There’s a scene in the movie ‘The Apartment’ (above – courtesy MGM Pictures) starring Jack Lemon from 1960 that has always stuck with me – and shows how far we’ve come in our office environments – making the cubicles of today seem like ‘revolutionary progress,’ as Roger Ebert put it in his review of the film from 2001.
This image showing rows upon rows of identical desks with identical typewriters right on top of each other has become an iconic symbol of office workers of the time. Jack Lemmon’s character toils away in the film amidst a sea of other workers – trying to make headway in the business world.
This was the first noteworthy cinematic attempt to go ‘behind the scenes’ in greater depth – revealing more insight into office politics and the ‘affairs’ of men and women – both in and out of the office. Today’s managers and human resources professionals would have a field day with the office improprieties depicted in the film – showing yet another way that we’ve progressed as a society.
That’s not to say that we’ve reached the goals of desired maximum office space and minimum office politics for everyone – just that the situation is, in most cases, much better today than a couple of generations ago. At that time, the Human Resources Group was called the Personnel Department, a more traditional record-keeping function – whereas HR has evolved to become more people-oriented and function within an organization’s strategic growth goals. (As outlined in ‘Are You an HR Manager or a Personnel Manager?’)
“I love my work; it’s the politics that wear me down,” as contributor Liz Ryan writes on Forbes.com in her piece titled, ‘How to Win at Office Politics,’ “When people complain about their jobs, they never say “The work is too hard.” They talk about the human side of work. The human side is almost always the hardest part of any job.” Controlling emotions in the workplace, and not getting caught up in the melodrama around us, is the key to survive, and even thrive, in the office.
Every workplace has politics of some form or fashion, and human resources professionals could be instrumental in the their ability to help others understand how the organization works, and advise others on how to best avoid the dark side of office politics. (‘Why HR professionals need to know about office politics’)