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Working ✍️ Help design the worst possible office environment

Maister

Maister

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We need help designing an office environment and associated operations that will minimize employee morale, productivity, efficiency etc. Thanks in advance.

No coffee machine. Only freeze dried Taster's Choice or other similar fine brands of instant coffee made using hot tap water will be permitted. Oh, and that coffee may only be served in disposable paper cups (with the nifty little fold-out paper handle).
 
The entrance to the bathrooms is right across from the admin's desk with an unobstructed view. So not only does the admin have to deal with whatever stink wafts out of there on a daily basis, they also get to know who made the stink and employees leaving the bathroom know that the admin knows it was them who made the stink. And of course the admin knows how long and how often you go in there.
 
Planners are assigned to work 45 minutes shifts at the front desk throughout the day on a rotating three person schedule. Any changes or alterations to the schedule must be submitted in writing not less than 5 business days in advance.
 
Spend a bazillion dollars on a new office featuring a cube farm for the plebes and glass walled offices for the gentry. Move into said office and hire a consultant to provide training to staff for an active shooter situation which ironically happened to be the day after the Las Vegas massacre. The consultant basically said we were all sitting ducks as there was nowhere to hide.
 
Make sure some of the offices back up to the bathroom so you can hear the flush every time. Thin walls are a bonus.

Demand that no personal electrical devices can be plugged in the building. No just space heaters, but the mini coffee pot someone is hiding under a giant snack bowl as well.

Routine A/C or heating breaks depending on the season.

Place the offices by the front door of the building so everyone stops by to ask where some other office is. Helps to have no information desk.

Place the break room, bathroom, copier, etc. as far away from everyone as possible.

Copier code. I hate those thing.
 
kjel said:
Spend a bazillion dollars on a new office featuring a cube farm for the plebes and glass walled offices for the gentry. Move into said office and hire a consultant to provide training to staff for an active shooter situation...
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Dang, do we work together? This seems very familiar...
 
Make sure the bathroom facility looks like it was built 50 or so years ago. Pastel colors, old dingy toilets and sinks, and cramped configuration.

The rear exit door will face the alley in downtown, recessed into the building, in order to serve as the popular outdoor peeing location for the drunks leaving the bars every night.
 
WSU MUP Student said:
The entrance to the bathrooms is right across from the admin's desk with an unobstructed view. So not only does the admin have to deal with whatever stink wafts out of there on a daily basis, they also get to know who made the stink and employees leaving the bathroom know that the admin knows it was them who made the stink. And of course the admin knows how long and how often you go in there.
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Does directly behind the admin's desk count? She has an obstructed view, but you have to walk past her to get into the bathroom.

kjel said:
Spend a bazillion dollars on a new office featuring a cube farm for the plebes and glass walled offices for the gentry. Move into said office and hire a consultant to provide training to staff for an active shooter situation which ironically happened to be the day after the Las Vegas massacre. The consultant basically said we were all sitting ducks as there was nowhere to hide.
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Our office checks these boxes. Cubes on one side, me and the chief inspector have partially glass walls. Completely open to any sort of active shooter. Cost a ton of money to move into this building in 2015.

DVD said:
Make sure some of the offices back up to the bathroom so you can hear the flush every time. Thin walls are a bonus.

Demand that no personal electrical devices can be plugged in the building. No just space heaters, but the mini coffee pot someone is hiding under a giant snack bowl as well.

Routine A/C or heating breaks depending on the season.

Place the offices by the front door of the building so everyone stops by to ask where some other office is. Helps to have no information desk.

Place the break room, bathroom, copier, etc. as far away from everyone as possible.

Copier code. I hate those thing.
Click to expand...

We have almost all of these. Admin's desk backs up to the bathroom. No personal electronic devices are supposed to be plugged in, but no one listens. No mini-fridge for the water lady downstairs (but she put it in anyway).

Heat almost always gets stuck on at some point during the winter, several times. Every once in a while we come back to an office that's well over 100 degrees with tiles coming unglued and anything in office drawers that can melt have become sticky puddles.

The water department is downstairs, and every single person who enters through the front door (where we are) asks where it is, despite the many signs saying DOWNSTAIRS. The Chamber of Commerce used to be here, so we get a lot of people looking for it (and the old Town Hall, and the old EDC, and the old police department).

Break room is downstairs, in the water department offices, for which upstairs employees have no key. So if any of them are gone, we have no access to it. Real nice when you forget your lunchbox in that fridge. Almost no one uses it because it's annoying to get to. No copier code though, and the copier is somewhat easy to get to.
 
When HR asks what they can do for employee morale and every employee asks to host a CM pizza party like we used to say no because it costs to much money then hire a yoga instructor to come in once a week for "free" yoga class for employees. Yup, the trash guys and streets crews loved that idea.
 
Boss has this:
1564586811238.png


Everyone else has these:
1564587048373.png
 
Only permit the public to use the restrooms on your floor. Bonus if the "public" is generally there only because they have been summoned to appear in one of the courtrooms on the other floors of your building.
 
dw914er said:
Make sure the bathroom facility looks like it was built 50 or so years ago. Pastel colors, old dingy toilets and sinks, and cramped configuration.
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I had a job interview at AA (for all you Michiganders) a long time ago. That pretty much describes their bathrooms.
 
If you have a walled off office with a door make sure it is big enough so one wall looks like Storage Room B in the basement -
filing cabinets with docket records dating back to 1997 and on top of them several banker boxes with different docket files.

Also in said office have mismatched chairs & desks.

also light switch is on an outside hallway wall not in said office.
 
Gedunker said:
Only permit the public to use the restrooms on your floor. Bonus if the "public" is generally there only because they have been summoned to appear in one of the courtrooms on the other floors of your building.
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Don't forget to have people coming out of court either crying or arguing with each other. Makes for a cheerful hallway that employees can't help but hear.
 
DVD said:
Don't forget to have people coming out of court either crying or arguing with each other. Makes for a cheerful hallway that employees can't help but hear.
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In one place I worked, the Planning Offices where right next to one of the doors to the Courthouse. Court day for the juvvies was always a bit sad.
 
No employee parking garage, nor under or adjacent to the building. No covered walkway from said parking to a building entrance.

Office should be located far enough from anything else, that an employee must drive to "go out for lunch".

Break room is a galley-style room with an aging fridge, one working microwave, and a single sink. Chairs are hard plastic, and all the tables rock enough to put your lunch in your lap if you aren't careful.

Make sure every noise echoes. Large cavernous space that's hard to heat/cool, along with slamming exterior doors, squeaky desk drawers, all phones on high volume, and an entry lobby that's tile will help with that.
 
Salmissra said:
Break room is a galley-style room with an aging fridge, one working microwave, and a single sink. Chairs are hard plastic, and all the tables rock enough to put your lunch in your lap if you aren't careful.
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That kitchen is only complete if there is an exposed pipe from the bathroom on the floor above and you can hear the wastewater rushing through it every time somebody flushes.
 
An "annex" in a portable building, or a basement. You're not a real planner until you've had an office in a shitty construction trailer or musty basement. (Gatekeeping, I know.) Makeshift offices, like where the end of a hallway or part of a file room is cubed off, also suck. The worst workspace of all -- a desk in a hall.

At the seat of the local government where I worked in the early 2000s, the entrance to the only bathroom in the building was in my office.

Whose Yur Planner said:
In one place I worked, the Planning Offices where right next to one of the doors to the Courthouse. Court day for the juvvies was always a bit sad.
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Where I work, the "chambers" also serves as the setting for the municipal court. The planning library doubles as a consultation area for defendants and their lawyers. Occasionally, a cop will lead someone in an orange jumpsuit through the planning/building workspace.
 
Dan said:
The worst workspace of all -- a desk in a hall.
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Ha! That was my desk for my internship...added bonus was that what should have been my leg space under the desk was used to store boxes of files.
 
A significant percentage of the office area must be dedicated for use as a storage space. Mostly for things like light tables, mimeograph or thermofax machines, overhead projectors for transparencies, drafting tables, and large numbers of metal filing cabinets for address files.
 
A certain retired councilperson comes by regularly at 4:45 on Fridays to see who is still working.










(this is a true statement)
 
Bubba said:
Ha! That was my desk for my internship...added bonus was that what should have been my leg space under the desk was used to store boxes of files.
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#1-conference room table with a laptop, I would have to vacate at the drop of the hat when the city manager needed the space.

#2-the break room in the planning department which was a round table with 4 chairs, people would come eat their lunch in there while I was working.
 
Infestation. We have all forgotten the need of bugs or rats in the office. Thanks other thread.
 
DVD said:
Infestation. We have all forgotten the need of bugs or rats in the office. Thanks other thread.
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Our front lobby actually has two bug zapper lights in it and I'm told there are bug zappers up on the 4th floor as well (the building is 6 floors).
 
The last city I worked for had a mice problem in the office. Once of them had a feast on a packet of Justin's peanut butter in my desk drawer.
 
Maister said:
Planners are assigned to work 45 minutes shifts at the front desk throughout the day on a rotating three person schedule. Any changes or alterations to the schedule must be submitted in writing not less than 5 business days in advance.
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Also, as I once had to, all counter planners must log every interaction in the counter computer- time in, questions asked, responses given, time out. The computer runs on XP and has a huge CRT monitor that blocks your chance to have actual face-to-face communication with the person you're talking to. Most of the time the data entry takes longer than the actual interaction.
 
Cubicle employee tasks to be doled out daily:
  • one super LOUD or hard-of-hearing employee
  • one long call on speaker phone
  • one employee to eat fish or other smelly foods at their desk
  • one gossipy employee to make their way through the room telling the same gossip over and over again
  • one employee who is in charge of the church prayer chain and relays problems via cell phone (not text) multiple times a day*

*true story

JNA said:
...also light switch is on an outside hallway wall not in said office.
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The light switch for the 2nd floor bull-pen office in this building is actually downstairs at the back door.
Maister said:
A significant percentage of the office area must be dedicated for use as a storage space. Mostly for things like light tables, mimeograph or thermofax machines, overhead projectors for transparencies, drafting tables, and large numbers of metal filing cabinets for address files.
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The storage area should be overflowing and so large that it's the focus point when you walk into the Department.
Planit said:
A certain retired councilperson comes by regularly at 4:45 on Fridays to see who is still working.










(this is a true statement)
Click to expand...
Also true here! I will admit I often don't see said councilperson.
 
Don't forget the crop dusting employee! Cubes are never fun without a crop duster.
 
DVD said:
Infestation. We have all forgotten the need of bugs or rats in the office. Thanks other thread.
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Remember that pass-through office with the bathroom I mentioned? It had cockroaches, too. The entire town hall. They weren't going to do anything about it until a future gut rehab -- which began shortly after I left
 
What about ceilings that leak and drip onto paper records that you are supposed to retain, therefore rendering the entire building musty and smelly?
 
Here is my list:

Middle management and everyone below them:
  • Everyone has a computer but everything is on dial up speeds
  • A shared printer that jams at random multiple times per hour
  • It was once an office that permitted people to smoke, and has never been properly cleaned since
  • Concrete floors with grey cubical walls... no windows.
  • Poorly operating HVAC system
  • Really bad florescent lighting that flickers and has a constant hum
  • Prohibition on display of any personal items or live plants
  • Steel desks from the 1950s that have been in a very humid environment for almost 70 years.
  • A lingering odor of burnt popcorn, microwaved fish, and burnt coffee that lingers for months.
  • Zero talking policy
  • Past records are in paper format in the basement
  • Office is on the 5th floor and the elevator is broken
  • "Karen" lives next door and is self appointed zoning and codes inspector/ "let me talk to your manager" extraordinaire
  • Break room has one table with 4 mis-matched chairs, all of which are slightly damaged and have been repaired with duct tape and super glue and a refrigerator that has something growing on the shelves
  • Prohibition on the use of an ampersand in any document.
  • Staff is less than half what it should be for the workload
  • Time clock as you walk into the department with old punch cards.
  • Three stall restrooms where one fixture is always broken and no ventilation
  • No training budget
  • Inspection vehicle is a reconstructed ford pinto with a cockroach infestation

Directors and Upper Management:
  • The exact opposite of everything above
 
Don't forget, the office must have zero structural defenses against the "regulars" just waltzing in and demanding one-two hours unscheduled airings of greivances, which in some twisted concept of "public service," must always be granted.

A bonus feature is if your office has a sad-sack employee who routinely cries at their desk.
 
Can't forget to have the employee he is "too busy" to ever take a shift at the counter and management does nothing to fix that even though everyone is too busy to do counter shifts.
 
I’ve mentioned annexes, construction trailers, and basements. There’s another kind of worst case scenario setting for an office.

I don’t know if this is unique to New York, but the very last place I want to work is in a combination town hall / highway department building. It’s almost always an old metal building, in an out-of-the-way location. The parking lot? Gravel and mud. Cold in the winter, broiling in the summer. Your individual office? Barely Class C office space, with no windows, and a dropped panel ceiling with fluorescent lighting.

enfield_town_hall.jpg


varick_town_hall.jpg
 
Dan said:
I’ve mentioned annexes, construction trailers, and basements. There’s another kind of worst case scenario setting for an office.

I don’t know if this is unique to New York, but the very last place I want to work is in a combination town hall / highway department building. It’s almost always an old metal building, in an out-of-the-way location. The parking lot? Gravel and mud. Cold in the winter, broiling in the summer. Your individual office? Barely Class C office space, with no windows, and a dropped panel ceiling with fluorescent lighting.
Click to expand...
Got that tee shirt. I also briefly had to share office space with a Township Fire Department. Few things are less conducive to getting planning-related work done than this arrangement. Nothing like having one's phone conversations interrupted with unannounced 100 decibel sirens.
 
One of my last offices was a restaurant converted to city use. The files were literally kept in the freezer. I guess I'm grateful they never turned the freezer on. Then again in this hot climate, that might have been nice.
 
There's a warren of seldom-visited and abandoned hallways, passages and rooms in the basement of the building where I work. Here's one of the rooms down there.

IMG_0513.jpeg


If there ever was a room you could call a dungeon, this is it.
 
Dan said:
There's a warren of seldom-visited and abandoned hallways, passages and rooms in the basement of the building where I work. Here's one of the rooms down there.

View attachment 25113

If there ever was a room you could call a dungeon, this is it.
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Who decorated that room? It's totally lacking a gibbet on the east side and no floor drain for all the blood. In other words, bad dungeon feng shui.
 
Maister said:
Got that tee shirt. I also briefly had to share office space with a Township Fire Department. Few things are less conducive to getting planning-related work done than this arrangement. Nothing like having one's phone conversations interrupted with unannounced 100 decibel sirens.
Click to expand...

My previous place of employment was in the former volunteer fire station; the fire department moved out but left the siren on the roof. I remember once being on a phone call once with a very talkative employee of a state agency when the siren went off one day. She evidently was from a tornado plagued area because she thought it was tornado siren and got of the phone with me real quick. I almost started to explain that it wasn't but I had stuff to do, so I didn't. She called back the next day to check on me, it was then that I explained that it was the just the fire siren.

Same place was adjacent to the rail road tracks and there were no less than 2 dozen unsignaled rail crossings within a 1/2 mile of the City Hall so the train blew it's horn all the way through town. Thankfully there was just one train a day and it was a fairly predictable schedule.

on the exterior of my current place of employment, it appears that my office should have an exterior window. The window is there but on the interior side there is a cinder block wall and drywall.
 
Dan said:
I’ve mentioned annexes, construction trailers, and basements. There’s another kind of worst case scenario setting for an office.
I don’t know if this is unique to New York, but the very last place I want to work is in a combination town hall / highway department building. It’s almost always an old metal building, in an out-of-the-way location. The parking lot? Gravel and mud. Cold in the winter, broiling in the summer. Your individual office? Barely Class C office space, with no windows, and a dropped panel ceiling with fluorescent lighting.
Click to expand...

I've seen that here in NC. THIS is the one that comes to mind. Fun fact, that town was the location where the flag placed on the Moon during Apollo 11 was manufactured.
 
and on that note, have a look at the round high school. The pull-out wood bleachers around the perimeter of the gym are as much a PIA as you might imagine.
roundschool.JPG
 
AG74683 said:
I've seen that here in NC. THIS is the one that comes to mind. Fun fact, that town was the location where the flag placed on the Moon during Apollo 11 was manufactured.
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Garage? Check. Portable sign? Check.

Still, cladding is brick with some vinyl siding. There's a metal standing seam roof. Parking is paved. It's an architectural masterpiece compared to this or this.
 
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