This is a real question, not intended to offend. I grew up in an outer suburb of London myself but have always done office work in town, except for two jobs where I worked in the suburbs, also office jobs. I grew up in a similar area so this is not a suburb-bashing post.
I'm just asking if there's something in it, or if it was just a coincidence that I've had two bad experiences. I'd love to try and find a slightly more local job again, or even just a shorter tube journey. I realise it won't happen for a while.
Is there something more casual about the way people behave at work? I'm finding it hard to explain. I know you can get awful people anywhere.
Years ago I worked for a few months at an office with the nastiest, most gossipy, self-absorbed office queen bee I've ever met. Her self-centeredness was almost fascinating. The sort of person who's been there for years and nobody can do anything about. It took a huge toll on my health and I left after a short time.
Then I once worked as a temp receptionist for a few months in a large office building with lots of small companies. I was a receptionist for the whole building. It didn't help that it was on a main road as people would often just pop in. There were hundreds of people in the building and I'd constantly get people saying "I'm here for a meeting with Bob", they wouldn't know his surname or company name, I had no way of looking it up and they'd get annoyed with me and say "Look, just call Bob, he knows me, okay?" There'd also be things like someone coming in to see a company I'd never heard of, getting annoyed with me and saying things in the feel of "Don't you know who I am?", then it would eventually emerge that the company moved out several years ago. Several people who worked in the building were astoundingly rude to me, too. There were also some problems with people nearby, a couple of people had threatened us, I had to call the police once or twice. I felt unsafe working there.
Before you tell me that's just the nature of reception work, it really isn't. I've done reception work at all sorts of companies and never had anything like that, it's usually fine.
I wonder if there's something in it, or if I've just been unlucky.