It’s true: we DO have a sauna in the office, and it’s the best thing ever. I wasn’t too sure when Baldhere took over and said that there were going to be some massive changes around here. People in the office were already at each other’s throats because of how the last manager basically washed his hands of each and every problem, saying that it was HR’s job to deal with interpersonal stuff. Yeah, well, interpersonal stuff tends to fester if it’s left, and it gets worse when little problems aren’t solved. The lack of sufficient parking was always an issue. The copy machine keeps switching to what I think is some form of Greek, and no one can switch it back.
I wasn’t too optimistic when our new Norwegian boss said that the solutions was some comprehensive and innovative office design. Office designers in the Melbourne CBD are fine and all, and I like new carpets well enough, but it just seemed like a band-aid solution. New carpets wouldn’t fix the parking problem. A new splash of paint won’t make Kelsie from Accounting any less of a degenerate human being who doesn’t understand that using up all of our milk isn’t our problem.
But this was quite the office makeover when we came back after the weekend. Quite an efficient weekend, because now we have a couple of sauna rooms, and also the useless storage room on the third floor is now a miniature disco with a DJ attending all day to take requests.
Nuts, right? It took some time to get used to, but now, I look forward to my lunch break, where I have a choice of letting my problems vanish like steam, or dancing them into oblivion to my favourite tunes. Best office fitout ever, am I right? And those squares in the next building are as miserable as ever.
Of course, we got all the usual, typical stuff to do with an office design brief. Professionals in Melbourne aren’t equipped for sauna installation, I get it. But it’s overall just made our previous problems seem small and petty, or easily worked out with a friendly chat. Scandinavians really DO have this stuff sorted.
-Ray