Culture shock
Lift! by Richard Leeming/Flickr
Last Friday I found myself in a lift on the 7th floor of a company HQ, panicking. The doors had closed, I was on my own, and only then realised there were no buttons to press. Was I to be consigned to travel up and down for eternity?
Thankfully I managed to work out how to open the doors, nabbed a passing stranger who showed me how to key in your destination level before you entered, and breathed a sigh of relief. Presumably the intention is to ensure that visitors are kept under control when in the building and not allowed to roam. All fine as long as you know the process.
This is all rather new to me. In recent years I am more used to working out of my home office or training people in theirs. So it comes as a bit of a culture shock to be commuting, hot desking and working 9-5. But there are perks: endless packages of concentrates which, when you work out how to insert them in the machine, deliver delicious tea, coffee or hot chocolate – for free!
I had forgotten the allure of stationery cupboards, full of tantalising pens, pencils and rubbers (sorry, stationery is my thing), paper trimmers, binders…ooh, I could play for hours. But no, I am here for serious stuff, populating wireframes (i.e. writing copy for apps) and such like.
Of course, all this assumes I can get into the building in the first place. This requires a lanyard, a plastic case with an inbuilt chip and a separate card. I fall at the first hurdle here, too, and have to be shepherded in by reception.
And when you’re in, perish the thought that you should need to go to the loo. This requires pressing a green button, flashing my card, heading out…only to find the toilets are being cleaned and requesting I visit another floor. Will I live to tell the tale? If I manage to break into the floor below will I make it back? Maybe it’s safer to just cross my legs.
Life used to be so much simpler: what is wrong with turning up, saying hello to the person on reception and heading for your desk? Which happened to be a nice solid piece of furniture with drawers that you could leave bits and pieces in. But time waits for no man, or woman. This week I will be doing battle again with pristine desks, not a bit of clutter to be seen, let alone a hapless drawer.
What will I be thinking of as I battle with commuters on my journey there and back, then renew my acquaintance with those bits of plastic which seemed determined to deny me entry? Yes, you’ve guessed it: think of the money. And, quite apart from my whinging, the fact that I’m learning about a whole new area of business.
The joy of the freelancer is that you can step into a multinational, do your work to the best of your abilities for a couple of days, meet new and interesting people – all without getting involved in internal politics. I knew there was a reason I chose this route!