Office politics might be one of the worst versions of “politics” out there. Tiny, inconsequential things like windows and mug placement become hotly contested issues, where every molecule of petty control is exercised just for the sake of projecting power.

One worker got chewed out after moving from a reception desk to a “real” desk by a window that had been sitting unused for a while. Despite getting verbal permission from the boss, they ended up humiliated and forced back into worse working conditions in a classic example of meaningless office politics.

Who has an office and desk placement are classic hallmarks of office politics

Image credits: Lisa Fotios (not the actual image)

One employee shared an experience they had with being ordered back to a worse desk

Image credits: Mikhail Nilov (not the actual image)

Image credits: Stephen Phillips – Hostreviews.co.uk (not the actual image)

Image credits: [deleted]

Office conditions do really affect employee motivation and productivity

Office placement, while often seen through the lens of hierarchy and importance, does also have practical implications. As OP mentioned, heating and cooling, fresh air, and even a view are pretty important if you are going to sit at a desk for hours on end. Just the introduction of air conditioning to most spaces has led to a reported 24% increase in productivity as people can actually concentrate on work and not just staying alive through the heat. Of course, the flip side is that in many offices, the AC is actually too powerful, leading to workers slowly freezing at their stations even in the depths of summer. People will bring in sweaters and blankets just to stay warm, then discard them the moment the clock strikes five. This phenomenon is so common, office workers even make memes about it.

Temperature isn’t the only thing we look to the sun for, it is, after all, one of the main sources of vitamin D out there. Some nations, like Germany, actually stipulate that office workers have to get a certain amount of sunlight per day, which affects building codes and office layouts. Obviously, German businesses can’t control the weather, but should the sun be out on a particular day, workers should be able to access at least some of it. While it might not be noticeable at first, no access to the sun or even a window means that you can lose track of time, which in the long run may cause sleeping issues and depression. Fluorescent lights are a modern wonder, allowing us to do things at all hours of the day, but too much exposure to them starts to feel depressing.

Image credits: Michelangelo Buonarroti (not the actual image)

But bosses often make arbitrary, bad decisions regarding employee welfare

The real issue here is not so much what amenities this office has, but how they are distributed. As OP made clear, there are a lot of unused sections of the office that they could have been seated at, before they were rudely evicted by the boss. Now, there was a time when the best amenities would go to people in higher positions. Offices were more crowded and so the people doing more “important” work would get the perks that, in theory, would make them perform better. It would also establish a hierarchy and present certain areas and offices as a reward. But in this day and age, so many people work from home anyway, that just filling an office can be a challenge. Companies with huge campuses, most famously Google, have started to mandate that workers return, as otherwise, they are paying for what amounts to massive, empty buildings.

So the boss has killed the effectiveness and motivation of a worker to make sure that a hypothetically higher-standing employee (that as of OP’s post does not exist) won’t get upset at not having as good of a desk. As irrational as this sounds, it’s well in line with the reality that bosses, managers, and decision-makers often make very questionable choices, with adverse consequences for all involved. Oftentimes, people are promoted out of their competency simply by being good at their job. The best salesperson, engineer, or accountant doesn’t necessarily make a good manager. However, having been promoted, they obtain a false sense of superiority, which means they routinely underestimate the mistakes they make and overestimate how important they are. This then means that there is a pretty negative feedback loop, where they learn nothing from mistakes and refuse to rethink decisions.

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OP did not get permission to move desks in writing, but there is a decent chance that even if they did, the boss would overrule it without a second thought. Despite the fact that a manager’s job is to increase productivity, and employee satisfaction is directly related to satisfaction, bad information, and self-importance often lead to bad decisions.

Image credits: Pavel Danilyuk (not the actual image)

Readers sympathized with OP and expressed shock at the boss being so callus

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Others shared their own examples of heavy-handed management

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