New office vibes

I work for a medium-sized company that is in turn owned by a global mega-corp that you're unlikely to have ever heard of. I joined them almost a decade ago when said medium-sized company was still a start-up still in the process of establishing itself, and my original role was as a customer service representative and German translator in an small office near me. 

At some point they closed that office in favour of a London-based one, which introduced a lengthy commute to my day, which I absolutely loathed. In hindsight I'm not sure how I put up with it for as long as I did... though then the pandemic came and normalised working from home (luckily for me?!), meaning that I now only have to go to London twice a week at most.

A couple of months ago we found out that our existing London office was once again closing down. With all the changes and acquisitions over the years, the business was now sitting on three different London offices, none of which were actually used to full capacity, so this move made absolute sense. The new office has made my commute even longer, but again, for two days a week I can live with it.

The new office building feels weeeird though. It's a brand-new building that's very sleek and modern, with glass and wood panelling everywhere. It feels a lot more "corporate" than our old office did.

It has some good features - for example the screen and audio setups in the meeting rooms are both state-of-the-art and easy to use (this was something that was always a struggle in our old office) and the toilets are spacious and clean.

However, other things feel... not bad exactly, but like they were made the way they are for the sake of looking good in a corporate brochure rather than to be used by real people in an everyday context. For example all the smooth glass and wall panels are actually not very user-friendly, which has led to many a humorous occasion of people bumping into a glass wall or scrabbling along a wood panel because they couldn't find the handle or where the door even was.

It's also a full hot-desking environment, in which you're not allowed to claim any desk as your own, have to bring your own kit into the office every time, and are heavily discouraged from leaving any personal effects lying around on your desk even during the day. (Clutter!) A lot of the team have already been rioting about being told that they're not allowed to have coffee at their desk for example, only in the kitchen. (Luckily for me, I don't drink coffee.) So we have what's supposed to be a dedicated office space, but it feels like we're guests every time, never quite allowed to be comfortable, needing to adjust the chairs to the right height on each new visit and having to "book" a seat a.k.a. request permission to even come into the office every day we're there, even though we're supposed to be there twice a week.

It basically feels a bit like a golden cage, made to look good but not designed for the benefit of the occupants. We'll see whether I adjust to it over time or whether they relent on any of the strict rules that only seem to be there to make the place look good in photos.