Maybe I watched one too many TV dramas set in the mid-twentieth century while I was at uni, but I always imagined that paid work would take place in an inner-city office filled with filing cabinets, teetering stacks of paper in overflowing in-trays, and minibars on little trolleys. Despite the fact that the characters in these shows never seem to be having the greatest of times, I can’t help but long to participate in their particular brand of mundane glamour.
I should have known that actual workplaces, here in the contemporary (and non-fictional) world would be completely different. To the credit of real-life offices, things are considerably more efficiently organised than they were in my imagination. Paperwork is not really a thing in this day and age, so hard-copy files and physical in-trays are virtually non-existent in most workplaces. Minibar situations, too, appear to out as far as Melbourne office fitout trends go.
I just think that a tiny injection of that old-school vibe could go a long way in terms of making some of these places more fun to work in. Now, I get that work isn’t necessarily supposed to be fun, but is there any reason why it shouldn’t be? As far as I can tell, when it comes to recruiting office designers, Melbourne businesses tend to opt for companies that can reflect their unique brand. As it happens, ‘fun’ is not typically part of that.
From what I understand, there are many companies around now that do see themselves as ‘fun’, and their offices as thrilling environments to work in. Call me old-fashioned (please, do it), but my idea of fun is not lime green sculptural seating and on-tap vitamin water. My idea of fun is role playing a character from a glamorous age gone by. Sure, this might not be about to happen for me any time soon, or even halfway appropriate given that I work for a robotics company.
Perhaps I need to shift my mindset to one of being a character in a fictional future.