Tuesday 4 September 2007

Office politics

As I sat at my comfortable, personalised desk this morning, sipping a Columbian coffee and nibbling a bit of cake that the office building had provided for us courtesy of Starbucks, I took to musing on the relative merits of the places I currently work.

On the one hand, I work up in Islington in a building that I am convinced used to be part of Holloway Prison (and, indeed, still boasts the barbed wire and high walls), has a central portion that looks like Alcatraz and is in an area where I'm convinced I will be mugged any day now. For no reason at all the temperature is constantly above 30 degrees (16 is my optimum) and there isn't a proper shop within a 10 minute walk.

On top of this, Old Boss has it in his head that freelancers mustn't have their own desks, so you never really know where your bum might land of a morning. There is also no cutlery, to the extent that Kev had to eat his Pot Noodle with a pencil on my first day. He is currently Keeper Of The Fork after we went on a mission to gather plastic implements to share between us.

I'm not sure I'd mind one of these issues on its own, but I've had to buy my own plate and glass and I've nowhere to keep it - and I'm certainly not going to be the loon on the Tube with the crockery.

On the other hand, there's the Richmond office, which is at the bottom of my hill. I need only leave the house 10 minutes before my day begins and I arrive to my own, lovely desk with everything exactly as I left it. We have sparkling water on tap - seriously! - and there's always real coffee and biscuits on offer downstairs. Today we had our freebie breakfast from Starbucks and David assures me that a trolley of donuts is often brought round of a morning.

I wonder if you can guess which place I like going to best? Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Omg, I'm CRYING with laughter at "Kev had to eat his Pot Noodle with a pencil" LOL

WillowC said...

It's true! It was a really stubby one, too, he was very brave.

Amanda said...

I want starbucks now :(