Tea matters (130/365)

[white_hart]

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.

Comments

[chiasmata]

Yes! We have a new building happening (allegedly), and the architects apparently have no real idea of how office buildings work. In some ways, anything would be better than the cupboard I currently work in (when it’s not a pandemic), but equally, a glass-walled stand-up meeting room and nowhere to take a private phone call? Jeez.

[lexin]

That was something else where I used to work - nowhere to take private phone calls. And most of the occupants of the building were lawyers. It just didn't work. Every time you left the office area to go to the loo, the corridors and stairwells had at least one person, sometimes more than one person, on their mobile phone.

[nineveh_uk]

Or even confidential work phone calls. On yes, they say, let's have lots of lovely shared office and open plan and no meeting rooms. Well, I like my office mates and can make 95% of work phone calls in their presence because it's all data they have access to even though it's not always ideal. But DPA exists and sometimes I need to go and steal my boss's officdl which is hardly ideal.

[serriadh]

This will be even better when we're doing "hybrid" model which will involve being in a Teams meeting in a shared office space.

[nineveh_uk]

I can't wait!