No More Tea Runs

5 minute read

It’s been a tricky year for work. Whether you’re at home, in the office or trying to balance a combination of the two, things have been different, and it has often been hard.

But now is actually the perfect time to reset your boundaries, remove the things you always really disliked about the office and create your perfect working environment. Desk booking systems mean that it’s easy to avoid that colleague who shows you endless photos of her cats or the team leader who likes to assert his authority by screaming down the phone. But there have always been insidious little things that drive us all mad that we’d like to put an end to forever. Here are the things that bothered us most and how to fix them – we’d love to know yours!

Tea runs

Someone is always making tea – great, except they expect you to do the same in return and often take note of when you last trekked to the kitchen to make six teas, one coffee, one hot water and one water from the cooler out by the stairs because it’s not fair that Darren is left out. Wouldn’t life be so much easier if everyone just made themselves a warm (or cold) drink whenever they wanted instead of needing the memory of a Michelin starred waiter?

Although this may be moot because according to a survey conducted by print firm Solopress 27% of people now feel uneasy making hot drinks for colleagues because of the new pressures on cleanliness. In fact, 33% of workers don’t trust their colleagues to follow proper hygiene guidelines at all.

Are they using the disgusting sponge in the communal kitchen sink to wipe down mugs? Ugh, I’ll pass on tea!

Cake sales, drinks nights, enforced fun

If there’s a charity initiative, I will donate. I don’t need to taste Pauline’s dry Victoria sponge or see Fiona shake up a margarita on Zoom from her utility room to do so. Enforced fun was always something to be suffered pre-pandemic, surely now we can call time on it for good.

Meetings at stupid times

There’s always someone who puts a meeting in the calendar for 4.30pm on a Friday afternoon. Or 9am on a Monday. Surely now everyone has different setups it can be agreed that meetings after 4pm and before 10am should be seen as an act of aggression?

In fact, this meeting could have been an email

Actually, can there be a guidebook about meetings in general? While we were working from home, video meetings increased at such a rapid rate that it was often difficult to get anything done. Everyone was worried about being seen to be working and were dialling in to every conceivable call. We should have to meet very strict criteria before anyone is allowed to put a meeting in the diary.

Schedules and emergency work

It’s time for us all to understand the difference between boundaries and barriers. When colleagues come to you looking for a dig out on something that just ‘has to be done now’, at the expense of your regular work and that becomes a habit there needs to be a way to say no. Professional boundaries do not make you a difficult person. Someone with unmeetable expectations that wants you to fix their problems is a difficult person.

As Mark Manson says in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: “People with strong boundaries understand that it's unreasonable to expect two people to accommodate each other 100 percent and fulfill every need the other has. People with strong boundaries understand that they may hurt someone's feelings sometimes, but ultimately they can't determine how other people feel. People with strong boundaries understand that a healthy relationship is not about controlling one another's emotions, but rather about each partner supporting the other in their individual growth and in solving their own problems.”

Stinky kitchens

People who leave communal kitchens in such a state that it may be the breeding ground for a new Pandemic should be named and shamed. End of.

Go for lunch

Presenteeism is the thing that will drive us all into burnout. Sitting at your desk for longer than is necessary and never taking a lunch is not a badge of honour. There’s more to life than that spreadsheet, go out and get some air and a delicious burrito bowl. You deserve it.

Take your holidays

All of them. Every single allocated day. No one will thank you for missing out on time to rest or have fun or explore the world. You won’t get that promotion because you didn’t take a week off last June.

Sick days

You would think that in the middle of a Pandemic we would be better at looking after our health but working from home means that people are often working when they should be resting. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you can have a sick day even when your office is beside your bed.

Performance reviews (should go both ways)

Sure, they’re a great way to gauge how you’re doing at work but you’re not in a one-sided relationship and forward-thinking businesses should think about two-way reviews. How you’re working may be a direct result of how you interact with your manager. Reviews shouldn’t always be from the top down. There are smarter ways to look at working relationships.

Jennifer Stevens, November 2021