Office Gossip

For those of you who don’t know, I’m currently temping for the first time ever. Previously, I’ve always been a genuine member of staff. So I’m somewhat surprised at the number of people who look right through me, who aren’t interested in even finding out my name. I’m just another in a long line of ever-changing faces who sit in the same chair for a week, do some half-cocked work and then disappear never to be seen again. The sensation of being virtually anonymous, almost like a ghost drifting eerily between the kettle and the computer, is weird. I’m a little affronted by people’s behaviour, but at the same time it’s somewhat liberating. I don’t have to care about fitting in. I’m not at the very centre of what’s happening. I don’t have to play the game. I can just turn up, clock in seven and a half hours, work at my own pace and then go home.

I’m just data entering. It’s easy and mindless, but with one ear listening to those around me I’m reminded as to why I hate working for large organisations. Everyone is caught up in their own petty agendas whether it’s ensuring that they have enough of the particular pens they like, getting revenge over the bitch in accounts who jumped the queue for the photocopier, or even how it’s so unfair that the management have changed the brand of coffee available. As though it’s been done to personally spite them. The majority of people seem to consider their main function to argue with other departments or to get one over on the management.

Screwing over unrecognised directors who they’ve never even met could virtually be a national sport. The number of organisations it takes place at is incredible, as is the glee people participate with. As far as I can tell there are active attempts to get at least two senior members of staff fired to satisfy personal vendettas. If as much time was devoted to actually working rather than doing over colleagues, then I am certain these self-confessed “busiest people in the universe” would find they had far more hours in the day.

Of course not buggering off home at four-thirty would probably help too.

The most shocking thing, though, is the sheer inanity of the conversation. Witty banter is a far distant dream. It is sufficient to make you consider hacking out your ear drums with a biro. So, in the style of Michael Holden’s wonderful All Ears column in the Guardian Guide every Saturday here’s an example:

The first woman sits typing single fingered, barely paying attention to what she is doing. The second woman enters the room at a pace which is surprising for her size. Both are in their mid-twenties.

Second Woman: Oh my God! Oh my God!
First Woman (not looking up): What? What?
Second Woman: That Hosay Mourinho’s gone and left Chelsea, hasn’t he?
First Woman: Has he? Isn’t that funny?
Second Woman: Is it Hosay or Joesay? I dunno…
First Woman: Umm…
Me (fearing a protracted debate about this): It’s Jose.
Second Woman (looking at me as though she’s surprised I actually exist): Is it? Oh…
First Woman: I hate him.
Second Woman: I think he’s quite good looking. (Pause) Dunno what’ll happen now. Suppose he’ll find someone to look after it for him.
First Woman: Yeah. (She pauses and then goes back to typing.)
Second Woman (not giving up on the conversation): I didn’t see it coming. I’m shocked, really I am. Shocked.
First Woman: I don’t like football.
Second Woman: No, me neither.
First Woman: I suppose Craig’ll tell me about it later. He’ll be pleased. He hates him too.
Second Woman: Does he like football, then?
First Woman: Nah.

A couple of days later the following exchange took place between (incredibly) the same two people.

Both women are busy looking out the window.
Second Woman: What you doing at the weekend?
First Woman: Going up to Boston to see Craig’s Dad.
Second Woman: Is that where he lives?
First Woman: Yeah.
Second Woman: How is he?
First Woman: Good. He’s up and about again. Recovering.
Second Woman: Was he ill, then?
First Woman: Not really.
Second Woman: When you going?
First Woman: Tonight.
Second Woman: Tonight?
First Woman: Yeah. Craig says that if we get up tomorrow, in London, we won’t be arsed to go and we’ll just stay here and he really, really wants to see his Dad.
Second Woman: Where is it?
First Woman: Boston.
Second Woman: Boston?
First Woman: Yeah.
Second Woman: How long does it take to get there, then?
First Woman: I drove once and it took an hour and ten minutes. (What in? A jump-jet?)
Second Woman: NO! (I’d have to agree here.)
First Woman: Yeah. (No, really now, you didn’t.)
Second Woman: No.
First Woman: Yeah.
Second Woman: Where is it anyway? Scotland?
First Woman: Somewhere like that.

Holy fuck, people!!!

All of which has got me thinking about office space and one’s activities when at work. We used to have a spare room, but then Beck decided that she didn’t want to keep on her studio in New Cross. It was an extra expense and because it was either a short drive or fifteen minutes on the bus it was never really worth going to for an hour or so in the evening, or on a Sunday morning or whenever. She wanted a space she could use more frequently and more flexibly. So, we re-branded the spare room.

I used to write at the table downstairs, clearing away my stuff when we wanted to eat or needed it for something else. (I can’t actually think what else at the moment - a jigsaw perhaps?) But since I’ve decided to go on this course and generally speaking spend more time writing we cleared a corner of the studio, put a random little table (where did this come from?) and cleared some space on the shelves. I’m now fully set up with laptop on a couple of old u-shaped bits of wood to raise it up, space for either the external keyboard or a pad of paper for rough drafts, room on the shelves for my dictionary, reference notes and broken bits of IT kit. I’m good to go. The room is now known as the studio-office, but before long it’ll be the office-studio.

During the couple of months that Beck’s in Canada I’m going to be personalising my work station. I’ll be putting things on the wall, attaching amusing shit to my computer, but I’ll also, sub-consciously, be setting a routine for how I like to spend the day: what time I’ll make some tea; how frequently I get up to pace around thoughtfully; how much I talk to myself; whether it’s acceptable to break wind in the office-studio; what time I take my morning dump.

I’ll be putting paper, envelopes, ink cartridges in places that seem convenient to me, but probably aren’t. By the time she gets back I’m going to be quite set in my ways and will find it hard to get used to sharing my office. Whilst she, fresh from a large studio space with a panoramic view of the Rockies, will be planning on getting back into her old studio habits. We’re both going to have to do something we’re not very good at: compromise.

We’re going to end up developing our own micro-office politics. Wars will be fought over whose turn it is to make the coffee, who’s going to answer the ringing phone, why am I incapable of typing quietly and hasn’t she got the right edit of that four second video clip yet? Are we going to work to music or in silence? Wow, that’s going to create a whole apocalypse of its own - The Clash or Katie Melua? Elvis Costello or Burt Bacharch? Sly and the Family Stone or REM?

All that’s fine, really. We’re used to it. It’s human nature and besides we bicker incessantly at the best of times. If, though, you ever hear us arguing over the geographical location of Solihull kill us both immediately.

Please.