Is it rude to knit at work?
Recently, a county councilor in Wales was accused by a
colleague on Twitter of bringing the body “into disrepute” for knitting during
a virtual public meeting. The criticism has touched off a debate about whether
it is appropriate to pull out knitting needles in video huddles.
اضافة اعلان
Knitters say it is not the same as sneaking a phone under
the camera or scrolling the internet. Knitting, they say, sharpens their
attention, allowing them to focus more than they would with idle hands.
The response to the episode in Wales in January showed that
Rachel Garrick, a county councilor in Monmouthshire, wasn’t alone.
Garrick has been knitting since 2012 to help manage the pain
from chronic osteoarthritis and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a group of related
connective tissue disorders, even while doing her job as the head of
radiological consequences for the UK’s civil nuclear fleet.
“When I was essentially confined to a wheelchair or stuck in
bed,” she said, “it gave me something to do and focus on, which was really,
really, really helpful in terms of keeping myself sane and distracting myself
from what was some pretty horrific pain levels back then.”
Now, she said, knitting a simple project, such as a baby
blanket, helps her concentrate in meetings, she said.
And there is a reason: The fine-motor movement required for
knitting, crocheting, doodling or using a fidget spinner activates the same
parts of the brain used for focus, said John Ratey, an associate clinical
professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. So these activities really
do help to sharpen awareness. But other activities that require too much
concentration, like reading a social media feed or playing a game on a
smartphone, can push a person out of productivity and into unfocused multitasking.
“Being involved with something will make a person with
flagging attention be more attentive,” Ratey said. “You will turn on the
prefrontal cortex if you’re doing something like knitting.”
Because of those benefits, Garrick and others say,
workplaces should be more accepting of knitting as a method of focusing.
“Different people have different ways of managing tasks,
focus, concentration and getting the best performance out of themselves,” she
said. “And it’s really important to embrace that diversity and understand it
rather than try and have some really retrogressive approaches, which have
little imagination and only fit certain people who will fit inside a certain
shape box.”
Hands on needles, not the mouse
Like many in the hybrid work era, Erin Dreiling finds it far
too easy to click away from a video meeting. Once she opens her email, it is a
slippery slope to browsing the internet.
So she keeps her hands on her knitting needles instead of
the mouse. Dreiling, a senior marketing and communications manager at the
Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, said knitting keeps her attentive and
helps with her mild attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, whether she is in
a virtual meeting, watching TV or talking to a friend.
“It sort of locks my brain in,” Dreiling said.
A novice knitter would likely need some practice to reach
that point. Justin Harris, the president of the Knitting Guild of Greater
Buffalo, first taught himself the craft by watching YouTube videos while
working overnight shifts at the front desk of a hotel.
“I have ADHD, so I can’t sit still,” Harris said. “Like, I
constantly have to be doing something, and you really quickly run out of things
to do when you’re sitting at the front desk of a hotel.”
As he became more proficient, knitting became second nature.
Now that he is in a managerial position, he said, it keeps him levelheaded when
fielding customer complaints. Projects that he calls “vanilla knitting,” like
scarves or hats, are easy enough to do without looking down at the needles
while he’s in a meeting or reading emails.
When Harris moved to day shifts, the owner of the hotel
where he works initially was put off by his knitting. Once he explained that it
reduced stress and helped him focus, he said, the hotel’s owner understood.
Still, Harris said he has faced judgment for knitting in
public — both because people see it as rude and because they are surprised to
see a man doing it. But he remains grateful for the craft.
“As soon as I start knitting, I’m laser-focused on that one
person talking,” he said. “I can tell you how many rows I knit, and I can also
tell you everything that they just told me. It’s a big thing for me; it’s
helped me honestly advance in my career and both of the organizations I belong
to.”
Knitting at work can be ‘a minefield’Knitting was a part of Sheree Robinson’s coursework before
it became a hobby, having learned it while studying textiles. Now a knitwear
designer and lecturer at the University of the Arts London, Robinson realized
that knitting helped her concentrate during virtual meetings when she started
teaching in 2020.
“If I’m doing something actively and listening, I’m more
focused,” she said. “I think trying to focus without having anything to do, I
struggle.”
However, she worried that it would come across as rude —
even in the textiles industry — and always kept her knitting off screen. And
she is not comfortable doing it during in-person meetings. Sometimes, though,
she stitches away alongside her students as they work on projects during her
classes.
“It feels like a bit of a minefield, doing it in person at
work,” she said.
Robinson is one of many knitters who has had to explain the
hobby to colleagues, friends or family.
Growing up, Lisa Ben-Haim noticed that her mother could
never sit still while watching a movie or TV; she always had to be working on a
knitting project. Ben-Haim, an educational technologist at a school in Highland
Park, New Jersey, finally understood why after she took a knitting project to a
professional workshop.
“It needed just enough of my attention that I could still
pay attention to what was going on,” she said. “And then I realized all of a
sudden, ‘Wow, I’m paying more attention than I would if I was just sitting
there.’”
Ben-Haim recalled that a man once called her rude for
knitting during a speech at a conference. She noted that he had been typing on
his phone throughout the speech, which she considered an actual distraction.
She hasn’t faced any pushback in her current job for
knitting during workshops or meetings.
“I always try to bring it back to the student,” she said.
“Just like we would give a student anything they need in order to learn, that’s
what I need. If it’s disruptive, I will stop. If we’re doing something active,
I definitely put it down. It just has to be done with respect.”
Knitting in meetings, in lines and over coffee
Taylor Payne, who was diagnosed with ADHD after taking up
knitting, agreed that the hobby has helped her in her career and personal life.
She learned from a friend in 2014, when she took leave from her job to protest
police brutality in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting of Michael Brown, an
unarmed Black teenager.
Now, she said, she knits almost anywhere to help with
patience and focus: while waiting in lines, visiting with friends over coffee
and attending virtual meetings for her remote job as a service design
specialist for a fintech company.
“People sit in meetings and play with their phones
constantly,” said Payne, who co-founded the Yarn Mission, an organization that
gives Black people a healing activity to share and offers free knitting
materials and lessons.
Garrick, the councilor in Wales, has not felt comfortable
picking up her needles during full council meetings since the Twitter attack,
though she said she does so in smaller meetings with fellow members of the
Labor Party.
However, the episode prompted residents in her county to
start a knitting group, and Garrick spent the month of March raising money for
a charity called Versus Arthritis. She said she’s glad something positive — her
efforts to destigmatize knitting in the workplace — has come out of what could
have been an entirely unpleasant experience.
“There’s a very, very smooth flow to it, particularly when
you’re doing something very simple with it,” she said about knitting. “So
you’re in this flow, and it just calms your mind. It stops all those little
voices and ripples in your mind. There’s just this calmness, and with that
calmness comes this focus.”
Read more Odd and Bizarre
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
