The workplace divide
And how it shows up in media
Like books, I don’t always share what show I’m talking about. It’s less a critique of the media, and more what I learned from it.
I’ve noticed that a particular season of a workplace TV comedy show is rather disliked. I was rewatching it late last year and I had a thought about why that might be.
It’s too realistic in the portrayal of the fake division in workplaces based on the “doers” and the “thinkers”. I think they wrote the conflict about this topic really well, but I think it was unpopular because too many people don’t recognise this is a common workplace conflict. This conflict gets dressed up as something else, and the actual issue is never discussed.
“Doers” and “thinkers” is a divide I’ve observed in every workplace, and it’s one that, quite frankly, pisses me off. Thinkers are associated with power. The “strategic genius” and if you dare ask that “genius” a question about implementation, they tell you that you’re too bogged down in the details. And at the same time, “doers” get told they don’t think about things on the “correct” scale. It’s always too small, or too big.
The thing is, ideas are cheap. Look at how copyright works - ideas are not original, the expression is. Aka the doer of the idea is where the uniqueness sits. And yet in corporate land, it’s still the cultural norm to worship ideas and not doers. And to assume if you’re a doer, you’re not a thinker.
Yes, this is personal for me. I know I do both. But I’ve worked with people who I can only assume are threatened by me and try to squash me into the box they deem non threatening, the box without power, the “doer” who can’t think for herself.
I think it’s a real shame that a) this particular season of a workplace comedy was disliked and b) that the real issue, this real divide they portrayed, wasn’t a bit more explicit. It was a missed opporuntity for media to highlight and work with a real world issue.
Image description: a generic white man in a generic business suit. It’s always this type who comes up with ideas and takes credit for them when others do the work.