When is a Candy Jar Just a Jar?

From Joe:  Now that Mad Men has recreated the office life of the 1950s, even youngsters know that there was a time when smoking in the work environment was accepted as normal behavior. To signal hospitality, some workers kept jars of cigarettes or boxes of cigars on their desks to accommodate visitors to their office. The same thing was done at home to accommodate guests at parties. When smokers met on the street, they might offer each other a cigarette as a sign of friendship and acceptance. Then they would share the experience of taking the tobacco smoke into their bodies as they relaxed together in conversation. In short, smoking was more than normal behavior. It was actually a widely practiced social ritual.

 From an anthropological perspective, the ritual of smoking tobacco is structurally similar to rituals concerned with eating. Cigarettes are food.

 We don’t smoke so much anymore, but a recent article in the Wall Street Journal got me wondering whether the office candy jar will acquire the same stigma that we now attach to tobacco dispensers.

In an interesting and amusing story , Sue Shellenbarger describes the battles that erupt when dieters clash with food givers over the issue of stimulating unhealthy habits:

 The office candy dish was sabotaging Melanie Meek’s efforts to slim down. Then, she declared war.

Bowls filled with chocolates were swept off co-workers’ desks and into drawers. Pastries, doughnuts and other snacks were stashed in a separate room. Her rule, she told co-workers in their Canton, Ohio, real-estate office: “If I have to smell it, I will move it.”

How can something so sweet be so divisive?

The story pressed a hot button for many readers. Some left intelligent comments, others reenacted the conflicts described in the story itself. A few described situations that Shellenbarger probably could not even imagine:

Ugh… office candy jar. When I started my career, I kept a peanut M&M dispenser (hit the lever and grab a few). I quickly learned that this enticed coworkers to come by to have candy and chat with me for 5-10 minutes at a time, no matter what I was working on…These days my desk is one of the most sterile and avoided places in the office. Team lunches build amity — desktop candy bowls sap productivity.

I agree with your viewpoint, but when the office is full of whiny-kindergardener [sic.] types life can be very difficult…No one at my office can have any sort of snacks/drinks at group meetings now, because one selfish, ill-mannered woman spent one meeting making a salad for herself and clipping her nails. (I wish I were kidding about this, but no!)

My office is at least 75% overweight….and there are candy bowls and treat tables everywhere…Food is an addiction for some (probably many). Would anyone advocate surrounding an recovering alcoholic with alcohol? It’s just not very mindful or compassionate, right?…

It’s just candy people. Relax, take a deep breath. Practice self control, the rest of the world does. America is too fat and lazy to understand this I guess. Why are women around the world thin and Americans are fat? Just put the food down and go out and exercise. If you don’t have self control seek therapy.

So because a few whiners can’t control their impulses, people who want to share food and camaraderie with their coworkers will be forced to stifle their good-will? This is exactly the same thing as punishing children who share some of their lunch with other children at school.

Before you go to the article and get your own hot buttons pushed, let me raise some questions about the article and its comments that you might want to answer as you read the material for yourself.

1. What happens to your own opinions about the candy jar if you consider it as a cultural object which needs to be analyzed for its meaning rather than frame it as a simple object whose meaning is obvious and transparent? Transposing Freud’s famous remark about “sometimes a cigar is just a good cigar,” is the candy jar just a candy jar or is it a symbol or a metaphor or a vessel of emotional content?
2.  Think of people you know who have candy jars on their desks. Does the jar signify anything about their personality? Are candy givers and candy takers more likely to be introverts or extroverts? Are they more likely to be relationship-oriented or problem-oriented in their work environment? Are they likely to be big picture thinkers or detail handlers? Are they likely to be playful or planful, flexible or focused?
3. In your experience, who is more likely to display a candy jar? Bosses or subordinates? Employees who are relatively powerful or powerless?
4. What’s the state of mind of the people who expressed opinions about candy jars in the story itself or in the reader comments? Do they seem open or closed minded? Flexible and playful or rigid and grim? Receptive or defensive about information that might cause them to change their attitudes? However you judge them, what does it tell you about the psychological processes that are set in motion when people get emotionally aroused?

 In my next few posts, I’ll be revisiting the candy jar story to unpack its implications for people want to lose weight and become more fit.

 Hope you have some time to digest the story by then. If it affects you, why not spit out a few comments that tell us whether or not you like how it tastes?