Open Plan Offices

And so I am finally the last person left in the office. All goes quiet. Peace and calm descends.

I never realised how difficult it is to work in an open plan office before coming to this job. At my last work I shared an office with four people and I didn't find them distracting at all. When I first moved to this job I had an office to myself in the top of a building that was infested with mice (never saw one but they left poo deposits behind the keyboard every night). There were several other projects working out of the building so if you needed a chat you could go and disturb someone else. The only major issue with this space was that I wasn't allowed a key to the front door so if I arrived earlier than anyone else (as I normally did in the beginning) I couldn't go in (lots of burglaries).

However we were then transferred to new fancy open plan offices to be with the parent funding company. And BOY was that ever an intro to openplanism. There are not hundreds of people in the office (as there are in big office blocks) but about 10 people working in the same space. I can hear the people from the other end of the room talking on the phone or to each other. There are no screens dividing the space so if JJ wants me he just calls down the office to me (pet peeve - being interrupted by someone shouting my name to ask inane questions). MM wanders around and hangs behind you if he wants to chat and will strike up a conversation even if you never stop typing to acknowledge him (persistant). He likes to be controversial to get a rise. He wears his jeans belted too high up. SS has an office with a door but never remembers that the door slams shut because the window is open so the walls rattle whenever she leaves her space. AA the minister-to-be is leaving soon to study full time so we will be able to dispense with watching our p's & q's so much. DD & HH are related and bicker towards the end of a longish day. And the man with the porn star's name always asks, 'are you well?' when you walk in. The girls in the end office area are tres giggly. BB is rarely seen. All told a strange mixture of people. But its the constant babble that is most distracting and why I invariably stay later than anyone else so I can get some quiet time for working. The greatest time in an office is when nobody else is there.