Man vs Machine - Non-Robots need not apply….

The beauty of being a virtual worker is the ability to work beyond domain, escape the monotomoy of the 9-5, and live in the holy grail of the 'Work hard, Play hard' bootcamp. Admittedly the virtual office, a working 'cloud' so to speak, is not for everyone - there is a fine line between self motivation and permanent pyjama day, and the pre-requisite flexibility often translates to conference calls anytime-anywhere or always 'online'.

Every now and again there is a need to step off the cloud and re-enter the Boardroom, often a chore but never fails to be anything less than an anthropological experience - a 'touch-base' to justify your absence, agreee bandwidth restrictions, reposition the Executive leaderboard and align the goals for the next season to avoid relegation.

This has been one of those weeks. A week where I have found myself spinning in the corporate centrifuge, a vortex that regains its acceleration as each new time zone comes online, yet superhumanly revealing an eternal release of inner strength that is capable of multi tasking on a whole new paradigm.

As proud as I am of my uber-productivity, surviving this heavy duty schedule requires the fine art of selective listening - knowing when to tune in and respond, when to make the token smile and nod your head and when you can safely let your mind wander.

The latter of this list usually kicks in just at the point of the ‘Man-a-thon’ - the 100m pinstriped-dash to own the phallic white board marker, where ego-tipped cufflinks rescind the quintessential Mont Blanc in the battle for boardroom prowess, own the floor & be the next visionary. Cue the Homer-esque Execubabble – meaningless anagramania made increasingly numbing by the misguided overuse of powerpoint animation (exclusively administered in Viagra-sized dosages).

Apart from Bob. There is always a Bob, the David Brent of the group who is resigned to the fact that ‘you just have to accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue’, more interested in the plate of shortcake and cookies that are getting rapidly soft. We all love Bob. Bob keeps it real, but regrettably Bob is most likely on the relegation list.

Residency in the virtual office is not by any means elitist, perhaps more a case of survival of the juggling fittest, but it certainly comes with a Starbucks for life loyalty card. It is rumoured that the Head Hunter search criteria scans for proven delivery of insomnia and an acutely customised work-life balance. They even say that the keys to the pent-cloud provides access to a caffeine perma-drip, double shot.
Non-robots need not apply.

‘Til next time, Pandora