Postmodern Movement at Work

I maintain that modern “work” is grotesque and unnatural, and it would be better for everybody if that changed. We don’t typically get enough movement or enough different kinds of movement for our bodies (and minds!) to stay healthy. But how to incorporate a greater quantity and quality of movement without adding a whole extra category of activity to our days?

Well, what if we largely eliminated the corporate cleaning services that we contract with and cleaned the damn building and offices ourselves?

This, of course, will never work.

Yup, objections abound: “I went to college so that I didn’t have to do grunt work!” “I have to clean up after my family at home! Why should I have to do it at work, too!?” “I’m a really important person at my company! I’m the Senior VP of Global Synergy Directives and Coordination, goddammit!”

This can’t possibly work.

And the optics are poor: “The company is just trying to save money by forcing us to do the cleaning, too!” And there are profoundly serious gender issues wrapped up in who cleans what for who. And underneath that are profoundly serious socioeconomic and cultural issues wrapped up in who cleans what for who. And few people genuinely like to clean up filthy messes or take out the trash or wash windows. So yeah, let’s piss off everyone in the company by making them feel like they’re being disrespected, mistreated, abused and taken advantage of.

This might not work.

But the human movements of bending, kneeling, reaching, lifting, carrying, sweeping, mopping, wiping and scrubbing are very different from sitting motionless and using a mouse or trackpad, or standing in the same place in front of a machine. And movement has its own genius—literally—because thought is embodied and enacted: we think better when we move. (We are actually in the process of thinking even when we think we’re only just moving.)

And paying attention to the building and the space that we work in can help us to make it better. We might feel better about personally taking care of our little cube or shared spaces. We might realize that the break room could use a new coat of paint or be more willing to say something about the broken chair. We might feel a little more invested, feel a little more ownership of the building we work in if we help to take care of it. Besides, 10-15 minutes a day from everybody would more than offset the cost of having a cleaning service (and all the attendant complaints and misunderstandings that seem to come along with them) and wouldn’t impact productivity at all. It would probably improve it.

This might work...?