on math and happiness

over lunch today, outside enjoying the warmish sun and the coolish fall air a friend and i discussed women. i said that math and women are the only two things that you can’t bullshit your way through. of course with math theirs imaginary numbers and stuff, but forget about that. i already have.

a few minutes later, back inside, my break now over, I read through some emails that had been sent over lunch. On a day where two more soldiers died in a war we shouldn’t be fighting, or at least should be winning if we’re going to bother being over there, there was some good news! :

66% of employees at my work are happy! a three percent increase in happiness levels since last year, double exclamation !!

i thought of math, of the conversation earlier and how perhaps math isn’t so concrete. Maybe nothing was.

my first thought was that happiness seems like a strange thing to be calculating through an equation in the first place and if happiness was just a matter of math then perhaps somebody could give me the formula. (is it alright to put ‘lol’ into a blog post, if so, I just did.) fuck carlin, you’re funny.

Anywho.

it wasn’t so much the news that surprised me. Maybe two thirds of us are happy, but why is this necessary. the reason I come up with is that productivity is linked to happiness and happier workers make for better workers. with my pessimism at work i thought for a few moments. maybe they really care if i come in with a smile on my face. probably not.

i find that sending out a questionaire with the question, are you happy cryptically hidden beneath true and false questions mildly insulting. walk around, absorb the smiles, the emotion thats in the air. you can do it if you try hard enough.

a passing "how are you doing" doesn't really mean you care. it just means you've said hello already earlier in the day and have no other segway into a polite good bye. the answer is always the disenchanted, "good," that people sing throughout the day, all the while hoping it might actually be true.

the later part of the email explains coaching strategies for those who answer, "i'm doing shitily. no really, im fucking a mess."

it's these sanitized approaches to real emotion that office lifes about. sexual harassment means no hugs when somebody might need one, that you can't place your hand on somebodys shoulder or pat them on the back. you're left asking,how are you doing, and as you walk you hear the defeated answer somewhere in the background as the door behind you closes.

I look around. inoffensive art hangs from the walls, people speak with safety, never saying to much or anything. The clothes they wear are distinct but the same, mine included. each day, in the elevator up to the sixth floor a metamorphosis takes place, you change from a person into an employee, void of feeling or opinion.

in a world where a third of the people in a workplace can be concidered good, a success, i think we need a solution thats route doesn't come from an equation or survey.

maybe the answer is more hugs?