Lifestyle

Why punch the clock when you can punch your coworker?

When Shayne Jardine, a 24-year-old junior broker at a commodities firm in downtown Manhattan, would take the office’s lunch orders, fellow junior broker Paul Civitano gave very specific instructions for his sandwich — turkey, lettuce and tomato.

But Jardine always came back with the wrong sandwich — not once or twice, but 17 times over the course of one month, by Civitano’s count.

“It was a big pain in the butt. I’m really picky about the way I eat,” says Civitano, 26, adding that the constant mix-ups made him “livid.” “Every single time it was wrong. There’s just a certain limit — you’re hungry, you’re working, you’re busy, you’re tired. I wanted my food the way I wanted it, and he couldn’t perform that.”

Counters Jardine, “The first time, I think they messed up and got him the wrong sandwich. [After] the stink he put on, I just kind of wanted to mess with him after that.”

To goose the friendly rivalry, he ordered things he knew Civitano would hate — roast beef, chipotle mayo, spinach, banana peppers. “I was just trying to get this guy to live a little,” he shrugs.

Usually Jardine and Civitano’s retaliation options would be limited to stewing in passive aggression or an HR-mediated sit-down. But when the new Esquire Network show “White Collar Brawlers” offered the chance to throw a punch instead, the two couldn’t resist using their intra-office rivalry to relish in the competitive thrill and physical test of a boxing match. (Their fight airs Tuesday at 10 p.m.)

The series takes six pairs of male colleagues and follows them as they train for six weeks at boxing gyms to finally work out their differences in a decidedly non-HR-approved way — three rounds in the ring.

Producers based the concept for the show on the Web series “White Collar Brawler,” in which two lifelong friends and co-workers — one who felt inferior to the other — decided to train to box in order to prove something to each other. Though a similar show, “Bully Beatdown,” aired on MTV from 2009 to 2012, Esquire Network wanted to focus “Brawlers” more on the training, not just the fight.

“We felt like there was some sort of cathartic release. We live in a world where challenging someone to a fight just doesn’t happen very often anymore,” says Matt Hanna, head of original programming for the network. “We thought this was a cool way for them to find another side of themselves that work wasn’t necessarily providing for them.”

But although it might make for good reality TV, workplace experts — and workers — are doubtful of its usefulness for resolving conflict. Just 11 percent of workers have been angered by a co-worker to the point they felt like striking him or her, but didn’t, according to a recent poll by workplace communications firm The Marlin Company.

“Most people find that boxing each other actually exacerbates the conflict and can lead to further trauma between them,” says Meredith Fuller, psychologist and author of “Working With Bitches.” “Simplistic recipes for fixing conflict may merely send the conflict further underground and have longer-term implications for the success of the firm.”

“You certainly don’t want conflict to play out in the workforce, and if employees are going to take it outside the workforce, you want them to resolve it in a constructive, healthy matter,” adds Greg Giangrande, executive vice president and chief human resources officer at Time Inc. “For a reality TV series, I kind of get why that could be interesting, because we all spend so much time working. People like seeing what they live day-to-day play out.”

The contestants at least say that after enduring a few bloody noses, they left the ring with a new respect for their opponent — even if friendly workplace jabbing continues. “There’s always going to be a little bit of beef, rivalry — that’s how our personalities work,” Jardine says.

Andrew Devine — a financial planner at a consumer goods company in midtown Manhattan who appeared on the show last month — beat his co-worker and former roommate, Ryan Sainsott, in the ring, but likewise came out respecting him. Devine, who was holding a grudge against Sainsott over a subletter that cost them $13,000 on the apartment they used to share, says they’ve now buried the hatchet.

“It wasn’t so much the physical act that settled the beef — it was really going through this experience and coming out on top, getting through it,” says Devine, 27.

While on “Brawlers” the conflict that leads men to throw punches is usually mild, that might be different if the contestants were female: Women experience more discontent in the workplace because they tend to take issues personally, according to John Gray, author of “Work With Me” and “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.”

“Men tend to depersonalize relationships in the workplace by focusing on the task. [A woman] has a greater tendency to take it personally,” Gray says.

Experts say lack of communication is a huge source of workplace conflict, even from seemingly simple things like who is supposed to answer the phone or greet customers. Other common fights can stem from staffers who are consistently late to meetings, failure to secure a promotion, lack of acknowledgment for efforts or even petty quarrels.

“I’ve seen people fight about how loud someone chews gum or talks on the phone or laughs,” Giangrande says. “Those things are really petty, but they’re sometimes symptomatic of bigger problems.”

And while normal workplace conflict happens everywhere — in both big cities and rural areas — overall stress and competitive work environments are heightened in places like New York.

“In bigger cities there can be more urgency, stress, busyness, shortcut communications and less physical space that can lead to greater conflict,” Fuller says.

But, while solving conflict with a right hook may be tempting, don’t expect your next HR workshop to include boxing gloves.

“It’s certainly not something I’m going to be adopting anytime soon,” Giangrande says. Agrees Fuller, “I have concerns about regressing people even further than they already are!”

Still, there can be benefits from going a round or two in the ring. Dec. 3 contestant Anthony Hartzog, a 27-year-old client services desktop engineer at IT solutions firm Abacus Group LLC in midtown Manhattan, joined the show to motivate his friend and co-worker Sajjad Bacchus, 27, to get into shape. Both saw results in the workplace.

Bacchus, who lost 26 pounds for the fight and 35 pounds to date, found he’s more confident as a result of his trimmer figure: “I’m more focused, I have more confidence in myself when dealing with clients.”

And Hartzog — known to hang up on new employees in frustration when training over the phone takes longer than expected — found he’s more patient since going through boxing. “We had a new hire, he asked me a lot of questions,” he says. “I didn’t yell at him or pressure him to do any task he wasn’t ready for.”