It’s tough, it’s intense, it’s fiercely competitive, and it calls for a delicate balance between strategy and action. Here’s why working in an office can sometimes feel like you’re caught in the middle of a game of Super Rugby. By Ebrahim Moolla
Every year, around the end of February, I tend to get a nasty case of the Friday flu – strategically timed, of course, to coincide with those epic morning Super Rugby games. But lately, I’ve begun to appreciate the parallels between oval ball shenanigans and the 9-to-5 grind. Things can get pretty action-packed at the office, you know.
Every staff contingent has “players” who could ostensibly fit the 15 positions in a rugby team. The props are the workhorses who put their heads down and steer clear of the limelight. The fast-talking wings are usually found in the sales department. The flyhalves are those mildly annoying golden boys and girls who can simply do no wrong. And that beanpole with the cauliflower ears, who is tasked with closing the windows at the end of each day could easily pass for a lock.
Most people are familiar with the rules of workplace engagement: Be punctual, respect your colleagues, don’t steal from petty cash. But then there are those grey areas that are open to interpretation. This is a fertile ground for inanities and convolution.
It can be difficult to get the nuances of office politics down pat when someone is always moving the goalposts. Rugby is weighed down by a metric ton of rules that change from season to season. When you finally get your head around the new Super Rugby conference system, for instance, you’ll feel like you just graduated cum laude with a degree in quantum physics.
The Super Rugby competition has expanded from just six teams in 1992 to three times that number in its current iteration. If you work for a firm that is on the rise or has a high staff turnover, you’ll know the challenges this brings.
That “new guy” at work may have been new six months ago, but because you never bothered to ask for his name, you now give him an awkward nod every time you pass him in the corridor. On that note, let me go ahead and say “Konnichiwa, Sunwolves” and “Hola, Jaguares”. Welcome to the Super Rugby family.
Rugby, like your career, is punctuated by glorious highs and harrowing troughs. When Western Province went unbeaten through the round-robin phase of the Currie Cup in 2013, Cape Town was in a rugby-induced reverie. Even that guy who shouts “Who’s got a ticket for meeee?” outside Newlands made sure he was seated early. Unfortunately, Province slipped at the final hurdle at home to the Sharks.
It was a bit like working yourself into a frenzy and then being told that there is no money for salary increases because of your boss’s gambling problem. At other times, Cheslin Kolbe will skip his way past 200 defenders on his way to a game-winning try and you’ll do an impressive power slide across the office after earning that long-awaited promotion.
The office can also be as competitive as a rugby pitch. There is a natural rivalry between the finance and sales departments, as well as HR and everyone else, but at an individual level, things can get as heated as a coastal derby. When your sworn nemesis has a sly chuckle over at the watercooler while you’re being reprimanded for missing a deadline, it is time to put your game face on.
There is plenty of scope for physicality at the office, too. Have you ever witnessed the scrum over the free pizza when it’s someone’s birthday, or the rucks and mauls when the ladies get stuck in at the annual beauty sale? A perfectly spun pass of the sole remaining stapler across an open-plan office?
Just the other day, a colleague attempted to drop-kick the wonky printer with a precision Joel Stransky would have been proud of. And I imagine the daily shocks I receive from the static buildup on the office doorknobs feel exactly like being on the receiving end of an Eben Etzebeth spear tackle.
It makes me wonder if HR would have something to say if I wore a scrumcap to work on Monday.
Watch the video below for more about the similarities between the the office and rugby:
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