Today I was inspired by a 'recent' post by our own 
ANWAYS
The topic: Work and Colleagues and their Superficial Relationships
As Diabolika writes in her post: Work shall be work and stay work. Work shall not define who we are. The workplace is about superficial relationships, not about what we humans need. We humans need in-depth connections with people, in-depth connections with our environment, in-depth connections with the earth and anything in it, perhaps even with the universe and everything in that gigantic space as well. Something super difficult to achieve with colleagues.
The other day, I received a request from the VP of our Product Management department to submit a photograph that defined a turning point in our lives. A turning point either in our professional career or in our private lives. Or both, though 'or both' was not part of the request but something I took away. The idea was to spend the morning of our upcoming Products-and-Services-Strategy-Roadmap day with a bunch of IT Architects, Product Owners, and Product Managers, to share our life-changing story with our colleagues based on the photograph we selected.
The search was on!
While I knew almost instantly what I wanted to share, a true life-changing event (better said: a life-changing period in my early adult life), it wasn't easy to find a photograph I shot myself. In the end, I simply did a Google search (well ... in fact I used Presearch) and came up with the still image below.
image: Mazzo in Amsterdam, now a restaurant, back in the 90s a dance club - source
Last Friday when we gathered with exactly a quarter of a hundred, 25, people in one of our offices on the other side of my tiny but kick ass country, I viewed 23 vacation and hobby photographs while listening to the associated stories of my colleagues. Not much life-changing, but nonetheless nice to hear a bit about what colleagues do in their off-work time, or what they like when enjoying vacations. Many mountain shots. Beautiful in itself, but when seeing more than a handful, it becomes a bit boring.
Only one of them, the 24th colleague, brought all of us a story about a life-changing event for him. Something to do with his bachelors. A techical study, electrical engineering, and the final push for him to determine his future life: Turn his hobby into work. Fixing IT systems, from networks and computers, to entire IT solutions. Needless to say that this is one of my colleagues I appreciate a lot since this guy is into what he does, always take the time to help, always in search for solutions to problems instead of trying to clean his own desk and push the effort to others. The latter is kinda the general culture in the office. Not applied by everyone, but by a majority, kinda like 75% of them. But that is beside the point and a topic for another post.
My contribution was shown at the far end. I was number 25.
After the VP asked the room from who this still image could be, it stayed quiet for a little while. Someone questioned: "Does this show a restaurant?" And then someone said: "Mazzo: finally, it rings a bell, a Techno club in Amsterdam. Or? Edje, is that correct?" This came from another highly appreciated colleague. A guy who wants to change things in our company, a guy who found his way to become the brains behind a new team to start to do things differently in our company, someone who comes up with the idea, and then also initiates the implementation of the idea by doing things himself. Essentially, to not play manager, but stay to his core, being an engineer (and as I tell him over and over again, an IT architect) and show others an idea is only as good as spending the time and effort to implement.
ANYWAYS
The guy was correct. Mazzo, established as a dance club early 80s, was a dance club until something like a decade or two ago before it turned into a restaurant.
As I mentioned before, I selected the still image based on my life-changing story. It wasn't a specific time, but more a period. Can't tell how long this period was, but could be something like a year to a few years. The Mazzo was one of those spots that contributed to this 'event'. A location I discovered early 90s and started to pay a visit. First, just now and then, but later more frequently.
The music, but foremost the people I met in the Mazzo (but also other techno events I started to visit more and more) are the reasons for my life and mind getting re-programmed. While in my school and Uni years, I found myself in a tunnel, a tunnel of 'I need good grades, I need a good job, I need a career, I need to focus on the future', the Mazzo crowd and community as other (underground) techno crowds in other places in and outside Amsterdam, opened up a whole new world for me. A world in which I broke out of the tunnel I was creating for myself over the past one and a half decades. Although I love my somewhat nerdy friends I gained in my high school and Uni years, I started to surround myself with new (and still somewhat nerdy) friends. Friends with a much more open mind, with much more creative minds, with people who mostly try to live in the moment instead of the future.
Slowly, this changed me completely, from being this 'living in the future' guy, to someone who tries to enjoy the moment. Someone who didn't stick to their own worldview, but someone who started to see why other worldviews are also great. I was amazed by the feeling of how groups of people, mostly unknown people, can become one guided by the music. I think it are such experiences that open the minds for those who dare all this to happen. And for those that open their minds, life becomes different. More open, not only to those we know, our friends, our acquaintances, but also to those we don't know but feel a connection with.
The enormous number of times I found myself in people's homes for a day, sometimes for a whole weekend, people I just met in a club, strangers to me, is uncountable. At worst we became friends for a weekend, at best I gained some true IRL friends. And much in between. Three decades later, I still feel as we are friends when meeting people from that distant past, somewhere at a festival, or in a club. Faces we recognise, people not in my contact list, perhaps the only (digital) connection is through some social media, but people I have vivid memories of, people I have a connection with, people that feel comfortable when meeting again today. Just two weeks ago, at the end of Amsterdam Dance Event, in some underground club, I had the fortune to meet more than a few of those people from the distant past. It gave me yet another day and night to remember.
While I was telling this to my colleagues, at least half the group laughed (likely in the wrong way, likely ridiculing me) when I told them the story, my life-changing period in my life. But I didn't care. I learned to shut down my emotions when such happens. Colleagues are colleagues. Most of them are sitting in their own tunnels, at work and in their lives. The few of those who I respect, I try and influence, the rest, whatever, they shall do whatever they do and think. I let them be. I was pleased to see that those I do respect didn't join in the laughter. Instead they waited until the room became quiet and asked me a question, or simply gave me a smile of appreciation.
Meanwhile, I wanted to give a bit of a snear to the group and before I knew it, I ended my story with words in the lines of:
"I simply wish for all of you to find your ways out of your own tunnels and become much more open-minded with interests in anything and anyone, even those you generally avoid meeting, or topics you avoid thinking about. This will not only help you in your private lives, but will also help all of us in the office to achieve more together."
To Diabolika, and her post:
I do very much agree the workplace is foremost about superficial connections. As my story and the reaction I got last Friday a week ago, painfully proved. Let it be. Play a role at work. Be what others want you to be. Pull a big ass wall around your emotions, to not let colleagues give you a bad feeling. But never stop finding opportunities to change things and perhaps also to try and truly reach people. In my experience, some people in the office can become true real-life friends outside the office. People with whom we can enjoy a much more in-depth relationship. I go by an unwritten rule in this. Generally, I seek such outside-office-relationships only after such person is not my colleague anymore, ie the person left the company or I left the company. Not sure if this is a must, but it seems to happen this way with ex-colleagues who are now somewhere in my inner circle of friends and/or somewhere in between my inner circle and the (little) lesser inner circles.
To all of you who spend the time to read through my too-long post with 1700+ words, I wish you an njoyable weekend with maximum pleasure. Never stop being mediocre, but maximise 🥳🎶
all images by edje unless stated otherwise