Can I just point out how much I hate where I work?

13:16 / 23.10.03

Apparently no one could hear me state my opinion on Gareth Gates and for some reason I cared.

I realise that I need to get the hell out of here right now. Who wants to tell me how much they hate offices?

13:39 / 23.10.03

I hate offices. even more than I hate being grindingly poor. hence the 'lifestyle'.

Sorry hon, but I've just come back from supervision with my 'boss' and I *love* my 'job'.

13:47 / 23.10.03

Depends on the office, really. We do have our contingent of Gareth Gates fans, but plenty of other people who laugh at them. The most annoying person is a terribly posh chap who sits near me and waffles on about huntin', shootin' etc but he's pretty self-aware and generally trying to stir people up so it's better to just pat him on the head and press the 'ignore' button.

In a fine example of management insanity he's been given the job of creating a magazine about technology for women. It's hysterically bad, from what I've seen of the proposals, so it'll be entertaining to watch what happens now.

13:54 / 23.10.03

er, is it desperately ignorant/simplistic of me to imagine that a 'magazine about technology for women' would be a project to give to, er, a woman?

Mourne Kransky

14:08 / 23.10.03

I never had an office all the years I was a nurse and always quite fancied one. There would just be common areas on and off the ward where we'd mill about and chat and do work but there were always lots of people coming and going and nobody had anything resembling their own space. Never any privacy to surf the 'Lith or fall asleep in your chair. It was fine and sort of "office-like" in some ways.

Then I had an office to share with one other person, in this and my last two jobs. In all three cases, my office-mate was or became one of my very best friends, so I can't really relate to the grief you are being subject to Anna. If that one other person, in any of those three situations, had been some dried up old anal retentive prune without any humour or tendency towards subversion, I would have had to kill them and dispose of their sawn up body parts in Tesco's biodegradable carrier bags.

Then I'd have pm'ed you to encourage you to apply for the vacancy.

14:17 / 23.10.03

er, is it desperately ignorant/simplistic of me to imagine that a 'magazine about technology for women' would be a project to give to, er, a woman?

Well, yes. I mean, I wouldn't say it had to be a woman - after all, Iwrite mainly for men and I'd be a bit miffed if someone suggested I shouldn't, but you have a point. It's the particular old-codger blokes they've picked, and the fact that no women seem to have been involved at any stage, that makes it so nuts. So we have a colour scheme that looks like a tampon ad, and the most partronising rot about 'work life balance' and using your personal organiser to make your children's school lunches. Sheesh.

I'm just looking forward to watching it bomb.

Gypsy Lantern

14:19 / 23.10.03

I realise that I need to get the hell out of here right now.

You'll be heartened to know that I hate the place where you work as well. I was hating the place where you work several years ago, and I still hate it today.

14:25 / 23.10.03

You'll be heartened to know that I hate the place where you work as well

Good grief, how small is this place? It's like we all work in the same office, and just never look over the partitions to see that there are other Barbe-folk here.

Bengali in Platforms, it's your turn to make the tea.

14:25 / 23.10.03

So we have a colour scheme that looks like a tampon ad, and the most partronising rot about 'work life balance' and using your personal organiser to make your children's school lunches

Please keep me in touch with this, Ariadne, I think I *need* to know what happens to this. what's it called, 'Ladies And Computers(they're not scary, you can do you shopping on them)'.

14:29 / 23.10.03

Milk and one sugar? Coffee anyone?

(scarily appropriate as whenever i was doing shitty office temping, i spent as much time doing the tea round as was humanly possible.)

Just nipping out for some biccies...

14:30 / 23.10.03

Under gagging orders and threat of being dismembered, I can't tell you what it's called yet. But you're not far off.

I'll keep you up to date on developments, I promise!

Quantum

14:30 / 23.10.03

Fuck, words fail me- let me explain.

I just got back today after some time off sick, long enough (five days) to adjust to real life and forget how to accept the office environment as normal (or even bearable).
The Office was on last night and their building looks like ours and some of the staff have an eerie similarity to the caricatures on that programme.
I came back to find the place even more grindingly soul destroyingly dull than I remembered and that I had too much urgent work to apply my usual balm of a decent delve into Barbelith.

So right now I'm hating, hating hating work.
Fuck it, I'm off home, balls to the consequences. Thanks Anna!

14:39 / 23.10.03

So good to hear you all suffer too. I've had 3 days off and also found the office shocking when I got here. It's not that the people are inhuman or particularly stupid even but god, I just hate office environments. I mean who does want to hear about Gareth Gates ever. I totally blame popbitch. Also my computer has only really just started working and I have an hour left- this sounds good but is actually mind numbingly boring.

14:40 / 23.10.03

Ari, yeah, I presumed as much. *g* but it's not going to stop me amusing myself for months by guessing...

"Girls and Gigabytes"?
"Women's Geekly"?

14:42 / 23.10.03

"Women's Geekly"?

LOL. I'd buy that. Just ask Xoc.

Smoothly

14:42 / 23.10.03

I'm a bit with Xoc on this one, in that I don't really understand how anyone could hate an office enviorment that much.
I worked in an office for 6 years until I got made redundant in August. On the first day of my redundancy I got up, looking forward to a day of doing exactly what I pleased and not even having to think about work. I put on some comfortable clothes, stuck the kettle on, switched on the TV, and sat down to check my emails. Grinning to myself a 'This is the life for me!' grin, it occurred to me that I was doing exactly the same things I'd be doing at work.
I mean, offices aren't exactly salt mines are they? Maybe my place of work was exceptional, but you all get a comfy chair, hot beverages, friendly faces, Barbelith etc, don't you?

Honestly, kids today...

14:48 / 23.10.03

Yes but you see, well, I rather like to be busy without the hassle of talking to a load of people whose lives I'm just not all that interested in. I don't like sitting here all day. I don't want to listen to the loudest person making snap judgements all day long or know about that girl's boyfriend's Quad Bike.

Mourne Kransky

14:57 / 23.10.03

Ah, there's the rub. I could talk for hours to workmates about their boyfriends and their bikes.

Mourne Kransky

14:59 / 23.10.03

And (please don't hate me) but I used to have Gareth gates wallpaper on my computer (for a few weeks anyway) in my last office.

Kit-Cat Club

15:02 / 23.10.03

I don't like the place where you work either, Anna de L. Have had some truly shocking office jobs, though, and that one wasn't the worst by a long chalk.

Don't mind this one, because they have no concept of internet abuse and so I can get away with murder (doing my proof-reading during slow periods, on Barbelith the whole time, etc. Except today, when I have been rushed off my feet, but that's not so bad every once in a while.)

The worst thing is the incessant chit-chat about babies, pregnancy, etc. I avoid much of this by talking to myself and swearing at my computer - this means that people tend to leave me alone, can't imagine why. And I sustain myself with thoughts of libraries.

15:02 / 23.10.03

Home time! I'm off to swap this chair at a computer for .. another chair at a computer. I believe there's spaghetti to be scoffed too, so ta-ra everyone.

Sax

17:24 / 23.10.03

I'm in a minority here, but I like my office. But then again, I'm Supreme Ruler and Dictator-for-Life of it, so I would, wouldn't I? I have a nice black computer console from which I plot the poisoning of tens of thousands of innocent minds; I have a set of vampire teeth, a Minnie the Minx statue and a load of condoms. Every afternoon I instigate a sing-a-long (today was My Boomeran Won't Come Back). We have tea and toast in the mornings and Kit-Kats in the afternoon. I am feared but ultimately loved. What's not to like?

Fist Fun

18:24 / 23.10.03

I'm back working in an office for the first time in about six months. Vending machines. The canteen. Open plan layout. The whole environment just isn't very nice. Even though the work is great. Glad I shan't be doing it for too long.

mondo a-go-go

18:24 / 23.10.03

Hahaha! Gleeeeee! I'm not in that office anymore! This still brightens my day...

It didn't used to be so bad, though, or I'd have never stuck it out as long as I did. You do have my empathy, Ms de L. Are you still sat at the same place you were when you started working there? Sheesh. No wonder you're going nuts. Those people drove me nuts, and I was at the opposite end of the floor!

19:24 / 23.10.03

As you may have guessed a number of 'lithers know my workplace rather intimately.

Yeah, I'm still stuck in the same place but instead of lurking on the fringes I got moved in to the middle so I have insanity on all sides. I am consoled by the presence of two relatively sane and lovely people while feeling terror as the two female loudmouths attack me from both sides. Erk. *bash*head*against*wall. I love the I.T. guy though, he's such a fucking bitch

Slim

01:13 / 24.10.03

I work in the collections department for a large regional bank. Very bad office, very very very very bad job.

angel

04:15 / 24.10.03

I too know the pain of the "men, marriage, mortgages and babies" conversations, but this has been softened recently by my working from home. I do miss talking to people and the exercise you get just by going to work, but other than that the ability to wear what I want, when I want with no fear of judgement or criticism is lovely. As is the fact that I no longer have to deal with people whose inanity just makes me want to slap them.

Gypsy Lantern

11:04 / 24.10.03

Those people drove me nuts, and I was at the opposite end of the floor!

You used to sit in my old seat didn't you? Best seat in the house that one, nobody could see a damn thing that you were doing. Not that I would ever exploit such a scenario, of course.

I love the I.T. guy though, he's such a fucking bitch

Depending on what IT guy you're talking about, you occasionally see his dad naked on television - a fearsome spectacle.

Cherry Bomb

11:15 / 24.10.03

Office jobs aren't for me, unless my "boss" is on Barbelith a great portion of the day herself and doesn't mind if I AIM my boyfriend from the computer...

Me, I like working as a teacher and not really in an office. I really like my job. Mind you, I earn pratically *nothing*, but I like my job...

Quantum

11:27 / 24.10.03

I'm fascinated by this big Barbelith haven you all hate, what is it you're supposed to be doing in this hellhole?
And I still hate the office as much today as yesterday, stinky poo.

11:41 / 24.10.03

Basically I sit at a desk and enter BBC7 programmes in to the computer... if the BBC provide the information. I've got the second quarterly information through which is a 2046 page Excel spreadsheet and I can now enter 98% of the author information in to the database. The worst programme is The Mary Whitehouse experience because it has no series information so I can't label it properly but it does have about 7 writers. Another reason to hate David Baddiel... they just fall in to your lap.

A couple of weeks ago Russell T. Davies rang the girl who sits behind me, I showed great restraint by not picking up the phone and yelling about Dr. Who and Dark Season.

Quantum

12:23 / 24.10.03

BBC7? Fuck, how many BBCs are there now? Sounds insanely dull, unless you are into that sort of thing...
Sounds as boring as local government.

Sax

12:54 / 24.10.03

I just had to give a presentation to my department about a new magazine we're launching that means more work for everyone.

Now they all hate me.