the roleplay show. And more and more middle managers are posting from their office cubicles to get comedy out of their own situations.
So, if an HR email goes off on work-related practices, a parallel one finds its way across the roleplay group, to ensure virtual employees stay focused during business hours, so focused that any crying at the workplace should stem from work-related issues and not household ones. The email even urges workers to limit weeping at their desk to job-oriented topics only, such as benefits, workload, or a lack of appreciation among colleagues. Of course, there are exceptions: if you cry because work has prevented you from seeing your family this festival (think Diwali), that's a grey area, and you might want to clear it with a supervisor before breaking down completely.
These games also serve as an outlet for the drama and the Machiavellian self-advancement that take place in office, and which might otherwise turn into cyberbullying. Here's a post on "thrustingly young ambitious types" clambering over the author for a promotion: "I had a plummeting moment of clarity: everything now lay before me, months, years, decades, opening up like one monumental yawn. It was up to me to do something meaningful with my life now, and at least I would need a plan, a project, a continued reason for getting up in the morning. To date, I only had a job, but that thread was about to run thin. I had been working in my job, at a successful media company, for the past 15 years. It had been my first real job out of university, and I had risen solidly: I had been assistant researcher, researcher, assistant producer, producer, and now one of two senior producers on our close-knit team. I had no private office, no company car, but it was challenging work, and fun, and the pension plan would keep me off poverty. I had once thought of my job as a career, but realised back in my mid-twenties that I simply lacked the necessary aggressive streak. Back then, as now, the company was full of thrustingly young ambitious types keen to make their mark, many of them terribly clever and terribly pretty, who would clamber over me and one another in pursuit of any likely promotion going. I just didn't possess that sort of drive, and didn't want to either."
The author of this post survives his real-life office, and fantasises his roleplay one.
Note: Posts have been edited for clarity.
ashish.sharma@bsmail.in