Prattle Call

This week’s new Dustinland comic is about the nervous polite chit chat that most meetings begin with. This is not limited to remote meetings, although they seem to make it a bit worse. But even in the office you have it. There’s that silence when everyone is just filing in and the first attendees feel the need to fill the void with something, but we’re not all friends so we all just wind up talking about the most nothingness of nothings. It’s honestly not even talking, it’s more like a ritual of politeness, like bowing.

I think the most painful for me personally is people from warm sunny places like LA talking about the weather. Either that or “got any weekend plans?”

Back To Work

This week’s new Dustinland comic is about the current debate on whether we should all start going back to the office or not. And in this strip I literally debate myself, because I do see both sides of the issue.

All joking aside, if you ask me — which nobody will — I think what people want is freedom. They want to be treated with respect and given the ability to make their own decisions about how to be successful at work. For some people, that may mean 5 days a week in the office. For others, 1. Or zero. Of course, that is a very difficult thing for a large organization to achieve. Big groups thrive on order and routine, so it’s unlikely there will be a lot of “do whatever you want.”

But I think frame 7 of the strip really nails it — no matter what, you still won’t be happy.