white_hart (
white_hart) wrote2021-05-10 07:15 pm
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Tea matters (130/365)
The trouble with architects is that they seem to see buildings as primarily artistic, and not functional. Which is why every time we have a meeting about our new building it ends up overrunning with lots of people asking questions such as:
Where are people supposed to make tea?
Will there be a quiet space for people to sit and eat lunch?
If the kitchen is in the open foyer area, how do we make sure that people don't take other people's food, or personal mugs, or wine that's cooling for receptions? And who is going to tidy things up when (inevitably) people don't put their cups in the dishwasher?
Yes, but really, tea is actually important, and it just feels like it's been shoved in here as an afterthought. And no, saying "but there will be a cafe in the building" doesn't help, because who wants to pay through the nose for a teabag and some indifferently hot water?
And that is why this afternoon's committee meeting overran by 45 minutes and left me incapable of spending the rest of the day doing anything other than filing my email. Which, to be fair, did need doing.
Where are people supposed to make tea?
Will there be a quiet space for people to sit and eat lunch?
If the kitchen is in the open foyer area, how do we make sure that people don't take other people's food, or personal mugs, or wine that's cooling for receptions? And who is going to tidy things up when (inevitably) people don't put their cups in the dishwasher?
Yes, but really, tea is actually important, and it just feels like it's been shoved in here as an afterthought. And no, saying "but there will be a cafe in the building" doesn't help, because who wants to pay through the nose for a teabag and some indifferently hot water?
And that is why this afternoon's committee meeting overran by 45 minutes and left me incapable of spending the rest of the day doing anything other than filing my email. Which, to be fair, did need doing.
no subject
Our latest architectural brilliance is a building where the stairs aren't quite wide enough for two people to walk up comfortably. They thought this would be fine because it's a sort of airy open-plan sort of building with a central atrium (what is it with architects and atria?) and people would naturally use one staircase for going up and the other for going down. Goodness knows how it meets fire regs.
(Yes, we could run a kitty, but then we'd have people wanting to pay pro-rata for how often they're in the office and people wanting to pay the same as the dairy-milk people when they're one of a few who need almond milk etc. etc. etc. and whoever was in charge of the kitty would lose the will to live.)
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Ours is also going to be an airy building with a central atrium. Apparently they're "taking inspiration from college quads"...
no subject