Let’s Decrapify Work

For too many people, work is crap.

That’s why the levels of employee engagement are pitifully low, why the majority of employees would change job tomorrow if a better opportunity arose and why the workplace is awash with apathy.

Friends at Work

Do you have friends at work?

It’s kind of nice, isn’t it?

The Shift has happened

The Shift has happened. The ‘Future of Work’ is here now.

OK, it’s in beta. Well, more like alpha. A Minimum Viable Product. Hell, in some cases it’s a prototype made out of wood, string and blu tack. But it’s here.

Bring back the tea trolley!

You’d hear the rattle of the cups first. “Ooh, lovely, just what I need” or “About time, I’m gasping”, people said, looking up from their desks.

The trolley would nose its way through the doors, with the the tea lady in tow (I’m not sexist, it was the…

Relics

“And what’s this box for? The one in the top corner, marked ‘AW’”

“Dunno. It’s always been there. I was told just to put ‘0’ in it”

“Well, I need to know what it’s for so I can put it in the new system”

No More Heroes

“No More Heroes, Anymore! “ we sang along raucously to the The Stranglers, as the thunderous music threatened to bring the decidedly rickety venue down around us.

It was in the prime of punk and The Electric Ballroom, an old run-down cinema in Arndale was THE place to watch…

The death of the work factory

The death of the work factory is here.

OK, we call them offices but they are really just work factories, designed for

- synchronous work (re: time and space)
- task completion
- linear processes
- homogeneity & conformity of…

Money and trust

On the first day of my first full-time job, I could have gone and spent £10,000 on my own authority.

That sounds nuts today, doesn’t it?

Well, it probably was a bit nuts and it was reduced not long afterwards.

What’s not on an Org Chart

You know what’s not on an org chart?

Work/life balance

Remember when we used to idly pontificate about work-life balance?

Ah, happy days.

When it seemed possible to achieve a magical blend, the two sides of our life operating in perfect harmony. Like Morecambe & Wise. Ant & Dec. Yin & Yang. (They’re…

Commuting

Has COVID killed commuting?

Over 25 years ago, I moved to Loughton, east of London.

It was a town that you could commute from, being on the Central Line. As it was near the end of the line, I always got a seat in the morning and in the evening, once it had…