Louise's thoughts

Surveillance

After moving into the wonderful buildings with glass, glass and more glass (and a lot of concrete on the floor) I had an interesting, albeit positive experience today. My old office mate called me up on the local phone system (I could in fact see his name on the phone before picking up, so neat, so futuristic) to ask if I wanted to go to lunch. We went lunching with a bunch of other people too and I didn't give it much thought until later this afternoon.

My new office windows (2 by 4 meters, pretty much one of the four walls) faces the other side of the building, that is shaped like an H, with about 50 meters (about 125 feet) between. This makes my view equal at least 25% of the other offices at the university. I can see everybody, from first floor to fourth as well as four stories of frequently used hall way with two glass elevators. Especially towards afternoon where the sun disappears behind the building, I get a good view of people working. The downside of this is that apparently people can see me as well, which enabled my old officemate to see that I was back from the beach house and probably up for lunch. I now realize that I am under surveillance. I cannot lie down and sleep for twenty minutes (not that I ever do that...), I cannot sit and look bored for more than a few seconds and I cannot pick my nose or take off my clothes (I really never did that...). I have to sit and look like I am actually working and remind myself that my colleagues including the ones who make sure that I get money on my account each month and (even worse) the ones who grant me travel money can watch every single one of my moves.

My present office mate noted this as well and said that in two weeks we won't think of it anymore, we will go about our usual business and forget that people can watch us. I now realize that a webcam would not really put me in any other situation than this. I could at least chose who to give out the URL to. Fact is that I don't care that much about being surveyed. If you haven't done anything wrong, why worry that people would find out? I think/hope people have more interesting things to do than to keep an eye on me and if I get caught sleeping on the job (I actually did, two weeks ago, by my advisor, who can beat that?), I assume people are smart enough to realize that it is because I lie sleepless at night because of my thesis and job situation and not because I like to spend my days sleeping in my office. And if I look bored for more than five minutes it might be because I like thinking about things once in a while without writing it down. So I guess now I just have to put up a post-it note on my desk reminding myself not to undress in the office.