Glass Walls: Partial Solution to The Glass Ceiling?

Not the OP, but I relate to the quoted comment. Maybe my experience will give you some insight.

Essentially, engaging in idle chit-chat is very stressful to me. It is far more stressful than anything else I do on a daily basis. In the past, I would feel physical fear when I saw someone I knew in a public place. Oh no, they're going to talk to me.

The reason for this is simple: I'm not good at enjoying conversation with people. I have trouble relating to people, so I have to struggle to be conversant. It becomes a game of "what should I say here", or "what do they mean by that", or whatever. I know that if I just said what I wanted I would seem antisocial, so instead I have to carefully mediate my responses. It's very tiring!

Having said that, this is really an issue with myself, not with the other person. I would never think to call someone a "fool" because they like to chat. The fool is the person who can't relax and enjoy a conversation.

Yeah seems very harsh.

Evidently you didn't read the part later in the post where it turns out the man was an executive and the author was an entry-level worker. That makes a big difference.

Also, the occasion was, as you are told in the post, two days after a supervisor was fired because of a sexual harassment scandal. That makes a difference too.

You have to read the context. A different male employee had just been fired for inappropriate behavior with a female employee. Since he is much more higher-ranking than she is, she is concerned about what their coworkers will think about his interaction with her. It's not that she doesn't like the guy. She's trying to shield his reputation.

Yes it. reads like a scene from 1984 too me as well. Actually thinking about it the zero sum competition of most big corporations is exactly like 1984 as well.

Not just that, but chance meetings with powerful people are one key way in which to advance: one makes a good impression for a brief moment in the stairwell; one makes an even better impression at the business function; one is able to answer a few key questions; one performs well when given a small piece of greater responsibility; one advances.

Or one could make a good impression for a brief moment in the stairwell, then brush the powerful person off in public, where (rest assured) other people who know how the game is played (and how the metagame is played, and how the metametagame is played...) see--and not advance.

An extremely popular man was fired two days earlier (for either sexual harassment or an affair or both). Tensions in the department were crazy high that week. It was not a normal situation. That was a factor in my decision to not speak with him at that time.

I agree... I don't tend to think anything of having break room or stairwell conversations with people that are far away in the organizational chart, and I don't worry that people will think there's an affair or conspiracy or something creepy going on if someone sees me talking to them. I don't really see the flaw in just taking everyone at face value, and making sure my business communications are restricted to saying exactly what I mean, no more no less. I generally expect others to take me at face value, too - if they don't, I see that as unprofessional since they could always ask me clarifying questions rather than attempt to read my tea leaves.

I think the problem being discussed is fairly start-up specific. And moreover, I think it kind of involves an assumption that start-up organization structures are the direction in which organizations in general should be going. As far as I can tell, start-up organization structure is as informal as possible. The aim is to leverage trust and flexibility that can be found in a group of close friends.

I would point out that moving in this direction is moving in a sort-of opposite direction to the direction that society went when we human made the transition to a modern capitalist/bureaucratic society. The reason you have bureaucracy, human resource, job descriptions and all the rest is that this allows a person to be separated from a job. There's lots of inveigling against "being a cog in a machine" but it should be remembered that a cog has clear obligations and clear rewards. And the cog is essentially a compartment - a person's social life, relationship involvement, cultural values and whatnot are kept at arms length. And it is a bit clunky, bureaucracy implies people aren't using these factors as means to make quicker decisions.

So in a sense, "chucking all the bureaucracy" sort of guarantees that you will have a situation where a monoculture of something will dominate. Because someone similar to the existing group can most easily "fit right in". And the aim is quick, unmediated action rather than any formal processes. (Edit: and the easiest monoculture is young white men but that would just be an example, not a PC inveigling again this particular group).

In the bureaucratic paradigm, a chat with a boss shouldn't involve implication of friendship and from there relationship interest - and in a well-function bureaucracy, it doesn't. In a start-up, the implications of a chat are totally informal and thus the implication of friend would be there and so the implication of relationship interest can easily appear - the bad part of "no walls" is clearest.

I plan to write more about this. Part of the problem was that two days earlier, another man in the department was fired over something having to do with an inappropriate relationship to a woman. The entire department was walking on eggshells. I felt it was just extremely bad timing. Another part of the problem is that I had an entry level job and he was very high in the department. So we had very little opportunity to work together, thus it would read as "social relationship" -- again, two days after another man was fired for his behavior towards women.

There were other factors. I plan to go into more details in future articles. In this case, I just wanted to talk about the fact that the glass walls of the stairwell fostered a sense of conversational privacy with zero fear of sexual or romantic intimacy occurring. You need conversational privacy to establish trust and do business. But you need a lot more than conversational privacy to pursue romance or sex. The lack of visual privacy mattered to our comfort levels. This man became someone who trusted me and likely would have done a lot for my career had I stayed with the company. That opportunity to talk freely (in the stairwell) without fear that one of us might misinterpret or misbehave was a key moment in the establishment of that trust.