Commentary: Tony Fernandes' meeting massage — when does self-care cross the line into inappropriate workplace behaviour?

AirAsia chief executive Tony Fernandes taking a virtual meeting from the office — very normal behaviour.

AirAsia chief executive Tony Fernandes taking a virtual meeting from the office, while shirtless as he receives a massage from a masked woman — now wait just a hot minute.

Truthfully, it wasn’t the image (which we can close on our screens but never scrub from our minds) that inspired an involuntary giggle.

Mr Fernandes’ LinkedIn post, which made headlines everywhere from CNN to BBC before it was later deleted from his page, was accompanied with the caption: “Got to love Indonesia and AirAsia culture that I can have a massage and do a management meeting.” 

“Culture”, he’d said.

The image pops into the head unbidden: Every employee at AirAsia — indeed, every worker in the whole of Indonesia — gathering in offices and meeting rooms to discuss corporate structure and business development strategies in various states of undress as paid professionals work out the kinks in their glutes and traps.

Covid-19 has become something of a lightning rod for justification of all sorts of peculiar occurrences, but it remains possible that prolonged working from home practices has made many of us comfortable with informal behaviour at best — and some of us, at worst, have become too comfortable with outright inappropriate behaviour.

Of course, it’s no surprise that the melding of public and private affairs within the home space would have an effect on the way we compartmentalise — or altogether cease to compartmentalise — different sets of mannerisms and habits.

Nevertheless, Mr Fernandes’ befuddling behaviour begs the question: Is there anything we do in professional settings now that we wouldn’t have done before Covid-19?

CROSSING LINES

Now, it’s probably safe to say we’re all staunch advocates of employee perks and self-care. We’re probably also huge fans of when those two things overlap. 

If it were possible to get a good foot rub in the same building where one works, free of charge, any sane person would be doing that every single week. (I’d probably even come in on my days off just because.)

But it’s a safe bet that what most of us wouldn’t do is require that any or all of our coworkers accompany us on these trips to the hypothetical in-house massage parlour so they can pretend not to be morbidly distracted by the sight of us sorting our aching arches out as we talk turkey.

For the record, I’m all for casual dress Fridays and Monday morning wellness check-ins. 

But as long as we’re in a place of business, a professional setting or, indeed, any public place, some lines just should not be crossed — and, personally, I count “imposing the sight of my naked torso onto my colleagues” as one of those lines.

Just so we’re all on the same page, for anyone who spends any amount of time at all in an office where others are present, here are some other things that are definitively Not Okay:

1. Putting your feet (shod or otherwise) up onto furniture. 

Especially if it’s furniture that’s owned/used by a person who is not you.

2. Yelling.

If you’re on a call and the connection is fuzzy, take it outside. (If it really can’t be helped, pause the call and beg pardon from your neighbours. Give them the option to remove themselves to a quieter location for a few minutes.)

3. Playing music out loud.

As anyone with very specific needs for focus and concentration will tell you, it’s never as helpful for “setting a vibe” as you think it is.

Anyone who also has very specific tastes in music will additionally guarantee you that your deejay choices are never as good as you think they are.

4. Bringing and/or eating extremely pungent foods.

As a durian lover myself… don’t. Just… don’t.

5. Messaging “hi” or “hello” without any follow-up.

To be fair, it’s understandable that some people may lose their train of thought easily — hence their abrupt drop into silence — but for those on the receiving end, this particular style of flagging attention without any illumination can be extremely anxiety-inducing, but even in its best moments, it remains royally annoying. “Hi” what?!

As singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles famously belted: Say what you wanna say.

6. Wearing flip-flops with jeans.

This isn’t rude or offensive per se — it just looks terrible and while your criminal fashion choices are out of everyone’s hands while you’re on your own time, please keep that out of the office. 

ASK YOURSELF

There are many, many other items that belong on this list, but as we navigate new variances of workplace culture post-pandemic, there are certain to be far more others that fall into greyer areas of uncertainty. 

At the end of the day, the main thing to keep in mind isn’t whether a thing you want to do is “appropriate behaviour” or not. “Appropriate” is a shifting goalpost, after all — up until recently, jeans weren’t widely considered “appropriate” for the workplace either.

Instead, ask yourself: If I were in my coworker’s shoes, would I feel entirely comfortable with being subjected to this?

If you can’t wholeheartedly say “yes”, then you might have to postpone that Javanese massage for after the meeting instead.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Melissa Lee Suppiah is a deputy editor at TODAY where she oversees commentaries.