I wonder if everyone can be so happy at work these days. We spend half of our lifetime at work, and if we’re not happy at work, then everything is bound to fall apart in our lives.

I logged in to LinkedIn on most days, for freelance work as an artist (performance artist, painter, and photographer) and I saw the most gruesome thing that’s been happening all over the world. Some kind of movement that your bosses are not your parents, and your colleagues are not your brothers and sisters or very best friends. And it got so popular with tens of thousands of likes on LinkedIn.

No matter how popular it is, I’m not going to think the same. I love all my bosses, sometimes like Father figures. My colleagues at some of the happiest times of my life in San Francisco, New York, and Jakarta are my besties. We’re not just working clocking in and out and stabbing each other in the back to rise to the top. We were really the best of friends, and sometimes we even talked about personal problems and solved it together.

The most memorable place that I worked in was in Shane Hunter, Inc, San Francisco. Shane Hunter, doing business as Aquablues, is a garment manufacturing company. We designed and manufactured clothings to sell to mega-retailers like Walmart and Target for millions of dollars for each order. I worked as a trim buyer; I worked closely with Carl Spielberg, my boss, the Vice President of the company. We were the very best of friends, Carl and I. On some days that I worked overtime, he would drive me home in his car, making sure that I arrived safely and soundly in Richmond, the district that I lived in back in the days with my miniature schnauzer, Kupo Siltzkin. On some days, my colleagues and I would play tennis near my place and have such a good time. 

In New York, I worked at DVF Studio in the Meat Packing District during my college days. I was only an unpaid intern to begin with, but they love me so much and decided to pay me with a garment allowance. On the day that I was supposed to leave work, they had a pizza party bidding me farewell with so much love for me. I love it so much.

If businesses all over the world want to make huge profits, then surely you have to make sure that you retain your employees for many years, making them so happy. And a strict code of professionalism is truly what’s so wrong with the world these days. This is what I mean by a strict code of professionalism in the workplace. You’re like a zombie just going to work, clocking in and out for a little bit of money to pay rent, but there’s no love for each other at the workplace. People play office politics to get to the top. Everyone is so ambitiously trying to get to the top, to the corner office, even if it means stabbing people in the back and hurting each other. About professionalism, we all get it, we get there to work on time, we do our job well and respect each other. It’s only common sense, we don’t have to preach about it anymore.

We need love in the workplace, that’s what’s new. Without love in the workplace, dirty office politics, stabbing people in the back to get to the top is bound to happen. You’re hurting each other in the workplace, and the most important thing is you’re not treating each other like real humans with so much compassion for each other.

How are you getting to work jumping out of bed every morning? Of course because you’re so missing your bosses, your colleagues, and can’t wait for another day of work because you love each other.

I think we have to think for ourselves, and just because it’s so popular in this 21st century progressive society as a culture, doesn’t mean we have to adapt the philosophy already. We need love in the workplace, and if you haven’t done so already, I hope you’ll join us.

Love,

Stevie // Penny Lane The Diarist