If you’re reading this sitting at your desk, take a minute to look around you. Serviced offices can be funny places to work at times depending on the people your work with. Look down. At your feet. What do you see? Do you see bare feet? Naked but for the foam-soled flip flops you love so much?
Turn your head 45 degrees to your right. Now, assuming you can still read this piece, focus on your shoulder. Is there fabric on it? Or is it uncovered? Check the other shoulder. Is that also on display? Now look down, is your shirt buttoned up or is it exposing your prized medallions? Do you have a shirt on at all?
It’s lunchtime, but do you pop to the local eatery, take out your homemade sandwiches or prepare the sort of fish dinner that wafts an aroma around the building, forcing everyone to frantically open windows?
How do those in your serviced offices enquire after your health each day? Do they say ‘how are you today?’ and how do you respond, if at all? Perhaps you offer a genial, gregarious greeting? Or something like ‘I’m not dead yet’? Perhaps the language you use in your serviced offices is a bit more … colourful? Are you a Gordon F-word Ramsay to your colleagues?
How do you view your office bin? As something to deposit rubbish in? Or do you hang your feet over it, arm yourself with various manicure and pedicure instruments and proceed to fill it up with your clippings while others in your serviced offices look away in disgust?
According to various surveys, the above are just some of the top office faux pas people have to put up with. One study found that 76% of managers have taken disciplinary action against staff for committing one or more of the following offences: having a messy desk, flossing teeth, picking noses, having bad breath or wearing trainers. How many have you committed yourself?
Serviced offices are communities, and you’re responsible for ensuring that your actions do not impact on those around you. It’s all well and good claiming a free society and that you have the right to do what you like, but when it affects the freedoms and rights of those around you then that’s just plain wrong.
