The weighty issue of office gym etiquette
I hold my ground for as long as possible. She’s got to be near to the end of her lunch hour by now — surely her sandwiches are calling. At risk to my balance, I again glance sideways at the adjoining treadmill to check that my neighbour hasn’t surreptitiously increased her speed. She catches me looking and the awkward truth dawns — she’s being raced, unwittingly, by a colleague. In the office gym.
At stake: I want to win in revenge for that sarcastic comment she made in a meeting last week. The fact that she is paid more than me will cease to matter as long as I finish this session ahead of her.
We finish our runs with sweaty smiles and congratulations, of course, displaying no hint of the blatant rivalry that has followed us from boardroom to gym.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin holds fitness sessions with his associates, he has the confidence to be more obvious about the competition. In pictures recently taken by the Russian state news agency, Putin is seen at his summer residence in Sochi, working out with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. . One photo is particularly revealing. Medvedev strains at a rowing machine. Putin has stopped his own workout to stand behind him, leaning on another machine, watching with the hint of a smile on his face. Can he be thinking anything other than: “I could do that better?”
Anyone who has ever exercised alongside workmates could imagine that Putin’s scrutinizing of his colleague’s technique doesn’t stem from a wholly indifferent place. “The only reason I signed up for the J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge (a 5.6-km road race run in seven countries) was to beat the girl I can’t stand at work,” admits one friend who works for a management consultancy company. “Then we had the office Ping-Pong tournament, designed for team bonding — it got so competitive that I could immediately see who all the idiots were and decided I never wanted to work with them.”
But working out with the people you work next to does have the potential to be more constructive.
In the U.S., indoor cycling class Soul Cycle has 47 studios, which have become networking hot spots. The company markets itself to corporate firms with the slogan: “Sweatworking is the new networking.” The idea is to connect with clients or colleagues in a more challenging environment than the golf course, and a more healthy one than the pub.