Office Furniture

[caddyman]

There is one benefit to the new chair that I have been given as part of the refitting and transfers in and out of the office. It has amazing castor wheels. With only negligible effort on my part, I can push myself a fair distance across the office floor. When I put my mind to it, I can go far enough to collide indelicately with the partition between me and the nearest designated ‘break out’ space.¹ I have not tested the spin facility yet. I am sure that this will be mostly useful during and after the Christmas party.

These chairs come with a multilingual booklet that purports to tell you how to use them; the ‘correct seated position’.² My favourite name for the office chair is the French siege de bureau which sounds far more exciting than the English reality. My idea of a siege de bureau has battering rams, peasants dropping rocks from battlements and boiling oil: the classics. I just have a chair with castors³.

The German instructions maintain that language’s reputation as one to invade Poland by.

The instructional diagrams suggest that there is, or should be, a head rest. I haven’t found it yet. I think they’re fibbing.

¹A range of odd, little partitioned places with a round table and a couple of chairs so you can nip away from your desk and chat with a colleague instead of nattering over the inter (intra?) desk partitions. I have discouraged the use of the one near me on the grounds that it is distracting. There is a range of other versions of this, some of which look like diner cubicles and one has to resist the urge to leave a tip when exiting them.

²Or tips voor een geode zithouding according to the Dutch text.

³Again, much better in French: roulettes molles, which sounds more like a gangster’s girl friend in a casino.

Comments

[pauln.livejournal.com]

So long as it's not the Siege Perilous

[november-girl.livejournal.com]

Do you not get bollocked for skiving if you go and sit in the break out space?

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

I dunno.

I expect that if we just wandered over and sat there reading a book or something we would, but if we are having a work-related chat away from the work area, well that's what they're for.

I think it's a bit odd, too.

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

Yeah, isn't that what e-mails are for? Mind you, I defy any of my colonial colleagues to "get bollocked for skiving".