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Tea, the IT department and useful gossip

You would expect me to support Ben’s plea for a decent cup of tea when he visits other people’s offices. And if course I do. But not just because a decent cuppa makes my world go around (which is does – simple I am).

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You can tell a hell of a lot about a place by the way it makes tea for visitors. From the massive corporate company that serves drinks from the machine in those plastic cups, to another behemoth that still has the tea lady. Not to mention the nice little place that warms the pot and always has Jammy Dodgers.

These things really worry people when they start a new job too. is the money good? Fine. Will the work be interesting? Fine. Now, what’s it like to work there?

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Those little un-thought of things that shape the true fabric of your working day, like how do you get a good cuppa,  really  matter on the first day Of course you want your job description, your objectives and the background to the clients and all that, but what you really want is your bearings.

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Where is ITdepartment? Are they human? What buttons do you press to get them to fix your frozen screen?  When do people tend to leave the office – is a presenteeism type place? Where do people go for lunch (do they take one?), where are the gossip hotspots? Who are the people in traffic it’s best to make friends with? Is there a sandwich van in the morning? Who knows all the gossip? What are the little cliques?

And so on. These are the kind of things you forget about in a place you’re used to – you only appreciate their worth when you have to learn them all over again.

Speaking of office gossip…………

You don’t want any needless nastiness, but as long as it’s relatively good natured, gossip forms a kind of corporate glue, allowing pockets of people to bond. It also lets people give off steam in  more benign way, instead of bottling it up and exploding all over your career.

it does make me wonder if excessive emailing rather than chatting is eroding how gossip acts as a pressure valve. Any thoughts?

Anyway, any job interview that involved stewed tea from  machine would see me leg it out of there as fast as my short shins could carry me.

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One response to “Tea, the IT department and useful gossip”

  1. Mark Hadfield Avatar
    Mark Hadfield

    The first to comment. I do feel privileged.
    Without naming names I was in a meeting last week with a company that wanted to change the way it interacted with its consumers. It wanted a longer term, more friendly relationship shall we say.
    Before the meeting we were asked if we wanted water – I said yes please – and the client proceeded to walk outside the office to a water machine, and fill 3 plastic cups with water. (there were 3 of us, I wasn’t very thirsty)
    Now, what’s interesting about this (trust me – it is) is my psychology. I was sipping my water because I knew that it wouldn’t really be a suitable thing to do to get up half way through the meeting and walk out of the office, get some more water and walk back in. So I had 2 options: 1) To wrap up the meeting quickly, or 2) To drink slowly. I chose number 2.
    The irony being the whole purpose of the meeting… to make the consumers interaction (that happen in the same rooms) with the client to be a more friendly, long term thing.
    Still – gives me a good starting point for the next presentation.

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