Annotated 25-2
Any comments I could make about Carol’s captions here would be redundant. The subtext is already pretty close to becoming text. But check out the overworked, frazzled employees in panels 1 and 2, more signs of the toll that HR’s leadership (or lack thereof) is taking on the company.
These first two pages were originally one page, and I’ll agree with Phil this time: that was far too packed. Here are some notes I turned in with the first-draft script:
The break room doesn’t have to be glassed-off: it might be a more traditionally walled-off section of the building (though if so, we should have some of the glass partitions visible in panel 3, to make sure we haven’t forgotten about them). This would have the effect of making it feel more like a private space for the employees to air their concerns and would make them seem a little less dumb for not realizing Carol’s watching them. However, I think the reality is that people who work in glass houses (ahem) tend to forget that anyone can see them after a few days. I’m inclined to leave it.
Other last lines for Thomas here:
“She’s already dumped HR’s body down there, after all.”
“She’s reducing overhead by converting it to underhead.”
“That’s where she and HR keep the gnomes.”
“That’s where she and HR keep the Oompa-Loompas.”
“OH SNAP. THAT JUST GOT SAID.”
Overworked, stressed-out, undirected employees on eternal crunch? At a major game studio, of all places?
I know this is a fantasy comic, but this goes beyond the conceivable.
Ah, Ferris. It’s been a while. (Almost 6 months, according to the archives.) We’re getting close to his big scene, and then we can give him a hand.
And since this strip earwormed me, I must share it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nigRT2KmCE
I see those glass walls in movies a lot, but I wonder how many offices actually use those in reality? Employees must feel like they’re living in a zoo!
From a business perspective, seems like the maintenance of glass walls would be far more troublesome then using drab but functional grey cube walls.
Actually more than you would think.
I work in such a place and never felt like that, tbh. Guess you just ended up getting used to it, since we dont have cube walls either, its the “open office” thing.
Also, tbh, those glass walls are often used for quick meetings where you can draw in the walls and then have it quick and easily cleaned.
The Cambridge Innovation Center in Boston has lots of glass walls. And floors of open plan desks. And kitchens without any walls.
My company’s office — the CIC basically rents offices and services to small businesses — had opaque walls up to like neck or head level, then glass above, so still some ability to peer in but not quite open to passers by. The bookable meeting rooms were pure glass, as were many other rented offices.
I actually helped put together an office space like this, and one of the reasons for all the glass is so that natural light will actually penetrate into the offices without an actual window, which studies show helps with productivity. (Actually giving them windows helps more of course, but in big buildings, you just don’t get that option sometimes). The consultant types will also tell you that it fosters “openness” and all that, but in the end, it’s really about getting more work out of the staff that you have.
Cheers,
Cote
I’ve worked with people who got moved from a large room with actual walls and actual windows for ~40 people into a whole-floor spanning open office lined by glass-wall meeting rooms, and boy was that ever a productivity killer. 100s of people in a single space, nobody has their own desk anymore, tons of people running through all the time, every phone call is audible to everyone, if you want to speak to the person you’re working with, you have to either whisper or get a room. The whole “open-plan offices are more productive” thing has been dispelled long hence*, but either management keeps believing the myth, or it’s just a trade-off they’re willing to make for reduced office space cost per worker.
(*) open-plan offices _can_ be helpful if the task of the majority of people working there involves talking to many different co-workers a lot, and on many younger employees the negative effects have less of an impact — although even the ones who claim they don’t mind the distraction very often actually do work better in quiet offices for 2-3 people. The same goes for people who prefer to work on a laptop in a café — a proper desk with a proper keyboard, mouse, monitor etc. is not just more ergonomic but also better for productivity. Although for many of those people working from cafés, that proper desk probably either doesn’t exist or would be in some drab open-plan office …
If it was about productivity, or cost of space per worker, most of those open-plan desk jobs would be automated away, with the remainder split up into groups small enough to avoid drowning in their own noise pollution. It’s actually about status and control. “Lookit how many minions I’ve got reporting to me! Dance, monkey, dance, no privacy for you.”
This is one of the pages that make me really appreciate Waltrip’s range. Besides the obvious color scheme, it’s such a different style from how the game world looks. To pull off these expressions on rather realistic style is a bit nutty because it usually risks falling into easy uncanny valley stuff.
Most artists you can even tell is their work beforehand because of their style, but in Guilded Age alone I’ve seen at least four rather different styles from him. I am not a big comics guy, but I still wonder if I’ve seen more of this stuff around and just didn’t even know because he’s pretty diverse. lol