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Ice Cream Anyone?

Oct 11, 2010 » by Jody

If you’re feeling overworked, burned out, and overall disengaged, we have a solution for you to make your booboo all better. The Ice Cream Man!

Remember when you were a kid and you could hear the Ice Cream truck coming? You’d run inside frantically looking for loose change – or if you were lucky, you’d run straight for the ‘Ice Cream Man Change Dish’.

Summer was so much fun – and a little bit of Ice Cream was oh so YUM.

Now back to those of you who are feeling overworked, burned out and disengaged. Looks like some companies think ice cream is all you need and then you’ll prance happily back to work. Dixon Schwabl, a Rochester, N.Y.-based advertising and PR agency, has a weekly ice cream delivery, where the neighborhood ice cream truck makes a stop at the office to offer free treats to all employees. And even better, employees can take advantage of the firm’s dedicated Scream Room, a space intended solely for venting.

Boy oh boy. I think I need that Scream Room right about now.

Companies all over the world are installing amenities and programs – technical fixes -  in an attempt to make people feel better about going to work. And just like the Ice Cream Man, you do feel better for a little bit. Like 5 minutes.

Feeling overworked and burned out? Well, perhaps an on-site dry cleaner would help.

Feeling depressed, because for the umpteenth time you had to ask permission to leave early or come in late like a teen asking permission to stay out 5 minutes past curfew? Perhaps an on-site fitness center would help.

Feeling frustrated because even though you have Fridays off every week, you still can’t manage work and life demands using your common sense? Well then, perhaps we can offer an on-site concierge service, napping rooms, medical clinics and mediation rooms.

Now where is that SCREAM ROOM when I need it?

All of these well-intended attempts to drive productivity, engagement and loyalty, while at the same time reduce burnout and overwork syndrome, are temporary feel-good solutions. They do not get at the fundamental problem of a human being’s basic need to control their own TIME.

Seriously, if I could go to my child’s soccer game without asking permission or having my manager make a ‘special concession’ for me, I wouldn’t need Ice Cream.

If I could come in – or not come in – to the physical office based on the work that needed to get done, not some silly outdated belief that everyone needs to be physically together to collaborate and move work along, I wouldn’t need an on-site dry cleaner.

If I could decide myself whether or not to set my alarm clock based on the work, not some lame rule that says work has to start at 8am in a building or a cube, I wouldn’t need an on-site coffee shop.

If I could do my work from wherever it made the most sense at the moment without having to ask permission or inform my whole team where I’m working from, then I wouldn’t need an on-site concierge service.

If everyone focused on RESULTS, instead of when I came in, when I left, or where I’m working from, I wouldn’t need the SCREAM ROOM.

Companies are spending way too much money and time creating adult playgrounds when what adults really need is the freedom to be ADULTS.

I’ll get my own ice cream, thank you.

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  • http://peakalignment.wordpress.com Dave Needham

    Imagine what these “perks” cost companies…when freedom and trust are free.

    • Cali & Jody

      Dave – we’ve seen the costs for the ice cream stops, fitness centers, banks, dry cleaning, coffee shops, and concierge services…and how companies cough up the money for them over and over. The best part, too, is how company after company will win awards for implementing these things – even though the human beings within the companies are suffering. This madness may have been able to go on for the last two decades…but we’re out to stop it. And we know you’re with us :)

  • Lily

    Love it, Jody! My husband’s workplace did something similar – cake-and-ice-cream parties for employees having birthdays, just like in gradeschool. Except the employees had to pay for it! The hat was passed around, and a list was kept of who donated or didn’t. My husband didn’t. Didn’t attend the “parties”, either.
    I agree with you that if the culture changed, there would be no need for a Scream Room :-)

    • Cali & Jody

      Lily – your husband is making the right choice. Making the employees *pay* for their own parties that they don’t even want to attend in the first place? Talk about torture!

  • Lynne

    This sure resonated with me today, Jody!

    • Cali & Jody

      Hmmmm, Lynne – we’re really hoping you didn’t see an ice cream truck show up today! Please tell us it’s not so…

      • Lynne

        No Ice Cream Truck… just a truckload of resentment that I had to inform anyone I needed a mental health day and that I felt guilty doing so!

      • Cali

        Ahhhh, Lynne, we know how you feel. Back in the days before we let our guts take over, we used to have those same days…and the same awful resentment. And talk about mental energy – wondering what to say, how to say it, what time to say it, through what communication channel, and then…feeling *truly* sick all day because of the guilt! So incredibly wrong for adults to be experiencing this all over the world. Can you taste the day when all of it ends??

  • C. A. Hurst

    Hi Jody,

    Wow! This gives a whole new twist to the old, “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!” I guess you can go into the dedicated Scream Room with your ice cream, scream until you’re hoarse, then take a couple of licks of that double-dip cone to sooth your throat so you can scream some more. Or, maybe everybody could sit down like adults and negotiate a way to get the work done without making each other crazy…

    • Cali

      Now C.A., that would be way too simple – sitting down like adults? But that would assume we *are* all adults – and with the way people are being treated, you’d never guess that was true. We just talked with someone yesterday who said “There are companies in our area that think they can ‘buy’ their antiquated ways of doing business.” Guess ice cream is one of those ways…but only if we fall for it. And those days are over.

  • KellyK

    Wow. I think I’m going to, like a adult, find a good stopping point in my work today and walk down to the nearby Rita’s (ice cream and Italian ice for those who don’t have them–I think it’s an East Coast thing.) Breaks are good, ice cream is good, but I’m pretty sure I can determine for myself when I need both.

    • Cali

      Kelly – hope your treat was yummy. Isn’t it nice to be an adult that can decide how and when you get your ice cream?

  • KellyK

    The thing that strikes me about this is that they’re all stop-gap solutions to too much work, no free time, and a sense of being trapped.

    There are environments in which they make sense. In a work site with very confidential information, or a manufacturing process, or other situations that *necessitate* physical presence, especially if that site is in an out-of-the-way area or a city with hellacious traffic, an on-site gym or coffee shop might make perfect sense. But for the average office building, a block away from a Starbucks, it’s a waste of money and space.

    If you want to enhance productivity and reduce stress, just think how many laptops or Blackberries that money could buy. And, like Dave said, the freedom to use those to their fullest doesn’t cost a cent.

    • Cali

      We can’t tell you how many times we’ve been told by senior leaders in companies that “we have such a great environment here. Have you seen the amenities we provide for our employees?” Really? You have a “great environment” because your employees can stare at the pool tables in the common area and get reprimanded for using them at 2pm? The dollars spent (wasted) on these amenities is ridiculous. You’re right, Kelly – everyone could have the technology they need to be most productive if we’d give up our false notions that amenities make everything better.

      On-site dry cleaning or freedom? Concierge services or freedom? On-site banking or freedom? Hmmmmm…

      • KellyK

        Having the amenities and not being able to use them (except “after hours” or during an arbitrary lunch break) makes it even worse…talk about a kick in the teeth.

        Also, a pool table isn’t exactly quiet, if it ever does get used. I have to wonder what that would do to the concentration of someone whose cube or office is near that common area.

  • CC

    What’s so frustrating is that I know I would be super productive in a ROWE environment. I would like to change the organization I work for, but the CEO is a baby boomer who is so stuck in the old, I know he would never change. At the suggestion of even having flexibility, he has said “I need the person in this job at this desk from 9 to 5.” I wish there were ROWE companies where I lived so I can start living my life, and not being a slave to a cubicle.

    • Cali

      CC – we’re about to blow the doors wide open so companies that are moving in the direction of ROWE can be easily seen and found by you and other ROWE fans. You and so many others are ready to move toward freedom…and we want to make that easy to do. Stay tuned…

      • CC

        Thanks Cali! It really helps to have a place online to share thoughts and frustrations with like minded people. I appreciate what you all have done thus far for people like me!

      • Cali

        CC – this is exactly what we hope people are thinking! There’s so much that’s going through the minds of employees all over the world about the way work is happening everyday – in hospitals, in schools, in government, in zoos (yes, even in zoos!), in law firms, in retail stores…the list goes on. And this blog, we hope, serves as an outlet and a place where people of like minds, as you say, can come together. And, hopefully, gather courage to start making change :)

  • http://www.youtube.com/brunsomarrr Marshall Brunson

    My heart let’s out a YES the size of a city bus.

    Reading this website is so inspiring and affirming. I remember in second grade (yes, second grade!) being infuriated when teachers would say to me, “Do that on your own time.” Maybe I was counting rocks on the ground when I should have been walking in line, or maybe I was drawing when I should have been reading. Whatever it was, I remember thinking, “What do you mean -’my own time?’ Isn’t this my time now? Who’s time is it?” I didn’t know what magical time of the day they were talking about, because someone seemed to be telling me what to do almost ALL the time.

    In middle school it was the same thing, when I had to ask permission to go to the bathroom (and was sometimes denied!) My peers thought I made way too big a deal out of it, but to me it was a basic affront to my freedom.

    Now I’m 30, and reading about the ROWE movement feels like coming home. Thank you. And thank you in advance for the impending revolution. I will see you there!

    Marshall Brunson

    • Cali

      @Marshall – welcome home :) We’re glad you’re here! Having control over your time is a *right*, not a privilege. What you do with that time is up to you – and in the job setting, if you don’t get your work done, then you lose your job. You never lose control of your time. Can’t wait to continue hearing from you…