Housemate is moving into a new office (she has a day job in addition to being an art student). Boyfriend and I popped in to give a little bit of design advice. It was a rainy day, and there were boxes everywhere, and the office complex she's in is a bit of a maze of bad carpeting and fluorescent lights.
But she'd chosen a nice butter yellow paint for her office, and had soft lamplight in the corners and plants in several places. She had put down an oriental rug and put up pictures on her bookshelf and the place was beginning to look pretty good. It felt comfortable and friendly and pleasant, even with boxes on the floor and diplomas piled on the desk.
Then we went across the hall to her examining room (she is a nurse practitioner when she's not doing sculpture or drawing. You try living with such talent.). It was painted a cool blue, had no windows of its own, and felt cold and sterile. The lighting wasn't right. There was an ugly rug on the floor. And it felt like a place you wanted to flee. Down the hall someone decided to put on some loud country music, and it came uninvited through the intercom system into the examining room, almost unbearably intrusive. We opined about a couple of pictures she was thinking about hanging, and helped her hang a mobile of birds up above the examining table for patients to look at while they get Pap smears. It got a little better while we were there but definitely felt draining. There are places that you just don't want to stay in for very long.
My office has fluorescent lighting. I never turn on the overhead lights. I have a floor lamp in the corner and a couple of good desk lamps. The attorney in the office next to mine works in the fishy blue artificial light, and says she doesn't notice the difference. She also has no chairs for visitors to sit in. Sometimes there is a chair in her office, but it is almost always filled with a file box of papers, and the chair is frequently poached and dragged into the conference room to be used for one of our cake-eating parties. It's amazing to me that our styles, and our sensitivity to our surroundings, can differ so much. One reason I took this job over a chance to work for a very smart, and kind, man at the fanciest law firm in town was that the dismal pinkish-orange fluorescent lighting, the narrowness of the corridors, the cramped little pens they kept the associates in, the Dartmouth-green carpet, all conspired in some way to make me want to run away. I would have had great training, a rock-solid mentor, good pay and name recognition and all that jazz. But an office that would have made my heart sink to come to -- no thanks.
The first thing I did when I got the job is ordered a big easy chair and had it delivered to my office. Besides the upholstered armchair (with a nice little end table, on which I try to have a bud vase with some flowers most of the time), I have two wooden armchairs. I had a pretty deliberate intention to make my office a place people wanted to sit down and stay in. Our firm is one where people are constantly wandering into one another's offices and bouncing ideas around. Some people, you go in and sit down, even if they're on the phone, while other people's offices, you just lean your head into their doorway but don't venture in. I figured that my chances to learn a lot would be maximized if I could be one of the people whose office was a gathering place, where brainstorming happened. It's worked pretty well. The Big Guy likes the armchair, although he'll favor the wooden armchair across the desk from me more often. Co-Worker will come in and sink into the easy chair and vent, a couple of times a day. Partner W is in a couple of times a week. Partner X comes in once a day or so; when he sits down I know I'm in for it. Paralegal likes to talk politics with me, and likes it better if someone else is in the room too. In some ways, it's maybe too welcoming. People will come in and settle down, and start talking to one another, while I sit at my desk and wonder if they'll mind if I just get back to work. I've taken to having to close my door from time to time.
People will come in and settle down, and start talking to one another, while I sit at my desk and wonder if they'll mind if I just get back to work. I've taken to having to close my door from time to time.
To me, that seems like the ideal: put the thought, time and effort into making a comfortable space for people to gather, and then let them gather and entertain each other while you work. As long as you can get your stuff done, I doubt they'll mind or feel unwelcome.
Posted by: PG | December 05, 2005 at 06:59 PM