As I’m self employed, this isn’t an issue for me, but I would run a mile if a boss of mine suggested a sleepover.
While sleepovers are standard fare when you’re a child, spending the night with your boss is a level of intimacy that most people would rather avoid.
Avoid? You wouldn’t see me for dust.
This level of personal interaction, says Mr Mackey, prevents staff compartmentalising their work life and personal life, and means workers can relate on a deeper level.
Er, I make a point of compartmentalising my professional and personal lives. This is not some sort of accidental thing – I do it deliberately. Work is work, personal is personal – and deeply private. I do not share my personal life with work – except in very limited circumstances. I have made friends with my motorcycle clients and do mix socially with them – but that is a rarity. I would never mix socially with an employer on a matter of principle. An employer buys a proportion of my time and expertise, he does not buy me and I make a point of that being so. Hence the separation. When I walk away from work, I leave it behind. There’s a bloody great moat with alligators swimming in it that keeps the two separate. I am not my job and my job is not me. I don’t want to relate on a deeper level. I am perfectly capable of fulfilling my professional objectives without that deeper level. It’s called being a professional.
“I know this sounds weird, but there’s something about sleeping in the same house and then fixing breakfast or dinner together that is very much a bonding experience,” he says.
It is weird – very weird – and I don’t want to bond, thank-you very much – you are my employer, not my buddy. You pay me to work and I will provide exactly what you pay me for. Outside of that – take a hike. None of your business. And, no, I don’t want to brush teeth together or discuss matters in our pyjamas – not least, I don’t wear them and I’m fussy about who I get naked for.
Exactly.
I could never see the point of these ‘team building’ games, we should be professional and relate on a professional level, something that is perfectly possible for most people without ‘help’.
However that is made somewhat harder when you discover that your co-workers are wife-beaters, caravan towers, sex maniacs, Arsenal supporters, Lib-Dems or whatever sinks your personal boat.
This does relate to your previous post on personal beliefs and business; best kept separate I think unless you want to lose half your customers, (which isn’t legal now is it!).
Yup. I’m perfectly capable of interacting on a professional level with people I wouldn’t socialise with – or even dislike. It’s part of being an adult.
Jesus wept!! Is this pillock for real? Unfortunately, in 2014, he really is! With some I’ve worked with, this suggestion would have been met with a sort of ‘bonding’ he wouldn’t have liked much, followed by immediate walk out.
Sheesh!
You sure know how to spot em LR, and I’m definately with you on this. I have people at work I get on with and even like, but no friends.
We have the odd works do but I’m always more reserved than I would be among friends.
It works the other way too. I could have a raging disagreement with a colleague but would never carry it on out of work, even as far as the smoking shelter.
I think the only reason these new age human resource morons want to blur the lines is so the can get you to work in your personal time as well as your work time. Just to scam free work out of you
You know, sometimes I think I’d sleep with anyone if the money was good enough. On the other hand, who gets the duvet and who gets to sleep on the damp patch? What if they snore? What about this awful suspicion I wouldn’t be respected in the morning? 😈
Seriously though; how sad is being so immersed in your job that it takes over your entire life? That’s not a career, that’s slavery.
“…sometimes I think I’d sleep with anyone if the money was good enough…”
Ed Balls?
Ed Millipede?
Harridan Harperson?
Polly Toynbee?
No, thought not.
I see none of my co-workers socially, and never go to the Christmas parties or quiz nights or anything else. Partly because I’m an unsociable swine, but mostly because I know I will drink a tad too much, start talking, and upset everyone in the room. It’s only safe to go drinking with those who know what to expect, and know not to take my drunken ramblings seriously.
As for the idea of sleeping with the boss, well my current boss is quite attractive and half my age so… I wouldn’t stand a chance in Hell. Fortunately she’s not into all this team building crap – it’s ‘end of shift, swipe out, go home’. Suits me.
“This level of personal interaction, says Mr Mackey, prevents staff compartmentalising their work life and personal life.”
I like my work life and personal life compartmentalised. If my workplace had the likes of Mackey trying to prevent that I would be heading for the door PDQ. I don’t hate my job but I don’t enjoy it so much that I want to take it home with me either.
Sounds like the kind of bastard boss the goes on about “Flexible, and able to meet new challenges.”
Basically means today you do the books, tomrow you paint the bogs.
Motto being “Today the books! Tomorow the BOGS!”
Would not trust any one who appears to be after “flexible friends.” All seems a bit queer to me.
One advantage of being a smoker!!!
It sounds enormously creepy.
Gillian McKeith would love it.
Yes, creepy is a word I would use.
And, no, I don’t want to brush teeth together or discuss matters in our pyjamas – not least, I don’t wear them and I’m fussy about who I get naked for.
Heh! Same as that! I don’t even posses pyjamas – haven’t worn anything in bed since I was thirteen or so and found that pyjamas = testicular strangulation.
Having not actually worked for a boss for more than 35 years, I don’t really understand all this corporate ‘bonding’ stuff.
I work, you pay me. End of.
Actually, my work situation involves ‘clients’, for whom I do design and build, and many of those clients have indeed become personal friends who, when they are here at their properties, invite me to eat, go for a drink, go out on their boat etc etc, which I enjoy doing, as they are for the most part interesting and entertaining people. But none of them have ever suggested a ‘sleepover’! Although there have been a couple I might not have refused! Their husbands might not have been so keen on it though.
Yes, creepy definitely sums it up.