Have We All Become Boring at Work?

Reminders from a Turkish bus, a DC bookstore and an old friend to bring back fun and delight

Something I’m Learning

I changed careers during the Covid years. More than that, I moved from one field’s culture to another and then another at a time when all work cultures were changing. A big difference I’ve felt but only recently been able to articulate is that my new professional spaces don’t prioritize service design and customer delight as much as the spaces and cultures of my previous career did. So much of work seems more boring than it used to be.

Is this an outcome of post-Covid recalibration of attitudes towards work, the malaise of the Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting years, and an unintended consequence of working from home? There’s now a greater focus on just getting the job done as painlessly as possible, on working to spec and being done with it. At least in the social impact programming spaces I’ve inhabited post-Covid, there’s less focus on craft, user delight, and excellence for its own sake. I was struck by this during the 2024 New York Climate Week, where the events seemed particularly old-fashioned.

Then I had three moments in three countries over the last month that reminded me how much I’ve missed being delighted by product or service design in the last few years.

The first was during a long layover in Istanbul, where I left the airport to explore the city. In the taxi back to the airport at night, I saw this:

I could have followed that bus for hours, hypnotized. The cab driver thought it unusual because he began filming it as we drove past (this is his video, not mine). Which means this is not typical in Istanbul. Indeed, the back of a bus anywhere in the world is usually either dead space or ad space. And this little light display certainly doesn’t benefit the occupants of the bus. No, this is solely for the entertainment of people following the bus, for non-customers. Only someone who cares about delight and craft would do this.

The second was in a Washington DC bookstore. Browsing their secondhand book collection, I noticed the categories were not the usual fare like “Children’s Books,” “Science Fiction,” “Classics,” etc. They were quirky, evocative, playful. Then I came across the category in the picture above: “White Ladies at the Beach”. It made me laugh out loud. In 999 out of 1000 bookstores, this section would be called some version of “Romance,” “Summer Reads,” or “Female Fiction.” But someone decided to have fun.

The third moment was last week in London, catching up with friends from a long-ago fellowship program whom I hadn’t seen since the pandemic. We were reminiscing about old times when one of them, a designer, recalled that I had once told her that, prior to meeting her, I had never considered beauty as a value in itself. Her work taught me that beauty is not only the shallow concept we associate with physical looks but can also be a function of depth and excellence, and is worthwhile because it can lead to delight. I remember saying this - over a decade ago - because the thought had struck me like an epiphany. It’s remained something I value immensely. What she remembers, but I don’t, is that the people around us laughed when I said it, like it was a weird thing to say. But she felt seen and understood.

It’s curious I’ve had three reminders in a month that there’s always space for fun, delight, and craft in our work. Maybe it’s just a useful harkening back to something I’ve missed in recent years. Or perhaps it’s portending the future. Either way, it’s worth noticing it out loud.

Something to Consider

One profession that always includes fun, delight and craft is stand-up comedy. Here’s George Carlin who, decades ago, seemed to predict the last five years. Words that Hide the Truth (hat tip to Ruth Levine, who shared this first)

Something to Quote

Navigate your life on the precipice of a smile…look for reasons to be delighted rather than disappointed.

- Jennifer Aaker, World Reimagined podcast