Office Politics

I’ve been spending time in an office environment as I learn more about being a journalist (and figuring out if this is what I want to do with the rest of my life – it’s not quite). I must say, I am not keen to be working in an office for the rest of my life.

I am never comfortable, the office climate is just awkward (both hot and cold, and not matching the outdoor weather, which makes dressing for the day complicated), and there is nothing to look at. We actually learn about it in HKE: we need visual relief, like a pot plant, or more windows so we can have contact to the outside environment. This place just feels so unnatural!

It’s also noisy. This is an open plan office, and my mom works in an open plan office. You can hear every person’s conversation all the time. And the cellphones with their weird ring tones, and people who aren’t at their desk when their phone rings endlessly, sure, maybe I could get used to it, but man that’s an irritation!

One of the reasons I chose to specialise in Writing and Editing rather than Television Journalism was because TV was forecast to involve a lot of group work. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind working in a team, so long as it’s a team and everyone pulls their weight, and group discussions can go down constructively and in a timely manner rather than unproductive banter. I don’t even have to like you to work with you. But as soon as petty politics comes into play, that’s when I take issue.

When you do group assignments there will always be that one person who does absolutely nothing, and they piggyback on the rest, never contributing. Whinging in those situations is irritating: they should just suffer some sort of repercussion and hopefully they learn from their mistakes, and improve next time. This is where office politics comes into play.

So this post may have become a rant of some sort, and I haven’t gone into the issue of office politics enough, but it’s going to take quite a while to convince me that this is the right kind of working environment for me. Some day soon I will share my dream office plan with you, and trust me, it will revolutionise offices for everyone. Or just me. Whatever, I don’t mind.