My work has been going bananas for new ways of working recently. We have had stand-ups, sit-downs, breakouts, brown-bag lunches, kanban, agile, lean and now...
Mobile.
Gone are our sturdy base units with oodles of grunt that we could run massive amounts of stuff on. Now we have zinky little laptops which look like silvery dinner trays and we are all about that Microsoft.
One of the biggest changes of going mobile is not the joy of working from some shady alleyway whilst a horde of seagulls peck sunflower seeds from your penis.
Oh no. It's hot-desking.
This week hot-desking became a real thing.
For the un-initiated, hot-desking means you don't have a desk anymore and you can just sit at any old desk with your laptop.
I like my desk. It is a good desk with a nice view. I even like my chair, which after many months of fiddly adjustments fits me like a comfortable old pair of pants.
I did not take kindly to the idea that any old todger could waltz up and pilfer either of them on a whim.
Most mornings I get in fairly early and sit and drink coffee dreaming big crypto dreams for half an hour before everyone gets in. So the hot desking has not really been an issue for me.
Today, due to a catastrophic combination of vomiting babies and daughters biting their own tongue I missed my train and was an hour late.
I hurried in with coffee in one hand and toast in the other.
I got to my desk.
There was someone sitting at it. Some contractor'y person with hair like a toilet brush.
He looked up.
Oh hey, can I help you?
He asked helpfully as if he hadn't just taken a shit in my mouth.
I towered above him.
Off the seat.
I stated as if we were old friends and he was dancing too closely with my wife.
I beg your pardon?
There was a palpable hush around us.
I took a big deep breath as if to inflate a pigs intestine with my sexy man lips.
Beat it. This is my seat. I need it today, you will have to move.
He opened his mouth to resist, I cut him off.
I mean it, beat it. Now.
He looked as if he might refuse, then the fight went out of him. Grumbling under his breath he unplugged his laptop and huffed off to another spare desk.
I ripped off a giant bit of toast in my mouth and somewhat savagely looked around.
This is MY DESK. Nobody sits at my desk.
Except me of course. Which I did.
Wow your sexy man lips 😍, but it's not nice to put them there.
The alpha male came to defend what is his
como un Venezolano @meesterboom Hey! que coño hace allí? parece de esa verga inmediatamente!
Lol, a man had to defend his stuff :0D
And of course put his sexy man lips where best!!
Of course, they have to respect what is yours.
It is better to give other use to those provocative and sexy lips. 🙈
One must fight to protect their property when the need arises. How dare he take your desk? He should be hit with a cane of yours(referring to your other great series). Upvoted!
Hehe yes, a cane would have been fitting!! :0)
Has been tried in many companies. It makes both company loyalty and productivity drop, makes project teamwork more difficult, and generally annoys the quiet types who do most of the work. They tried it in one of the companies I worked at, and all the old hands just went home again for want of a place to work. That put a stop to it really quickly.
It is hip, though, much like Scrum, even though nobody has been able to explain to me how you set up a proper software architecture using it. It does make you stand in meetings though, that must be a very fundamental thing. It is the umpteenth "method" I've seen pass by over the years on its way to the dustbin.
Sorry about that. Not funny at all, but I feel much better now.
Haha, I agree entirely with what you are saying. Every bit. It's already proving to be a disaster as I am not the only one that is insisting on keeping their desk (unofficially of course)
They keep trying lots of things and productivity is the last thing they are achieving
The easy solution is to leave an intriguing white stain on the front of your seat and a brown stain near the back of your seat. (Vanilla and Chocolate pudding might work)
Then chain the chair to the desk.
Noone wants to sit in that chair ... but they can't move that chair to bring in another.
I am definitely not a fan of hot desk. I have 15 years worth of treasures piled on my desk. If there is a famine, I can find a chocolate bar from 2005 if I really need to. There might also be a bottle of rum that's been in one of my drawers for over a decade.
That sounds awfully like my desk. When they gave us lockers and said it will be a clean feel policy I just laughed!!!
I hate stained chairs!!!
Hotdesking and flexdesks only make sense if the majority of your workforce doesn’t come in every day by default. If more than half comes in every day, the point had bean beat. Fuck management for stupid ideas. They always pull shit like this without probably even asking how the employees feel about it.
There was definitely no asking the employees. That's the mad thing, in our place it's a static workforce, everyone comes in almost every day. I can see it's doom. Or at least hope for it!
Everyone of the statics will keep going to their own spot anyways, so yeah I’d think it’s doomed from the get-go. What they should’ve done is standing desks (hydraulic) That’s what I can get behind. Gives one the choice between sitting and standing at will and is better for your body if you deskwork standing occassionaly.
I have heard of the standing thing and am quite interested in it because to be frank slouching in front of a monitor all day ain't good!
This is not very productive. I work better in my own comfy spot. Perhaps they are looking at this all wrong? They want more productivity. Didn't anyone ever tell them that a happy worker is a more productive worker?
But that's so old fashioned!! Oh no, what is very current us paying am expensive management consultancy to come in and tell you all this rubbish to do them doing it and it not working and having to pay another and so on and so on!!!
I guess your company has a lot of money to waste on unproductivity...Some older techniques do work...
The lash!! I agree!! Or maybe not as I world probably be getting it every five minutes :0)
This sounds like the multinational companies that work, they do things without meaning and without consensus with anyone, you lent yourself to work and found great changes. It is for that reason that I no longer work under a dependency relationship.
Well done, dear friend @meesterboom you took from your desk to brush head.
I wish you a wonderful night
He better not be there again today. I will have murder in my heart!
You were late and seeing that someone was there was like, you know how long I had to spend sitting so that the chair would conform to my butt? To come a mop walking to fuck my work for many months, but want to run out of hair or whatever that moves your flaccid back this instant, the look so penetrating and Manly made it vanish XD lol
A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do :0D
You tell 'em, Alam-BRO! Feck det het-desk nonesense! I experienced that before, and it didn't help productivity. Not one bit. It only introduced chaos and instability. Humans need some semblance or order, otherwise, if let to our own, it'll be anarchy! For a second there, I thought he would fiddle with the chair settings before he stomped off! I would've lost it if I were in your shoes! Quite frankly, I think your shoe size is bigger than mine (a-yo!) so would literally lose whatever I'm wearing.
We do! We need that semblance of normality that knowing where you will be sitting and who you will be sitting besides brings!!
The world will end in chaos otherwise!!!!
Gah! I can't even begin to imagine a world where anyone sitting anywhere at any time would work! Madness!!
There is no order to it, chaos, chaos I tells ya!!!
Hasn't there always been? The more pertinent question is did we just adopt it, or were we born in it? Nay, molded by it?
They're trying to take away your power spot?! I would be growly and bitey too, my hubby can attest to that, no one takes my power spot!
How very dare they, I know!!!
Grr, not on my watch!!
Dump em right out of the chair if you have to!! I bet one going sprawling would keep others away!
That the way Boom, dont take that crap from nobody! Show em who is boss!
I sure am, darn desk stealers! :0D
It doesnt work at all. At our office its always a fight for the right desk lol. Now there is a part with flexdesks,for people who are out a lot,and some desks for permanent. For environment sake the also removed the trashcans,now there is one can per floor. I can tell you its a big mess at the desks...
They have done that here, there are now two big bins for rubbish so people don't take their rubbish to the bins very often and desks are a mess. I miss my bin!
Me too,good bye clean desk policy 😂😂
Lol, exactly!
one of the many reasons people are turning to working at home... To me, working in that style seems completely unorganized, besides, if i spent any time getting my chair to comfortably fit my scrawny ass, I wouldn't want some fat ass mother fucker ruining it all on me.
Exactly, they always adjust the bloody armrests too. Took me ages to get them just right!
LOL LOL LOL Loved this! I love the analogy of an old pair of pants. So true. when I was in sales, you know what day I hated the most, the day where they told everybody to change desks. "It's good for you to have a change and new environment?" Good more you say? NO it isn't! lol lol Glad you told that contractory person what was up. :)
Hehe, you are too kind :O)
YEah, that would suck, they never did that here. Although the hot desking thing is a bit like it. Boo hiss I say. All we can do is stand up to the blighter!
hahaha awesome. Yeah I bet it is! It was pretty lame they would do it like very 6 months or so, make us change our locations. A lot of people seemed to enjoy their new surroundings, I hate change to begin with! haha Quit that job after 4 years, just couldn't take the changing desk locations anymore....lol jk. I quit because I was tired of cold call sales. lol
Cold call selling is brutal, when I was at college I got a job doing it. I hated it!
LOL I know right? Some people love it. Don't get me wrong the pay was great at times. I made 86k as a 29 year old. Which was my highest earning year as a recruiter and still to this day my highest earning year ever, the top recruiter made 400k that year. But money isn't everything. lol I make way less now, but love life. :)
Loving life is the important bit. Although hot damn, that is some serious cash!!!
Yes of course! :) Yes yes it was some serious cash. haha now I am lucky to make half of that. haha
Hmmm, change, you can’t stop it so you have to embarrass it. As David Bowie said, “Turn and face the strange changes, Just gonna have to be a different man.”
He was so right in some things but in others... well he might as well have been from Mars!!!
Would there not be some type of unwritten rule happening within the group that people don't steal each other's desks?? You know who likes this setup?? The people with shitty desks. Even still, everyone knows where everyone sits so the fact that he took your seat was a gesture of disrespect. He is lucky you didn't slap him with your sandwich. The productivity must be through the roof with all these wonderful new initiatives. lol
Productivity is insane!!! Lol
We do have quite the unwritten rule. He was pure at it. I hope he never darkens my door again!!!
HHhhh the guy with the hair like a toilet brush gave up the seat very easily. I was expecting him to start a fight lol
I prefer to have the same desk and the same cup for my coffee to enjoy the morning, before I take my laptop with me to the sofa and then to the bed lol
He did cave quite suddenly, I was quite pleased because my toast was getting cold :0D
Are we? Ubuntu and linux masterrace xD
I couldn't work at another place that is not home... it's not the same thing to me, i love being cozy at home, i sometimes even work from bed, i just stress to much if i'm trying to write/ read /study with other people around... but i dont' have any kids, at least that i know of :P
Still, is this an actual story? did the guy actually move xD? The only reason i would move from a place i was is if it was to give it to some old guy or women... maybe he just wanted to give the chair to you OLDmeesterboom xD
I guess you showed him who was the boss around the office!
It is indeed, it is a story from my day today. He was a contractor and relatively new which is why he moved. If he was an old timer he might have poor up more resistance :0)
When I hot desk and go a place a lot, I'll
peemake my mark still. A cup that said it's my cup. Some people has sweater or jacket or shawl. In the end, some of these hot desk becomes private real estate most of the time.I suspect that that is the way it will go here. It's only been in place a few days and already it is becoming like that :0)
Hmmmm. Hot desks just wouldn't work well for me, nor would it help with my own production ... I guess I prefer more stability than that. I'm glad you re-claimed your own! LOL.
I have claimed it, all I need now is a bloody stick with a bread impaled on it to scare them away!!!
Well well well. I suggest you should cut your nails with your mouth and leave the remaining on the desk. People are afraid of dead things and spirits :D
They are! I have noticed this. I might do that :0)
O what a stupid idea - I would also be the mean bully throwing people off my chair and chasing them away - hate it when 'management' has these WONDERFUL ideas, but the workers have to sort it out or be stuck with it - wonder if the CEO would mind if you take his desk hahahaha
I bet he would! I like being the man bully in this situation too :0D
Excellent, you did not let go of yours!
You have to stick to your guns!!!
Haha, It seems hotter than Sun.
Yes it's hotter than a raccoon's arse after eating Mrs Milligan's spicy beef brisket.
Fantastic.!