On offices
Created | Updated Sep 13, 2008
Jobs are like the 137 bus. You can wait for months and then three come along at once.
The choice with the 137 buses is easier though - you jump on the emptiest one.
Jobs are not quite so simple. They don't all go in the same direction or end up at the same destination.
Like buses however they are a welcome sight, and I am reliably informed that journeys of any kind are character building.
The skills I have acquired during the nine months of the 'terminal temping in between visits to the job centre' game, mean that I can now do all sorts of things that I never knew I needed or wanted to. How useful. Rather like the quail's egg cooker in the kitchen department in John Lewis; an object I hadn't realised I couldn't possibly live without. How have I survived thus far?
My new and really useful skills mean that
I can now answer multiple incoming telephone calls simultaneously and divert everyone via Delhi.
"Hello this is Office Important Inc can you hold on please?"
"Hello this is Office Important Inc can you hold on please?"
"Hello this is Office Important Inc can you hold on please?"
"Hello this is Office Important Inc can you hold on please?"
Actually four incoming calls was the most I could manage before the board blew up and I never really got the hang of the buttons. Hardly surprising then that the incoming callers were not best pleased; they wanted to speak to someone and invariably ended up in a holding bay over India. On the rare occasion that I managed to bring anyone back through the switchboard Star-gate, nine times out of ten the person that they wanted to speak to was out anyway.
Why do we have switchboards? Surely one line makes far more sense. If it’s busy you call back.
Doctor's surgeries happily exist with one line and I bet they're busier than most businesses.
Secondly, on the skills front, I have three new friends to phone when I have to play the proof reading game. Accuracy in spelling and grammar is a skill more suited to readers than to wanabee writers whose inflated egos allow mere skimming of work penned by others.
Most offices don't have editors, which is rather annoying
Finally, I have learnt how to ‘manage my time’. An office expression for Parkinson’s theory ‘Work expands to fill the time allocated for the completion of the job’.
Odd that, Girls have been doing it for years, we have to, we have boys to look after. Then one day, hey presto! Mr Parkinson decides it’s a theory. No, Mr Parkinson, it’s a fact.
I’ll let you into a secret, people don’t actually do much work in offices. You may rant and disagree and say
‘She doesn’t know what she’s talking about!’
I don’t care. They really don’t. Not when you compare them to hospitals or factories or florists (well I had to get that in) or restaurants or pubs or any service industry. I would include the building industry but the tea breaks sort of outweigh the effort there.
First there’s the ‘Good morning, cup of coffee, what did you do last night?’ half hour. Followed by the checking the emails, making sure all the machines are turned on and have enough ink etc (a blue skill I have no intention of acquiring. I am a girl. I have enough skills and the only new ones I would contemplate honing would be pink ones).
Then there may be a random flurry of activity in the form of ’meetings’.
meetings necessitate more coffee and, in posh offices or when people who the company is trying to impress attend, biscuits. Generally custard creams and bourbons. Does anybody truly like either? Or is it just because they are cheap? Cadbury’s triple chocolate indulgence would surely better woo the clients, but hey ho who am I to say?
After the meetings the lunch rota kicks in. By half past two when all the staff have either been to Boots or the wine bar, depending on status, conversation drifts to evening plans and work is firmly consigned to the 'Oh my gosh I've got so much to do tomorrow' bin.
Then when one finally understands the nature of the work that has to be done and can at last retstart the important business of 'daydreaming', the insidious bug known as 'Office Politics' attacks.
The choice with the 137 buses is easier though - you jump on the emptiest one.
Jobs are not quite so simple. They don't all go in the same direction or end up at the same destination.
Like buses however they are a welcome sight, and I am reliably informed that journeys of any kind are character building.
The skills I have acquired during the nine months of the 'terminal temping in between visits to the job centre' game, mean that I can now do all sorts of things that I never knew I needed or wanted to. How useful. Rather like the quail's egg cooker in the kitchen department in John Lewis; an object I hadn't realised I couldn't possibly live without. How have I survived thus far?
My new and really useful skills mean that
I can now answer multiple incoming telephone calls simultaneously and divert everyone via Delhi.
"Hello this is Office Important Inc can you hold on please?"
"Hello this is Office Important Inc can you hold on please?"
"Hello this is Office Important Inc can you hold on please?"
"Hello this is Office Important Inc can you hold on please?"
Actually four incoming calls was the most I could manage before the board blew up and I never really got the hang of the buttons. Hardly surprising then that the incoming callers were not best pleased; they wanted to speak to someone and invariably ended up in a holding bay over India. On the rare occasion that I managed to bring anyone back through the switchboard Star-gate, nine times out of ten the person that they wanted to speak to was out anyway.
Why do we have switchboards? Surely one line makes far more sense. If it’s busy you call back.
Doctor's surgeries happily exist with one line and I bet they're busier than most businesses.
Secondly, on the skills front, I have three new friends to phone when I have to play the proof reading game. Accuracy in spelling and grammar is a skill more suited to readers than to wanabee writers whose inflated egos allow mere skimming of work penned by others.
Most offices don't have editors, which is rather annoying
Finally, I have learnt how to ‘manage my time’. An office expression for Parkinson’s theory ‘Work expands to fill the time allocated for the completion of the job’.
Odd that, Girls have been doing it for years, we have to, we have boys to look after. Then one day, hey presto! Mr Parkinson decides it’s a theory. No, Mr Parkinson, it’s a fact.
I’ll let you into a secret, people don’t actually do much work in offices. You may rant and disagree and say
‘She doesn’t know what she’s talking about!’
I don’t care. They really don’t. Not when you compare them to hospitals or factories or florists (well I had to get that in) or restaurants or pubs or any service industry. I would include the building industry but the tea breaks sort of outweigh the effort there.
First there’s the ‘Good morning, cup of coffee, what did you do last night?’ half hour. Followed by the checking the emails, making sure all the machines are turned on and have enough ink etc (a blue skill I have no intention of acquiring. I am a girl. I have enough skills and the only new ones I would contemplate honing would be pink ones).
Then there may be a random flurry of activity in the form of ’meetings’.
meetings necessitate more coffee and, in posh offices or when people who the company is trying to impress attend, biscuits. Generally custard creams and bourbons. Does anybody truly like either? Or is it just because they are cheap? Cadbury’s triple chocolate indulgence would surely better woo the clients, but hey ho who am I to say?
After the meetings the lunch rota kicks in. By half past two when all the staff have either been to Boots or the wine bar, depending on status, conversation drifts to evening plans and work is firmly consigned to the 'Oh my gosh I've got so much to do tomorrow' bin.
Then when one finally understands the nature of the work that has to be done and can at last retstart the important business of 'daydreaming', the insidious bug known as 'Office Politics' attacks.
