Office Chatter

After 2 years of training and spending somewhere in the region of £45,000, Mr Trappe used 55 helium balloons to soar to nearly 15,000 feet – by tying them to his Office Chair!

Then I’ll begin!! OK, so I’m not old enough to really remember Listen With Mother, but I still couldn’t resist the temptation. Actually, the chances are that many of us office workers who spend 8 hours + a day sitting at our workstation aren’t sitting as comfortably as we should be, either because we don’t have the correct set-up or, like me, our posture is inherently bad.

The Business Card has long been the traditional way to exchange contact information in the business world. They date back as far as the 15th Century in China and first made their way to England, via Europe, around the 17th Century.

 There was something in yesterday’s (02/09/09) rag that caught my eye: Paul Lung is a 37 year old Graphic Designer from Hong Kong who in his spare time, creates photo-realistic images using only a pencil.

Having read one of our earlier posts about what’s on our desks and being incredibly proud of the organised chaos laid out before me (from a cuddly turtle and a spider plant in desperate need of re-potting to a selection of desktop stationery and my desk vacuum in the shape of a cow), I decided I wanted to delve a little bit deeper and check the contents of my pedestal drawers. This was more of a daunting prospect than you’d think- I haven’t delved into the depths of these drawers for a good few months…

In the current economic climate (man, I hate that phrase) more and more people are deciding to set up their offices at home. The advantages are pretty clear: no more brief-but-intimate introductions to the armpits of strangers on the Tube, more flexible working hours and a much tastier lunch are just a few.  I even tried it myself once -  with London brought to a standstill by snow earlier in the year, I had no choice but to go about my day’s work in the safe, warm confinement of my tiny bedroom.

Back in the day when I was just a fledgling Eurofficer, before our trusty cherry made it's début I was given the responsible (yet rather tedious) task of opening the company mail. As any small business can vouch for, we get a lot of it: invoices, cheques, fan mail and correspondence from manufacturers...