What would YOU consider inappropriate viewing material at your Coffice?

When working at your Coffice, where do you draw a line in the foam when it comes to “appropriate” viewable content?

Facebook summer vacation albums from the beach?
Medical anatomy textbook graphics?
Butt-exposing YouTube memes?
Gossip website celebrity wardrobe malfunction photos?
Explicit film scene editing?

If you think about it, beyond personal decency (whatever that means to you) and a sense of general (and sometimes absent) moral empathy, despite several different levels/types of etiquette and nuances, the definition of what is “appropriate” viewable content is different for everyone.

If you peel back the layers of people in any given Coffice in any geographic region – whether it’s the urban tattooed/pierced hipster barista, the high-energy entrepreneur or the suburban mompreneur – moral compasses will almost always be pointed in completely different directions.

I’ve witnessed several eyebrow-raising situations since committing to the Coffice workstyle a few years ago. Taken to the extreme (or “X-treme”), I’ve even heard of someone getting an invitation to leave a Coffice for watching X-rated content on a laptop.

But the one incident I personally watched involved one of the regulars at my usual weekday Coffice. I knew he dabbled in a few areas of music and media production. On one particular afternoon, he was hunkered down behind his laptop focused intently on a project involving models. I knew this because he showed me. I never asked. I have no interest in such things.

These weren’t photos of your garden variety “fashion runway models”. Heck, they weren’t even photos of your average Victoria’s Secret siren. By my amateur eye, the photos looked more like scenes from a Motley Crue video (<~ WARNING: NSFC) …or, for you younger Cofficers, the video for that song by LMFAO. I think it’s called “I’m sexy…and I hate my parents”.

Sitting beside the busty laptop pics was a woman who looked like she could get away with paying the seniors ticket price at the cinema. But hey, what do I know? I couldn’t be sure. So when she glanced over at the screen of the laptop beside her, the wide-eyed look of shock-turned-disgust – like she just discovered the cream in her coffee had turned – quickly confirmed my suspicion.

That was the incident that led me to establish a loosely defined rule that I believe has wide-reaching appeal. Others might simply say it’s a judgment call…with a barometer.

Introducing the Grandma Rule.

It goes something like this:

If you were to attempt to show your work to Grandma, and exhibiting this work would make you feel uncomfortable or icky, there’s a good chance it falls under inappropriate Coffice viewing; thusly, it is strongly advised that you choose to do it elsewhere, or at the very least, make sure you’re as isolated as possible. Sit with your back in an isolated corner or take your laptop to the bathroom if it’s that urgent. If a Grandma can’t be your frame of reference, you may substitute her with clergy or even your mom or small impressionable children.

By extension of the Grandma Rule, for the purposes of all things social media or other types of digital communications, if your message contains potential or confirmed Grandma Rule violations, I’d like to propose using the #NSFC hashtag/warning/label – that is: Not Safe For Coffice.

And if your Grandma proudly names “burlesque dancing” as a hobby, I recommend you work from home.

Where/when do you think the Grandma Rule should be employed in your Coffice?

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