A tale of two offices

Ever worked somewhere with its own staff stash of Vitamin D tablets?

I asked on Instagram recently if anyone had any particularly hilarious-slash-horrifying stories about the places they’ve worked in and let me tell you, the responses did not disappoint. From rollerskating colleagues and Portakabins that were hotter than the sun, to workspaces that weren’t tall enough to stand up in and more than one (!) story about raw sewage, it’s fair to say that we put up with a lot when it comes to traditional office spaces.

Is it any wonder then that people are loathe to return to their old workplaces full time? Aside from the flexibility and autonomy that home- and hybrid-working brings, the physical environment of our workplace plays a huge part in shaping how we feel about what we do. In this first instalment of The Hot Desk, I’m sharing two stories about offices I’ve worked in, as well as some things those spaces taught me about working life and what I want mine to look and feel like.

One of the first offices I worked in was in the basement of a Georgian townhouse in the heart of a UNESCO heritage site. (I know. Truly, the only way is down from here.) This office was a subterranean warren of cool stone and oddly angled windows, with original fireplaces and chunks of ornate cornicing peppered throughout. Everything about it was delightfully haphazard, slightly scuffed and well-thumbed.

The part of the office that I worked in was affectionately known as ‘Middle Earth’, presumably due to the fact that it was really a re-purposed thoroughfare between the front office and the kitchen. There was an island of six desks in the middle, a well-loved sofa and a clattering hunk of a photocopier that was constantly churning out printing. One wall was stacked floor to ceiling with books and stationery, which acted as an informal lending library for staff (not that much of the stationery that was ‘borrowed’ ever made its way back).

It was a noisy, busy space, with people (and occasionally dogs) constantly coming and going. I would sit there with my Britney Spears mic on my head, answering the phones, taking deliveries and making endless cups of tea and feeling right at the very heart of it all. Walking through Middle Earth, people would always stop and say hello. That friendliness, however fleeting, made me feel seen. I felt like it mattered that I was there and that made me enjoy my job all the more. Being in that office space was a huge confidence boost.

At the same time, that cosy burrow wasn’t without its issues. At the end of the main corridor were separate, smaller offices for the most senior people in the organisation. Their doors were usually closed and only rarely did they stop in on the communal kitchen to make a coffee. It’s not like we were ever told that the back offices were off limits. The CEO didn’t have a massive DO NOT DISTURB sign on their door. All the same, facing a corridor of closed doors made it feel like there was an invisible line just outside Middle Earth which, as a junior-to-middling member of staff, I wasn’t quite allowed to cross.

That perceived disconnect between the levels of seniority is something that’s stuck with me in the places I’ve worked since. That’s not to say that I don’t think organisations and teams need structure; anyone who’s worked with a manager-in-name-only will know how tricky a lack of leadership can be. I also don’t believe that fully open plan offices are good (they’re terrible). But affording certain members of a team complete privacy while everyone else has to make do with taking difficult phone calls/crying/bitching/just having a breather in the toilets didn’t feel right then, and it still doesn’t now.

Which brings me on to office number two…

If my first office was a cosy, welcoming burrow, my next one was an end-of-days fall-out bunker. Also located in a basement, this open-plan dungeon was a windowless, strip-lit, ceiling-tiled nightmare. The air was so dry that people had nosebleeds and the organisation kept a stash of Vitamin D tablets on hand, ostensibly to keep rickets at bay.

It was small and cramped, with desks crammed in so close that you routinely risked smashing into the person behind you if slid your chair back with too much force. No one wants to chin themselves on their desktop monitor first thing on a Monday. Small talk with colleagues was actively discouraged and enforced by a mixture of side-eye and loud tutting. On one occasion, two colleagues were pointedly asked in front of everyone if they were “actually discussing any work or just chatting?”. It was quite the cauldron for a simmering potion of passive-aggression.

This no-talking rule was actually a blessing in disguise. Since scheduling a meeting meant talking, meetings came to symbolise respite from the bunker. When that desktop calendar pinged, we’d dash to the café upstairs, with its double height windows and view out onto a busy street. Meetings meant natural light, seeing other people, and a chance to talk at a volume higher than a whisper. In the summer, we had meetings outside as often as possible, even if it meant sitting with our coats on.

Unsurprisingly, working in this office also coincided with a period of the worst mental health I have ever experienced. I didn’t realise it at the time but spending eight to ten hours underground every day was directly linked to the increasing number of panic attacks and foggy clouds of exhaustion and depression I was suffering with. I did a lot of crying in the (basement) toilets of that office.

The crushing misery I associated with that office made me resent the job itself – even though at first I was enjoying what I was doing. I felt physically suffocated by that space and the culture it sustained. I left that job after just over a year.

These two very different offices taught me a lot about the ups and downs of workplace culture. They shaped what I know about how and where I work best. There are obvious things (windows and ventilation being absolute non-negotiables) but also more intangible lessons that I’ve learned about myself from working in those spaces: the importance of feeling seen, having moments of connection and conversation with your colleagues, finding the balance between having privacy but not being cut off or completely inaccessible. All of these things are directly impacted by the physical spaces that we work in, as much as the people we work with.

I don’t know if any workspace really gets all those things spot-on. Even the relative freedom and flexibility of working from home doesn’t manage to tick all the boxes all the time. Working in my flat, I can talk and play music and dance around if I want to (and I do). I’ve got a couple of plants around me and usually a nice-smelling candle on the go. There’s enough space on my desk to have a cup of tea, a glass of water and a snack within easy reach. There’s a window which I spend a lot of time looking out of, watching the two massive Persian cats that live across from us chilling on their balcony. These small luxuries make working from home feel like a world away from any underground bunker I’ve been stuck in.

Working from home has come with its own lessons, too. A big thing I’ve learned about the way I work is that this gal needs accountability. My home workspace may have a window and just about enough room to swing a Persian cat, but I still need a post-it note above my desk reminding me that ‘motivation follows action’. I still need to manage myself, coach myself out of my daily wtf-am-i-doing spirals. I still need the creative confidence boost that comes from collaboration with others. It’s not a basement but it’s by no means my perfect work environment.

So maybe the biggest lesson is that we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that there’s such a thing as a perfect office or workspace. There are good, bad and downright ugly spaces to work in, for sure. There is so much more employers could be doing to create better, healthier workspaces, whether people are using them five days a week or five days a month. What we know now as the ‘office’ has changed a lot in the last five years. Some think it may not even exist in the next five. But what we learn about the work we do, our own wellbeing and how those two things fit together are undoubtedly shaped by where we spend 40+ hours a week. My hope is that, whatever those spaces look like in future, they can be a place for connection and creativity, not simply clocking-in. And please, dear god, make sure they have windows.

With every instalment of The Hot Desk, I’ll also share some things I’ve been reading/watching/listening to recently that I think you might like too. I don’t have a name for this segment of the newsletter yet so if you’ve got a good pun or witty name you think I should use, please let me know…

• Continuing with the theme of this month’s newsletter, Emma Gannon’s recent interview with Julia Hobsbawm about her book The Nowhere Office is a really interesting chat about the future of the spaces we work in.

• Something I think we’ve all realised: modern offices are not the one when it comes to encouraging creative thinking.

• I recently read Madeleine Dore’s book I Didn’t Do The Thing Today: On Letting Go of Productivity Guilt and it was like a reassuring hug. I also spoke about it for the March edition of 5 Things if you want to know more.

That’s all for this first instalment of The Hot Desk but I’ll be back with you very soon. In the meantime, I’d love to know about your own office tales. You can email me, leave a comment or come over and say hello on Instagram.

See you next month!

Rebecca