It’s fascinating to me to read Ask A Manager to see what the norms are in the working world. Today, there was a question from a manager who’s college grad hire has made a pillow fort (a ‘nest’) in her office. She’s going to get an officemate soon (a new hire), and her manager wants to know how to approach the topic with her report. The manager has not seen it, but it has been reported to her by other managers.
Alison started out by saying she loved the idea of a pillow fort, which is why I like her so much. Because I, too, love the idea of a pillow fort. In fact, I work from my couch in what could be described as a blanket nest of my own. And my instinct is that if she’s not public-facing and if she weren’t about to get an officemate, let her have her blanket nest
Not surprisingly, most people were anti-pillow fort. But in the ‘I personally have no issue with it, but business norms!’ kind of way. Which is how many of them reacted to other issues such as wearing a bra and not shaving your underarms. I’ll get to that in a minute.
There was another letter from someone who was neurodivergent and did martial arts. He wrote in to ask if it would be seen as weird if he did some of his martial arts practices at work, including some forms, combat rolling to get things off the lower shelf, and standing in a deep horse stance. There were several of us who did martial arts, and we told him that some of it like the combat rolls and practicing the forms in the lunch room would seem odd.
Most of us emphasized that if he wanted to do it, it was fine, but he had to accept that he would be seen as weird, which he did not like at all. I said there are things from Taiji that I do automatically (like breathing and posture), but that I wouldn’t do weapons forms in an office. I can save that for home. Honestly, things like that seem performative. Same with the combat roll to get something off a lower shelf. He was snitty in the comments saying he guessed he’d have to hurt himself and not do it the way he normally would, which is bullshit. You don’t need to combat roll to get something off a low shelf in order to not hurt yourself.
Also, we stressed that he can do any of it, but there will be a perception that he’s being weird. He just has to decide if he’s ok with it or not. Many of us who did martial arts didn’t like the performative aspect of what he was doing. All of us know that guy who struts around the gym/dojo acting as if his shit don’t stink.