Shape Shifters

Like many companies of size, the Small Office has a health and safety policy. Related to the policy is a very enlightened philosophy of wellness: the belief is that good health and attention to safety lead to greater mindfulness and improved attendance. You don’t show up, mentally or physically, if you are sick or hurt. It’s that simple and it’s something the company is willing to invest in. So, as part of the wellness program, the Small Office is subsidizing gym memberships.

It is practically unfathomable that one or both of General Ledger, our CFO with the whirlybird ears, or Black Widow, our cranky and autocratic head of humane resources, agreed to the plan. But consent and collaborate they did, so compelling an idea it had become.

Compelling, perhaps, but it has also had an unintended consequence: a sizeable body of employees is taking off at noon every day and going to the local gym for whatever amount of exercise a person can fit in over lunch.

Color me skeptical.

It is a fad, the thrill of which will dissipate in six months’ time.

To me, you cannot get to the gym, bowflex on your in-motion nordic track elliptical hybrid cross-training cardio air walker machine, shower, eat lunch (say, a light mélange of kale and avocado), properly digest your food, and get back to the office refreshed and ready for work. All within a one-hour span.

Usually the people who would take advantage of this kind of offer don’t need the exercise nearly as much as those who wouldn’t.

Most of all, I think it is a fad, the thrill of which will dissipate in six months time. At the outside.

Besides, looking fit is the job of the tailor. You know… God makes and apparel shapes.

Yesterday, one of our marketing people left his laptop in the trunk while he was working his deltoids with competition grade cast iron kettlebells. No surprise here, someone broke into his trunk and stole his laptop. It was the second such incident this month.

I clearly differ from my colleagues on this. I believe there is a time and a place for everything. And I am sure that lunch and exercise are what physicist John Wheeler had in mind when he said: time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once.