![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Plus ca change
Thursday, February 23rd, 2006 11:01 amThis morning was a repeat of yesterday’s leadfoot. I really, really wanted to stay in bed and snooze the day away. Instead I managed to get into the office where I can still snooze the day away, but in a more guarded manner.
It is indicative of the modern office environment that the phrase ‘restacking’ is back on the agenda. Every year for the past five, Office Services, the band of brothers formerly known as Accommodation and prior to that, Establishments, have sought to justify their existence by ‘restacking’ us. There is a disturbing hint of battery chicken-ness about the term which aptly reflects the social standing of the modern civil servant.
Nothing ever comes of it; the Housing Command waxes and wanes, our division acquires new branches and discards old, but we all stay where we are, knowing that eventually it will all settle back down in something close to its original format. One branch has been shifted in and out of the division three times in four years; it’s just a paper exercise. They still sit in the same place.
This all means that Office Services never quite get round to restacking us. It might be all quite illogical now, but it will all sort itself out in time.
It’s a shame that nothing’s happening, though. At some point all the little cell offices that dot the floor for managers to hide in are being removed. This is a bad thing. Firstly they like having their little offices, and we like having our bosses hidden away in them. Sadly, in the ever-expanding bureaucracy that I inhabit, floor space is at a premium, so I suppose that it’s inevitable that they will go.
Shame; I always harboured the secret ambition of getting hold of one at some point, if I ever manage another promotion, and decorating it with candle lit skulls, with maybe a burning skull on a pole to let people know I’m not to be disturbed. A comfy chair would be nice, too.
It is indicative of the modern office environment that the phrase ‘restacking’ is back on the agenda. Every year for the past five, Office Services, the band of brothers formerly known as Accommodation and prior to that, Establishments, have sought to justify their existence by ‘restacking’ us. There is a disturbing hint of battery chicken-ness about the term which aptly reflects the social standing of the modern civil servant.
Nothing ever comes of it; the Housing Command waxes and wanes, our division acquires new branches and discards old, but we all stay where we are, knowing that eventually it will all settle back down in something close to its original format. One branch has been shifted in and out of the division three times in four years; it’s just a paper exercise. They still sit in the same place.
This all means that Office Services never quite get round to restacking us. It might be all quite illogical now, but it will all sort itself out in time.
It’s a shame that nothing’s happening, though. At some point all the little cell offices that dot the floor for managers to hide in are being removed. This is a bad thing. Firstly they like having their little offices, and we like having our bosses hidden away in them. Sadly, in the ever-expanding bureaucracy that I inhabit, floor space is at a premium, so I suppose that it’s inevitable that they will go.
Shame; I always harboured the secret ambition of getting hold of one at some point, if I ever manage another promotion, and decorating it with candle lit skulls, with maybe a burning skull on a pole to let people know I’m not to be disturbed. A comfy chair would be nice, too.
