Office worker. Ivan Denisovich as an ideal office worker Office workers as they are called
In order to work in any field, you need to go through a certain training path. Despite the existence of the concept of “office plankton,” there are still people who strive to become office workers. This is a job like any other, with its pros and cons. It all depends on who exactly works in the office; depending on this, the requirements for your knowledge will also differ. If you work in an office and you need to order an office move to St. Petersburg, you can order an office move to St. Petersburg from the KURIER company.
Office workers can be the most different specialties depending on the specifics of the office itself. The main requirement for an office worker is the ability to operate a computer and office equipment. In addition, you must be able to work with documents, be patient and persevering. In order to hold some office positions, it is not necessary to receive higher education, it is enough to get the average or professional education, or simply attend specialized courses.
Each job requires certain skills and individual characteristics. In their absence, you have to develop them in order to secure a future in work. Thus, on the way to becoming an office worker, it is necessary to cultivate such qualities as patience, perseverance, attentiveness, accuracy, punctuality, etc. Professional skills will come with time, and you can achieve success at work if you work and improve yourself, increasing your efficiency.
Many employers provide training for office employees at their own expense. This allows them to improve their work efficiency. In turn, it is beneficial for office employees to improve their qualifications and professionalism, because this allows them to occupy higher positions and receive an appropriate salary. Office workers include: secretaries, translators, economists, accountants, lawyers, financiers, personnel officers, etc. All of them must have knowledge in their profile, although they all belong to a large category office workers.
In addition to advanced training courses, office workers must also complete a preparatory course on labor protection. Training office workers who already work in the office is carried out in two ways, with and without distraction. production process. In order not to distract office workers from work for a long time, a trainer is invited to conduct training sessions right in the office. The trainings conducted are aimed at increasing the professionalism of personnel. Before becoming an office worker, familiarize yourself with all the pros and cons of this job so as not to doubt the correctness of your choice.
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The phrase “office plankton” has firmly entered the lexicon of the Internet community and even left its borders, moving beyond the boundaries of the digital space. But what is this notorious plankton? Is there really new microscopic life in the offices? No, it’s just that some office workers are called this phrase, but it happens that everyone who works in offices is called office plankton.
Office work
To understand how office plankton appeared, you need to take a closer look at its habitat. The office is the place where the most important matters of our time are decided. It is in its shiny depths that multimillion-dollar transactions take place and contracts are concluded that bring changes to all of humanity. But what is it like to be one of the bolts in this harsh money making machine? The very existence of office plankton is a perfect answer to this question.
Countless monotonous cells for workers, excluding the opportunity to be alone with themselves, a strict work schedule that requires them to be at the workplace from morning to evening and nothing else. Let's add to this the same type paperwork, the expediency of which is often unclear even to the highest ranks. It turns out that the office is not such a wonderful place as those who first cross its threshold dream.
Office employee
Who is this mysterious employee of a faceless bureaucratic machine? Usually this is a person of average income with a higher education, initially full of ambitions and fantasies about a bright future. Some employees find it difficult to even explain their occupation; they simply “work in the office.” The main thing that adherents of office work need is stability. It is she who turns ardent young enthusiasts into office plankton.
These people need stability for a reason, because they usually have a lot of loans, perhaps even a mortgage or children. Therefore, the abbreviation for these ardent supporters of stability is death. After all, you will have to look for a new office, meet a new team, and get used to new responsibilities.
Schedule
In addition to boring and monotonous work, the office is ready to provide its unhurried inhabitants with a rigid, monotonous schedule. The unfortunate clerks have to spend eight hours a day, five days a week in the office. It is not surprising that over time a person begins to while away the working day, doing all sorts of nonsense.
Of course, it is not only the schedule that is to blame for this state of affairs. A lazy office worker is also not an angel, but a rigid, not always logical schedule is the first thing that undermines the morale of a newly arrived clerk. After all, day after day, year after year, he will have to sit most of his day in a dull office cell.
Office work
In addition to a tiring schedule, there are many other factors that contribute to human degradation, a complete loss of initiative and desire to work. The modern bureaucratic machine has grown to such a scale that its maintenance requires an inappropriately large number of people and efforts. Billions of unnecessary pieces of paper, huge costs of electricity and other resources.
All this goes into maintaining a cumbersome system, the expediency of which is often unclear to the people involved in it.
And if a person does not see the practical benefit of his work or does not even imagine why he performs certain actions, then what kind of initiative can we talk about? The unfortunate victim of a bloated bureaucratic system begins to lose old goals and aspirations, becoming a robot, mechanically doing his job while waiting for lunch or the end of the workday.
Office plankton - ballast for employers
It would be foolish to assume that only representatives of the office plankton suffer from the illogicality and ossification of the system. The employer is also not happy about the presence of useless elements in his company. After all, they all need to be given wages, provide a social package. Practice shows that even severe cuts in offices do not lead to a loss of productivity. Moreover, this practice is necessary for many enterprises that have an unreasonably inflated staff.
Of course, if you ask the office plankton, he will describe his work as extremely important and necessary, like any other bureaucrat. The main thing is to look smart and give as much significance to your figure as possible. But over time, more and more competent managers appear who can easily identify and remove unnecessary people from their company.
Are there any employees in offices who are not plankton?
After reading everything written above, you can come to the conclusion that only office plankton live in offices. This is absolutely not true, because in this case the enterprises would have stopped long ago, but since they are still working, it means that there are still people striving to do their job well. What is their secret? Why do some people break under the weight of a monotonous routine, while others develop, turning into top-class specialists? There is no clear answer to this question, but much in this matter depends on the position held by the person.
Some types of office activities are absolutely not conducive to any development. No matter how fresh and ardent a person is, such a position will “devour” all his strength, turning him into a lifeless apparatus for performing the same type of manipulations. Now, if a person comes to work in a field that interests him, having the education and skills necessary to work in it, then the result will be completely different. Such an office worker will constantly grow and progress, gain experience and hone his skills.
Are unscrupulous workers harmful to society?
The one who suffers the most from the existence of office plankton is the plankton itself. Constant overwork and exhaustion of the nervous system, health problems caused by a sedentary lifestyle, broken dreams of a brilliant career - these are just some of the problems that office workers pay for being idle.
What to do to avoid becoming office plankton?
Unfortunately, in our time, a very impressive part of the population of our country is occupied with office work. Many professions, one way or another, bring their naive adherents to the office. What to do? Is the gray life of office plankton really awaiting most of us? Of course not! The main problem of uninitiated office workers is the fear of change. It is the desire for stability and prosperity that destroys the joy of life given to everyone from birth.
You shouldn’t worry about your workplace or be afraid to change anything in your life. After all, in this way, some people do what they don’t like for decades, gradually losing their human appearance, becoming a faceless cog in the system. Follow your heart, do what you love - and the fate of office plankton will never befall you!
If I had decided to describe the life of a hero of my time, a simple office worker, I would have acted like Solzhenitsyn. The story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” is one of the best works in the Russian language. The author describes in great detail, thoroughly and slowly, one day, from getting up at 5 a.m. to lights out at 10 p.m., of a Gulag prisoner. Every day is similar to the previous one. And the next day will most likely be exactly the same. Therefore, it makes no sense to describe his entire life. It is enough to repeat the description of the previous day.
For example, the life of a peasant is subject to an annual cycle: work in the spring, work in the fall, work in the winter and work in the summer are different. We sow there, we reap here. It all depends on the weather, climate change, and many other things. One day is not like another, and perhaps in annual cycles there is repetition. To describe the life of a peasant, you need to describe a whole year of his life, otherwise you won’t be able to describe anything. The cycle of a modern city dweller, like the cycle of a Gulag prisoner, does not depend on the weather and time of year. To describe the life of a modern office worker, it is enough to describe one day. Which, like a carbon copy, is similar to all previous and all subsequent days.
The text represents my personal point of view. I speak solely on my own behalf and not on behalf of my employer, Microsft.
Morning
How does a prisoner's day begin? From a thermometer.
"They passed by<…>of another pillar, where, in a quiet place so as not to show too low, all covered in frost, hung a thermometer. Shukhov glanced hopefully at his milky-white pipe: if he had shown forty-one, they shouldn’t have sent him to work. But it just didn’t feel like forty today.”
In the same way, a modern office worker looks at the indicator on Yandex early in the morning, wondering how long it will take today to push through endless traffic jams in his new credit car. True, even if the indicator shows ten points, and the news talks about unexpected snowfall in December, it is unlikely that anyone will allow not to come to work.
Therefore, the morning of most office workers, like Gulag prisoners, begins early: to catch the traffic jams. Once upon a time, one of my acquaintances, who moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow, explained “Moscow workaholism”—the habit of coming to work early and leaving later—by traffic jams. Fortunately, residents of small towns, who complain about traffic jams no less than Muscovites, do not know the full extent of this problem. I remember how once a guide in Vladimir, when asked by a big Microsoft executive, to whom we were showing Russian antiquity, why she, so talented, works in the provinces and does not move to Moscow, answered:
Here I work to live. And in Moscow I will be forced to live in order to work.
Likewise, office clerks subordinate their lives to the rhythm of the city and the office. Another friend of mine, when the office switched to open space mode, without dedicated workstations, specially came to work at seven in the morning to take the most comfortable table by the window, went to the fitness center, and then started working with everyone else. I also met colleagues in the office parking lot who arrived at work at 6 a.m. to avoid traffic jams and take advantage of a spot in a warm garage, and then “caught” a couple of hours of sleep right in the car. Just like in the Gulag.
“Shukhov never missed getting up, he always got up on it - before the divorce he had an hour and a half of his time, not official, and whoever knows camp life can always earn extra money: sew someone a mitten cover from an old lining; give the rich brigade worker dry felt boots directly on his bed, so that he doesn’t have to trample barefoot around the pile, and doesn’t have to choose; or run through the quarters, where someone needs to be served, sweep or offer something; or go to the dining room to collect bowls from the tables and take them in piles into the dishwasher - they will also feed you, but there are a lot of hunters there, there is no end, and most importantly, if there is anything left in the bowl, you can’t resist, you will start licking the bowls.”
Dinner
Of course, no one has to lick bowls now, but food in the life of an office worker is almost the only joy of the working day. It’s the same in the Gulag.
“In front of the dining room today - such a wonderful case - the crowd did not thicken, there was no queue. Come in."
A favorite topic for discussion among office workers is which canteen serves the best food. In the one that is closer, or in the one that is further away. The first one is nearby, but you have to go to the second one in bad weather. But it tastes better there. And in this one we even saw a caterpillar in the salad! Moreover, according to the stories of colleagues from the distant building, they think exactly the opposite: their own canteen is worse, and the far one, ours, is better. Despite the caterpillars.
“The gruel did not change from day to day, it depended on what vegetable was prepared for the winter. In the summer year, we prepared one salted carrot - and so the gruel on clean carrots passed from September to June. And now – black cabbage. The most satisfying time for a camp prisoner is June: every vegetable runs out and is replaced with cereal. The worst time is July: they whip nettles into a cauldron.”
Job
An ordinary office worker does not like to work. His job is to count the days from Monday to Friday so that he can indulge in idleness on the weekend. During the working day, it is best to devote maximum time to smoking breaks, coffee with colleagues and lunch. These are the brightest moments of the day. At this time, you can dream of a vacation, which is almost like freedom for a prisoner. But you have to work. The question is - how?
“Work is like a stick, there are two ends to it: if you do it for people, give it quality, if you do it for the boss, give it show. Otherwise, everyone would have died long ago, it’s a well-known fact.”
That’s why everyone chooses: to support the cause or to do metrics. And here, too, there is a direct analogy with Solzhenitsyn’s story.
“It depends more on the percentage than on the work itself. The foreman who is smart doesn’t focus on work as much as on interest.”
However, a good boss can get you excited about work, and then the office worker will forget about smoke breaks and tea and coffee. And he will start working without looking at the clock.
“Such is human nature that sometimes even bitter damned work is done by him with some kind of incomprehensible dashing passion. After working for two years with my own hands, I experienced this myself.”
Let's talk about the bosses. Here too we will find many similarities.
Management
The boss is the third most main question office worker (after meals and vacation).
“The foreman in a camp is everything: a good foreman will give you a second life, a bad foreman will force you into a wooden pea coat.”
A good boss has everyone working hard, everyone is passionate about work and achieving great goals. But where do you get so many of them - good bosses?
“Everywhere his foreman stands stagnant, the foreman’s chest is steel. But he will move an eyebrow or point with a finger - run, do it. Deceive whoever you want in the camp, just don’t deceive Andrei Prokofich. And you will live."
That’s why they say all the time that “people come to the company, but they leave from the boss.”
Colleagues
A prisoner spends most of his time with other prisoners, and an office worker spends most of his time with colleagues. They eat together, go on smoke breaks together, work together. The prisoners, however, also sleep together. However, some office workers do too. A sense of community is very important, and competent management uses this very well by introducing collective responsibility, when a bonus, for example, depends not on individual results, but on the overall achievements of the team.
“That’s what the brigade was invented for. Yes, not the same brigade as in the wild, where Ivan Ivanovich receives a separate salary and Pyotr Petrovich receives a separate salary. In a camp, a brigade is a device so that it is not the prisoners’ superiors who push each other, but the prisoners. Here it is: either everyone gets extra, or everyone dies. You don’t work, you bastard, and because of you I’m going to sit hungry? No, work hard, you bastard! And if a moment like this comes up, you won’t be able to sit still. You are not free, but jump and jump, turn around. If we don’t warm ourselves up in two hours, we’ll all go to hell here.”
That’s why corporations talk so much about team spirit and common big goals. True, this does not always help, and very often squabbles and intrigues arise.
“Who is the prisoner’s main enemy? Another prisoner. If the prisoners didn’t get into trouble with each other, the authorities wouldn’t have any power over them.”
But for this it is necessary for people to put a common cause and common interests above their private ones, and this is hampered by the difference in cultures and the desire to get a better place at the expense of another.
“Caesar is rich, he sends parcels twice a month to everyone who needs them, and he works as an idiot in an office, as an assistant to a standard-setter.”
Evening
Finally the working day is over. If you worked and didn’t drink tea during smoke breaks, the working day will pass unnoticed.
“Wonderful: now it’s time for work! How many times has Shukhov noticed: the days are rolling by in the camp - you won’t look back.”
What really makes the life of a modern office worker radically different from the life of a Gulag prisoner is the widespread and even unhealthy passion for sports, all these Pilates, CrossFit, cycling, marathons and other mysterious things incomprehensible to a normal person.
“There are slackers - they run races at the goodwill stadium. This is how I would drive them, the devils, after a whole day of work, with my back not yet straightened, in wet mittens, in worn felt boots - and in the cold.”
So, night is just around the corner. You need to watch a couple more episodes of your favorite series, look at Facebook for an hour or two - and you can sleep.
“Shukhov fell asleep completely satisfied. Today he had a lot of successes: he wasn’t put in a punishment cell, the brigade wasn’t sent out to Sotsgorodok, he made porridge at lunch, the foreman closed the interest well, Shukhov laid the wall cheerfully, he didn’t get caught with a hacksaw on a search, he worked at Caesar’s in the evening and bought tobacco . And he didn’t get sick, he got over it. The day passed, unclouded, almost happy.”
Total
We looked at one day of a Gulag prisoner and one day of an office worker. One seems to be in prison, the other seems to be free. But are their lives really that different? And here and there there is an endless series of days, where one day is no different from the other. Both here and there thoughts about food, bosses, colleagues and freedom (or vacation). Only in one case does a person know that he is in prison, in the other does he console himself with the illusion that he is free.
Ivan Denisovich Shukhov is an ideal office worker. Calm, balanced, loyal to his superiors, hardworking and competent, able and loving to work. And yet - completely resigned to his lot.
“Shukhov silently looked at the ceiling. He himself didn’t know whether he wanted it or not. At first I really wanted to and every evening I counted how many days had passed from the due date and how many were left. And then I got tired of it. And then it became clear that such people were not allowed home, they were being driven into exile. And where he will have a better life - whether here or there - is unknown.”
Every company, organization and every office has its own characters with special characteristics. Regardless of their position, a certain image is assigned to them, and, of course, they receive various nicknames.
In this article, we will find out how employees in English-speaking offices are characterized. Most expressions are informal and often used in colloquial speech. Let's take a look at them and you'll probably recognize some of your colleagues, and maybe even yourself!
Abreadwinner- a worker who feeds his entire family with his labor.
Acareerwoman - businesswoman, who, to the detriment of her personal life, actively participates in professional activities and strives for career growth.
A cowboy- an unscrupulous worker, a scoundrel.
Adesk jockey- office scribbler, clerk, “desk jockey” (by analogy with a disc jockey)
Afloater- a person who frequently changes jobs, a temporary employee.
A hack- a corrupt person who easily abandons his own beliefs for the sake of material gain and works only for money.
A number cruncher- an employee involved in complex calculations (accountant, statistician): “number grinder.”
Apaper-shuffler- an employee who creates the appearance of work without doing anything, just sorting out papers on the table.
A pencil pusher / pen-pusher- an office worker performing routine work, a clerical rat (with a negative connotation), a paper worker.
Aself-starter- an initiative, independent, enterprising worker who is able to independently determine a task for himself or independently find opportunities for new projects.
Aslavedriver- a tyrant boss who forces his subordinates to work too hard during work hours and not work time.
A suit- an employee who holds a high position, so he wears a suit to work (senior manager, head of department).
A team player- team player. This is the name given to a person who works better in a team than independently, and easily finds a common language with colleagues.
A wage slave- wage slave: a person who is completely dependent on receiving income from his workplace; As a rule, this is hard and low-prestige work.
The attention- seeker- these people love to be in sight, in the spotlight. At the same time, they invent various stories and gossip and retell them a hundred times.
The backstabber- this name comes from the idiom: Stab somebody in the back (to slander, slander behind one’s back). Such a person may seem friendly and friendly, but in reality he can “sit on” or report to his superiors about your violations.
The boss's pet- the boss's favorite.
The clock watcher- someone who waits for the end of the working day rather than works. An employee who constantly looks at his watch during working hours and does not stay at work longer than the allotted time.
The dogsbody / the gofer- "errand boy", a person who does dirty and hard work in the office.
Thejack-of-all-trades -"Jack of all trades": a worker who understands many industries and knows how to perform various works or someone who takes on many tasks but doesn’t really know how to do anything.
The jobsworth- this disapproving word is used to describe bureaucrats and those people who strictly follow company rules, the law, and use them as excuses for their poor work or inaction. Their favorite phrases are: “This is not in my authority” or “This is not in the company rules.”
The little general- a person who occupies a low position, but is endowed with some powers. As a result, the “little generals” give orders to other employees and try to control the office. Typical example- security guards or reception workers.
The new boy- a newcomer to whom all the most unpleasant work is dumped.
The office bore- a colleague who likes to joke and tell jokes, but no one laughs at his jokes.
The office bully- a person who likes to humiliate employees.
The office climber- an employee who is constantly trying to move up career ladder, get a higher position.
The office gossip- an office gossip who knows all the latest office news and doesn’t mind discussing it with someone.
The office joker / office prankster- “prankster”: a person who jokes with colleagues, pranks them and makes them laugh.
The office know- it- all- this is someone who knows the answers to all questions, loves to teach others and make comments to them, a “know-it-all.”
The office letch- a libertine, a "preoccupied person", usually a middle-aged man who makes indecent jokes and tries to attract the attention of the opposite sex.
The office saboteur- a person who deliberately creates problems for his colleagues.
The office stirrer- a troublemaker who prevents others from working with his jokes, stories, shouts, and antics.
Therainmaker - Very successful worker who earns a lot of money.
The slack/ sloppy worker- this is the name of people who quickly get bored with their work and rush to finish the task as quickly as possible and not always efficiently. Such workers have poor concentration.
The techie bighead is a technology expert who solves all computer related problems and loves to talk about them. Often such individuals ridicule their colleagues for their ignorance and use many terms in their speech that are incomprehensible to others. Such a person is also called the techno-freak - obsessed with technology.
The whizz- an expert, a person who is well versed in something.
The yes- men- a disapproving expression that denotes a sycophantic person who always agrees with his superiors in order to present himself in a good light and earn the approval of his superiors.
INackroomboys- employees engaged in secret and research work.
Well, did you recognize one of your employees, subordinates or acquaintances in these descriptions? If you associate an expression or word with a specific person or situation, then it will be remembered much better.
Good luck in learning English!
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