Workplace envy - the going to a friend's house and wishing you were in their family sort. Anyone else get this?

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I've just come from a meeting at a design practice and God I just want to work for them sooooooo much - their MD is really nice - the sort that listens to people's opinions and is really inclusive plus there are wall to wall hot, tall, bespectacled guys doing cool design jobs which makes them even hotter. They have painted the walls with this special whiteboard paint and there are little architectural sketches everywhere from when aforementioned hot guys have gazed out the window and drawn something and the whole atmosphere is buzzy and creative. Now I've come back to my Camden mess and can't get it out of my head.

― Nobodys Prawn (Nobodysprawn), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:37 (eighteen years ago)

As soon as you left they were all shoved back into their airless crate and told to get rowing again.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:40 (eighteen years ago)

I worked for a design company once, what a nightmare, great offices tho

― Tom D. (Dada), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:40 (eighteen years ago)

I was in the Google offices in Mountain View once. Never mind work there, I want to live there.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:42 (eighteen years ago)

I get this every time I do a job interview. It's a problem. I think I psych myself up so much wanting to get the job, wanting not to be rejected, that by the time I'm done with the interview I'm convinced this is the best job in the world. Of course, this has led to many regular, boring, not-the-best-job-in-the-world jobs.

― g00blar (gooblar), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:42 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, I interviewed for (and got) a workplace that *looked* beautiful, lovely designy offices, an ad agency that was full of hot design student looking boys. Except that wasn't what I was doing, I was stuck in an awful department with awful people, and it was HELL.

My office looks like a pile of poo from the street and in our department, but it's friendly, it's (mainly) efficient and our team is very tight.

So don't be fooled by appearances.

― Probability Smear Of Possible Quantum Katehood (kate), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:44 (eighteen years ago)

i had a job once where they started me out working in a private corner office with a view because it was sitting vacant for a few months until their high-positioned new hire was due to start. i got a little too used to it and was sad when they moved me into a back office with another girl.

― tuesdays with morey amsterdam (get bent), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:53 (eighteen years ago)

As soon as you left they were all shoved back into their airless crate and told to get rowing again.

awesome.

anway. . We moved into a recently redesigned space and everyone who comes into our office feels this envy. We call it the Web Loft as everything's aluminum and exposed brick. And our cube walls are made of whiteboard so I can write on everything. We work on a 100+ year old university campus so our office seems surreal compared to it's surroundings.

Before this though we were in a dingy basement with an unventilated bathroom and a street-level door that constantly brought in students looking for the tution or keys office.

― Ms Misery (MissMiseryTX), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:53 (eighteen years ago)

I work across the road from last.fm and can see into their offices. They don't look particularly exciting but the staff all look a bit younger and hotter and their field is something I'm quite interested in so yeah a bit of envy here just on that basis. I can't decide if I'd rather work 'up wist' or stay here in Hoxditch.

― vita susicivus (blueski), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:55 (eighteen years ago)

my office building is incredible, people would probably visit and want to work there, but trust me... yeah, airless crate, rowing, etc.

― GULLIBLE (Mandee), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:56 (eighteen years ago)

haha, the only airless crate type places I've worked have definitely looked it. I've worked "sexy" places before - D3lia's, Audi0galaxy - but the jobs themselves were just meh. lots of booze and initial public offering cash not bad though.

I did interview at MTV interactive before and while walking to the creative director's office (who's name was just Three, his business card said so) I passed some dudes editing a montage of live Beastie Boys footage. I felt like Bart Simpson when he gets a peek inside the Mad Magazine offices.

― Ms Misery (MissMiseryTX), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:00 (eighteen years ago)

I have never worked anywhere with "hott" workplace content. Nor do I regret it.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:04 (eighteen years ago)

That's 'cos you are the "hott" workplace content, MC

― Tom D. (Dada), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:05 (eighteen years ago)

You've seen me and therefore KNOW that's not true!

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:06 (eighteen years ago)

I work in this building, which is awesome, but the office where I work is set up like a Skinner Box and the place where I sit is a little windowless hole.

From Wikipedia: One of the bloodiest days in the center's history occurred on Dec 8th 2006 when a total of four people were killed including the killer over a dispute with a patent attorney firm located above the center.

That really makes it sound like bloody days at the ole train station are just a matter of course. The day when somebody shot up the place and killed four people was only the bloodiest; on an average day only one, two tops, people are shot down in a hail of gunfire.

― Steve Guttenberg's Midnight Runner (pullapartgirl), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:22 (eighteen years ago)

I know I'm fooling myself into thinking it'd be great to work here, in Tokyo, with my parents. Fooling myself cause I'm now enjoying a holiday and only see the good side. The pace of living and working in Japan is so much higher. They don't necessarily do that much more, it only takes so much fucking time to get something done.

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:30 (eighteen years ago)

would it be worth it to be closer to your family

― Ms Misery (MissMiseryTX), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:33 (eighteen years ago)

I had a brilliant interview and got the job, supposedly with this bloke as my manager.

I never saw him again until the day I handed in my resig.

Inbetween, it was massive indifference all round. My intro tour was "This is Mark, oh here's some people I won't introduce them you'll forget their names anyway..."

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:35 (eighteen years ago)

xpost I don't want to think about it, really. Yes, it would, but after my mum retires, what would I (and my husband) do? I have zero qualifications (well, no useful ones) and that doesn't really get you a job in Japan. What would I do with Ophelia and schooling?

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:37 (eighteen years ago)

could you not continue with the business after your mom retires?

are schools in Japan pretty good?

― Ms Misery (MissMiseryTX), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:44 (eighteen years ago)

I totally understand what Nathalie's saying - I always get that feeling on holiday. We always convince ourselves that life would be rosy if we worked in Greece, we wouldn't mind cleaning apartments or working all hours in bars, fuck it, we could even get a couple of goats and go into business selling cheese...

The grass always looks greeener.

― Rumpsy Pumpsy (Rumpie), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:53 (eighteen years ago)

Probably because of all the goat poo.

― Steve Guttenberg's Midnight Runner (pullapartgirl), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:56 (eighteen years ago)

I hate the art in my office.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/166/383735476_d872549552_o.jpg http://farm1.static.flickr.com/182/383735473_66a6cd5ed7_o.jpg
When I pop downstairs to the High Heejun's office, he has half the Glasgow School on his wall :(

― Mädchen (Madchen), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:23 (eighteen years ago)

I work in a design office and can't imagine working in a traditional office, but there's absolutely no privacy or soundproofing.

― YAAAAAOW! (Brian Miller), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:29 (eighteen years ago)

that's why romance is dead

― vita susicivus (blueski), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:32 (eighteen years ago)

I ought to point out that the certificates are there ironically (x-p)

― Mädchen (Madchen), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:50 (eighteen years ago)

could you not continue with the business after your mom retires?
are schools in Japan pretty good?

She would need to join an international school and would we raise her in Dutch or what? She'd also need to learn Japanese. So basically three languages SIMULTANEOUSLY. Eh, no way. I mean, it is possible but also rather difficult (for her but also us financially).

I would not be able unless I start studying lace VERY hard and I'm not that interested. Well, I am but don't think I would be able to. (Oh inferiority complex be gone now will you!)

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Thursday, 8 February 2007 16:41 (eighteen years ago)

sorry, don't want to get all up in your grill, nath. just being converstional. :)

Maybe you could turn the business into a yarn shop!

― Ms Misery (MissMiseryTX), Thursday, 8 February 2007 16:42 (eighteen years ago)

Hah! I wish! BTW did get to the craft store and managed to buy a ton of needles. Two pairs of 3 mm bamboo needles so you'll get one pair if you would like that. :-)

And don't worry about it, my mum and dad keep mentioning it. But it's just not possible. It is, but I refuse to accept it. :-)

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Thursday, 8 February 2007 16:48 (eighteen years ago)

My husband and his brother took over their father's business after his death. My husband always swore that he wasn't going to get pulled into it, but it's been fine, and it saved him from more drudgery-intensive work. We tease our kids about someday ending up in it, and they howl with laughter. Just you wait, suckers.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Thursday, 8 February 2007 16:54 (eighteen years ago)

xpost

i would love to go on a japanese knitting spree: needles, NORO. *sigh*

I shall keep putting things in the nath stash for the swap completion. ;)

When I'm older, I want to start a business to foist upon my children.

― Ms Misery (MissMiseryTX), Thursday, 8 February 2007 16:55 (eighteen years ago)

office is being filmed by bbc today. don't know why. there are strange people here walking around and filling up empty desks to make it look busy. and i'm browsing ile...

― Koogy Bloogies (koogs), Friday, 9 February 2007 09:28 (eighteen years ago)

I get this way a little bit whenever I go downtown. How nice it would be to park in a parking deck, ride in a glass elevator, walk across a skyway, work above street level, and get to try out a new deli everyday for a month.

But it's okay where I work now, spitting distance from the Arkansas River where I can watch foxes and nutrias running around on the levee banks.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:01 (eighteen years ago)

One of the characters in Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go" has an obsession with someday working in an open-plan office complex.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:04 (eighteen years ago)

NUTRIAS! God's best beasts!

― Abbott (Abbott), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:45 (eighteen years ago)

I've never heard them called THAT. In Louisiana, they have five-dollar ransoms on their heads.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:55 (eighteen years ago)

they are nasty

― Ms Misery (MissMiseryTX), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:58 (eighteen years ago)

ihttp://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:9MzLRA4kldCnfM:http://www.springbachmuehle

― Rumpsy Pumpsy (Rumpie), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:03 (eighteen years ago)

Last year I interviewed for an IT/network monkey position at a local rocket launching facility that recently had, er, a launch anomaly last week. The facilities and staff were terrific - four nationalities on site (Russian, Ukranian, Norwegian, American) and bragging rights of being, well, a rocket scientist.

The other place that comes to mind is a Spanish-language advertising firm in West LA which took up the entire top floor of their building. Aeron chairs, super-mod furniture and wall dividers, super-attractive staff, and absolutely the BEST coffee I've had in any workplace. I did some contract work there for a bit and wish they needed me more often.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Saturday, 10 February 2007 00:35 (eighteen years ago)

my work takes me to a lot of offices. big ones, smalls ones, from doctors to lawyers to graphic designers to music studios to film production co.s to television studios and I can't remember one that made me really really want to work there. I'm sure there were one or two though. the 'glamour' offices are cool-looking but filled with assholes who talk way too goddamn fast, and the laidback ones where nobody has to do shit probably don't pay shit either. The ones that have cool people and fun-seeming atmosphere are in fields I'm not really interested in(architectural places i'm thinking of mostly) . I know enough now to never, ever work for a lawyer though. It's depressing really, seeing the world has eliminated my options for the most part. maybe it's just los angeles.

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Saturday, 10 February 2007 00:53 (eighteen years ago)

come to think of it, i wouldn't mind working in an investment group, they seem like sane places where you can make a decent buck(the only reason I would leave off non-profit work, I'm just a bit too spoiled and greedy now) but I'd have a bit of a learning curve seeing as i'm just now sorting through my 401k situation.

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Saturday, 10 February 2007 00:56 (eighteen years ago)

Last year I interviewed for an IT/network monkey position at a local rocket launching facility that recently had, er, a launch anomaly last week.

Woah - sorry for the aside here, but was that the Newskies satellite 'sploision, Chris? That involved my company as well, we all watched the launch video. Pretty nasty.

― Trayce (trayce), Saturday, 10 February 2007 01:56 (eighteen years ago)

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