10 Antisocial Uses of Communal Areas
I work in a so-called “Managed Office”. This is where my company leases a number of rooms in a large office building, and gets use of the communal spaces, reception, car-park etc. – the idea is to get all the facilities of a large corporate office without the overhead. I say so-called, becaues I’ve never actually seen these people manage the place at all!
There are some huge disadvantages to working in a place like this. One of them is dress codes – some companies in the building may have a different code than others, which can sometimes look unprofessional when you have visitors…
Another disadvantage is that you’re sharing the communal areas – kitchen, break room, post room etc. – with maybe 100 people over whom you have absolutely no authority. In fact, you don’t even have a way to raise issues. Without futher ado, here are the 10 worst abuses of the communal areas in my office…
10 – Cooking Smelly Food
This is one of the traditional ones, even in normal offices. You can’t complain about it, since the person cooking the food clearly likes it – and probably thinks your dinner stunk even worse!
To be honest, I don’t really care about the smells. Yes, it’s annoying to go in to the kitchen to make some tea, and discover it smells of curry – but it’s better than some of the terrible flavour air fresheners that the facility likes to use!
9 – Listening to Loud Music
I’ve never understood this one at all. There’s a company in the same office building that’s hired a number of fairly junior staff members – they can’t be much older than 18, if that – and they seem to love spending their lunch breaks playing the loudest music they can find on their iPod speakers.
This time though, it’s not the volume of the music that affects me – it only takes a couple of minutes to make a cuppa, and my eardrums can handle it. No, instead it’s the choice of music – can anyone stand “Never Miss a Beat” by the Kaiser Chiefs – the scary thing is that I suspect these kids actually subscribe to the philosophy!
8 – Hiding from your Boss
Hiding from your boss is really the best way to avoid getting too much work on your plate – after all, if he can’t find you, he can’t give you more work to do. Similarly, if he knows you weren’t in the office, he won’t expect you to have read the emails either. I can’t fault that – but why hide in the break room? It’s the first place to look!
7 – Building a Fort
Why would you build a fort in the office break room? I’ve never seen it happen yet, but I’m sure it’s not far away… I did once find twice the number of chairs, and a few spare tables, but I was too busy (making my tea) to have time to rearrange them appropriately.
6 – Growing Cannabis
Again, it hasn’t happened yet – but there were two completely random poinsettias there over Christmas. I’m quite a fan of pleasant decoration in an office, but the most frustrating thing is that the so-called office managers didn’t think to organise any kind of care or maintenance for them – so when we came back in January one was dead and the other very sad looking.
5 – Doing your Laundry
Actually, this one’s my fault… I managed to spill coffee all down my shirt, and ended up standing in the kitchen wearing nothing but my coat and trousers, washing my shirt in the sink.
I know, it’s totally anti-social, but in my defence it was still 6:45am, so I was unlikely to be interrupted, and I really didn’t want to go to my important-ish customer meeting with a stained shirt.
4 – Storing Dirty Dishes
This one gets my goat. It only takes 30 seconds to wash a plate, but some people refuse to do their own. Luckily, I’ve never spotted the culprits bringing the dishes into the room or leaving them in the sink… I suspect they’re too embarrassed to walk off and leave them when someone else is there to see it.
The most frustrating thing about it is when the sink’s so full you can’t even wash up your own plate.
3 – Meeting with Customers
In a normal office, any room – even a break-room – can be reserved for one-off use for a meeting with customers. You can email around the company, and let everyone know that a Microsoft representative will be coming – and not to disturb anyone for a particular period.
In a building like ours though, booking a meeting room costs extra, and you can’t ever book the communal areas for exclusive use. So having a meeting with an important customer or supplier is the worst kind of foolhardiness – you’ve got no idea who might walk in at any time; it could even be one of the Know Nothing Crew!
2 – Shooting a Publicity Video
Marketing departments love to organise publicity stunts – brochures, videos, webcasts – but never seem to like to think about reality. Let’s face it, a film showing a room that’s a complete mess and full of dirty dishes is never going to make a good impression. Somehow though, the marketting department always wants to show scenes from the break room, not just from the offices where we really work.
1 – Holding a One-to-One Meeting
Top of the list – the worst thing that people seem to use our communal areas for. Almost every week, I walk in on yet another one-to-one, or appraisal – whether it’s one of the Know Nothing Crew getting assessed for their performance, or lack thereof – or someone getting corrective training on making sales calls.
I know why they do it. Booking a meeting room costs money, and it seems a waste to do that for just two people to have a meeting. You can’t just stay in your normal office, because there’s always people there that will know everyone being discussed, and you can’t have an honest appraisal in that atmosphere.
However, in the end, it works out badly for everyone. The person getting the appraisal is continually interrupted by strangers walking in to make cups of tea and coffee. People from the same company as the person being appraised know about the meeting, so they can’t get any hot drinks while the meeting is going on. Finally, people from other companies like your truly feel embarassed to go into the room for a drink – and often end up hearing un-necessary details about other people’s working lives.
So come on people – leave the communal areas alone, and plan your meetings properly!
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