Hello readers!
I wanted to write today to tell you all about one of the ways I keep myself interested in my work during more turbulent times in my relationship with labor. I don’t want to hate my life or hate my job, so sometimes I cut a few corners with whimsical escapism to distract me from the fact I’m working a 9-5 job in a cubicle with no window.
What does it mean to embrace whimsy?
Embracing whimsy seems to be an up-and-coming idea in online communities. The ways I’ve seen whimsy expressed are often tied to or related to medieval or fantasy contexts similar to Dungeons and Dragons in content. Whether you’re an active member of a group like Sir Kadean’s Adventure Guild or just passively receiving riddles, prophecies, and quests on your social media pages, you’ve probably already gotten a sneak peek into the movement. But I think embracing whimsy will grow far past this fantasy context.
It feels like everyone in the world is on a collective mission to create interesting, energetic, and FUN experiences for children. We create physical spaces and worlds for them like parks and Disney World, we go out of our way to financially support their experiences by donating to schools and libraries, we wink at toddlers who make a little too much eye contact. But when we leave school, we are no longer the target audience for these curated experiences. Fun just dies and we are forced to move on to being the shepherd of fun for the generations below us.
Embracing whimsy as an adult pushes back on that transition and makes fun for everyone. It brings you back to who you were and heals the creativity and ambition that you had before you became a serious adult.
That is why I use a variety of whimsical tactics in my life. Here are my top work whimsy tips that might just make your days go by a little quicker.
Bringing whimsy to work
Forging Friendships in Fire
Is your job totally toxic, chaotic, and stressful? Does your manager no know how to manage? I’d like to introduce you to a concept called trauma bonding. If you can identify a blaring problem in a shared experience, you have the foundation to start a relationship. Be careful with this, though. You can’t build and maintain a relationship by complaining, gossiping, or commiserating. That stuff only helps you get a foot in the door.
I’ve found that a good strategy for getting people at work to open up to friendship goes like this:
Get familiar with what they do. It is the “what’s your major” of the 9-5 world. Identifying people and understanding their role will assist you with your personal organizational literacy, note any opportunities for potential collaboration in your role, and just give a general preliminary vibe check on your colleague.
Slowly break into personal questions. The “don’t talk about your life to coworkers” crowd is about to get really mad, but I think that authentically engaging with your coworkers socially is going to start trending soon. If a colleague is resisting bids for human connection, start slow. Like a shelter cat learning to love again, your hardened corporate drone colleagues will eventually turn around. It is impossible to pass up a real opportunity to be seen.
Treat coworker relationships as business. Your colleagues aren’t just random people, you all work for the same company, the same organization. Characterizing your coworker friendships as anything less than mission critical is a mistake. Building in time in your work plan to navigate a social calendar, making rounds over the weeks to make sure you invest time in your work besties is extremely beneficial. For you, you have opportunities for mentorship from senior colleagues or coaching for your more junior counterparts, org literacy learning what is going on in different work groups, smoother collaboration on projects, and a chance to step away from the screens and feel human for a few minutes.
Having THE work bestie. There are many colleagues to have positive relationships with, but only one can be the ultimate grand supreme work bestie. You can choose this person based on demographics, working hours, job capacity, etc. The only requirement for your work bestie is to be a safe space to share the harder things. You’ll celebrate with this person when you win, and you’ll ask this person for a reference to a new job when you’re too scared to tip your boss off that you are thinking about leaving.
Having a Nemesis
The yin to your work bestie’s yang is your work nemesis. It is important for me to note that my work nemesis is not my true enemy, and I take no malicious action against my work nemesis. However, having a work nemesis has a big impact on my performance. Maddie needed Chloe on Dance Moms, Tanya Harding needed Nancy Kerrigan irl, and I need my own work opponent.
When choosing a work nemesis, it is important to ensure that your chosen colleague is truly a formidable foe. You can’t go easy and choose the local flop or an icon from another department, you have to find someone with a similar function that you can directly compare yourself to. To keep this light and whimsical, stray away from the competitive urges you feel against your nemesis. Instead, aim to benchmark your own work output against them, matching their quality and effort but with your own showmanship and sparkle. Do what is expected of you and keep working on your maximum potential without revealing it too soon.
Town Crying
Need to get out of the office? Become a town crier!
To me, town crying is utilizing public speaking engagements to weave the narrative thread of your professional life. Who could be better at sharing the news of your work and your organization better than yourself? Cultivating your public speaking skills through trial and error in front of audiences is a way to level up quickly.
Town crying is more than a skill to grow, it is a door to be opened. The unpredictable nature of where your story will take you is an exciting and mysterious surprise that can hit your inbox any day. What if someone in the audience is mysterious and reclusive billionaire looking for the next go-getter to fund, maybe you’ll be invited to tell your story on an all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii. Maybe there is a world leader out there right now trying to get a hold of me… the opportunities are endless.
Lore Seeking
Something common amongst many world cultures is a mechanism to pass down historical knowledge and traditions. Cultures built in companies are far less advanced, and there are very few elders to pass down the traditions, maybe even none depending on where you are.
By taking time out of your work plan to casually browse the ancient texts and tomes (the documents that no one will ever scan into the shared drive), you give yourself the opportunity to collect archaic knowledge and prophecies lost to the memories of employees past. Even without specific intention, you will find the knowledge you collect becoming increasingly relevant in your operations, and you will find your way into scenarios where your skill in history makes you the most valuable player in the room.
Analytical Storytelling
As someone a little more artistically inclined, it is the ultimate challenge to bring narrative to a black and white science like finance or economics. But at its core, data is just storytelling. Here are some ways to bard out in the hard sciences:
Automation. Automating spreadsheets gives the architect the power to maximize the sheet’s performance, as well as visually display the logical system of throughputs that turn your inputs into the outputs you love. When you clearly label and automate a complex spreadsheet, you are creating a legacy that will outlive you.
Color Theory. Breaking free of excel’s built-in color palette is a great way to take creative liberties on non-creative endeavors. If your work does not have a brand tool kit with a defined color palette, consider your own personal branding colors or create something artistically appropriate for the subject matter. You can also attempt to subtly influence meetings by utilizing colors in your work that evoke certain emotions like a calm blue or thought-provoking red.
Consider opposing agendas. When crafting your scientific narrative, ask yourself how your interpretation of the data may be biased. It looks bad that our mid-year revenue is only 20% of last year’s EOY number instead of ~50%, but your boss just needs a reminder that busy season is in Q4. The stories attached to the numbers change how they are perceived, and it is a profound responsibility to understand and tell those stories.
Change up the medium. Don’t want to send someone your raw data spreadsheet with all of your formulas for open view? Then don’t. Sometimes data-driven topics are best communicated in absence of the data itself. The bardic ability to switch up your content to best connect with your audience will get you far, especially if you frequently have to explain technical information to non-technical crowds.
Cautions of Excessive Work Whimsy
Having fun is an act of resistance in an environment in which you are being used for profit and productivity, so taking the whimsical path is not always easy. You will be misunderstood. Colleagues might not understand the grind of all these side quests. Haters will say you yap too much, potentially even accuse you of witchcraft, but so long as you are conducting yourself nobly and ethically and meeting the expectations of your role, they cannot stop you.
How do you embrace whimsy in your adult life? Do you want to bring more whimsy to your workplace? Let me know in the comments!
Bring more whimsy to your own with Daily/Weekly/Monthly Quests in Sir Kadean’s adventure guild! I’ve been a member since the group launched in January, and it brings lots of inspiration to my work, my writing, and my general framing for how I experience life.
About Quintessential
Thank you so much for reading! Quintessential is a collection of personal writings about how I am managing to live my life authentically as myself. You may be interested in this publication if you:
Are a young woman trying to make it in this world;
Enjoy niche topics;
Care about your communities around you;
Don’t take life too seriously; and
Want to know what makes me, me!