I just got promoted to Supervisor at work. Which is great. At first I wasn't entirely sure what that meant...it turns out I'm now allowed to supervise a team (surprisingly), I can teach skills to others (ha!) and I have been assigned a bucketload of smileys on the internal email. I am pathetically excited by the last part.

It's the people around this level who start talking, rather pretentiously I feel, about the concept of "professional distance". This concept annoys me. It has always annoyed me, and for good reason, I feel. The following is purely my opinion, and it almost definitely doesn't reflect the views of, well, anyone. But here it is.

Professional distance is about maintaining a kind of emotional separation from people below you in status. Essentially, it is the practice of "not being friends" with your inferiors at work. That's the way it is.

But why?

(Oh, I'm sorry, did I ask why? I can already feel some of my readers getting irritated. Those are the same people who, when they hear someone complain about sweat shops or the sorry state of government corruption, their response is "Well, that's the way it is". Which is no argument whatsoever - always interesting that they are the same people who, if the waitress to whom they complained that their soup is cold replied "That's the way it is", would have a significant hissy fit right there at the table.)

The reason professional distance exists is very sad. It's because there are a few people who, if they were friends with the boss, would read all sorts of meaning into it, lose their minds and become about as productive as a cream cracker. Because of these few (and rather pathetic) people, bosses all over the world treat all their employees with "professional distance", to make sure that no one crosses the line.

It's a little bit insulting to anyone with enough intelligence to know how not to cross the line anyway.

Another classic from superiors all over is "I'd rather be respected than liked".

How sad.

Sad, firstly, because this implies how rarely the two go hand-in-hand, and secondly because I'm pretty sure it's based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what "respect" is. From what I have observed, this "respect" is not real respect - it's fear based on the boss' power to make their lives miserable. It's entirely self-seeking and outside work they wouldn't even hold a place in line for the person they so "respect" in the office.

Can we move towards a better work environment, people?! Can we move towards a world where bosses don't have to treat employees coldly in order to get anything done?! Moreover, they then have to rationalize that they are RESPECTED rather than feared just to get to sleep at night. Complain about your boss all you want, but it's your boss I feel bad for!

If only we could trust adults to behave as adults, the need for professional distance could be eliminated; stress at work would decrease and bosses wouldn't have to spend a third of their lives with people who fantasize about their untimely death.

Is it me, or does that seem like a better way to spend our time on the planet?

I feel pretty lucky here because by some stroke of fate or divine cock-up, I both like and respect my boss, and the professional distance is not much of an issue since a) I am productive, and b) my boss is also my housemate. So it does happen, folks.

That said, please don't tell him I like or respect him. If he found out his employees actually liked him he would read all sorts of meaning into it, lose his mind and become about as productive as a cream cracker.

(Because of these few bosses, employees all over the world have to treat bosses they like with a "professional distance"...)