Chaos vs. Order in the Workplace
By Mark Grzeskowiak
There's an exercise that career counselors like to do with their clients: Write down the things that you like and those that you dislike. Although what first may come to mind is that you detest liver and really like chocolate fudge ice cream, what they're really looking for are your workplace preferences. Do you like to work alone or in groups, is money important to you, do you like technology, etc.? I wonder, however, how many times a preference for chaos over order (or vice versa) shows up on a list.
My introduction to the worlds of order and chaos came early in my working life. When I was in high school, I worked part-time in the warehouse of a large consumer products retailer. The store manager, Raj, despite his easygoing demeanor, ran the store with the precision of a Prussian drillmaster. When the delivery truck arrived on Friday afternoons, Raj made sure that we unloaded it correctly. That meant ensuring everything taken from the truck was accounted for and put in the proper spot on the shelf. Raj always inspected our work to ensure that no boxes were left on the floor or untidily stuffed into a corner. And for good measure, he also made us sweep the warehouse after every shipment, and before anyone went home for the night.
When I left Raj's store for a job at another store, it was another world. Here, the store manager never went into the warehouse, and the only way to find something was through the warehouse manager, Bob. Bob had his own system of storing merchandise and it seemed to change regularly. Whenever you needed to retrieve something for the showroom, you went downstairs into Bob's dark space. Searching on your own under the weak light of a single light bulb, in the jumble of boxes and messy shelves that was also Bob's work area, was an exercise in futility. (Luckily for the store manager and the rest of us, Bob was never sick. Some of us believed that he actually lived in the warehouse.)
Both warehouses functioned in their own way, and it would be wrong to assume that chaotic workplaces are less workable than orderly workplaces. Some workplaces are by necessity orderly, and others by necessity chaotic. In my case, the showroom in the second store had much more space, so that the warehouse wasn't really a storage place, but a busy transit corridor for moving merchandise upstairs. There was no time and there were no personnel available for checking shelves and sweeping the floor.
In orderly workplaces, like Raj's smoothly functioning Indo-Prussian retail store, a set of repeated procedures and guidelines applied to everyone and had to be completed on schedule. In chaotic workplaces, on the other hand, regardless of whether that chaos stems from the particular task or from mismanagement, routine procedures play a lesser role. And even a workplace that appears chaotic usually has underlying protocols and procedures – these just seem chaotic once they're switched to high speed to handle volume or emergencies.
So whenever someone asks you what you like or dislike about the workplace, take a moment to think about whether you're partial to orderly or wild workplaces. Do you like routine, stability, and time for analysis; or do you like change, unpredictability, and fast-paced near-madness? While this may not seem as important as choosing chocolate fudge ice cream over liver, it is something you should take into consideration when thinking about your career.