To be devastated....

[Winosaurus]

I’m being moved from my nice little private office to a large office upstairs which I’ll be sharing with 4 other people.
I’ll have to be nice, polite, make small talk and worst of all hold my farts in all day. Dreading it

You might need Shreddies

www.myshreddies.com/

Someone was so worried about the smell the other day that they got maintenance in to check the drains

Oh god, that's just given me a flashback.

When I was low carbing, I brought a lovely camembert to snack on over the week. I prefer it gooey so I left it in my desk. Only it turns out that camembert fucking stinks of brussels sprouts if it gets warm.

The next day I got to work and the cleaner said that they had been trying all morning to work out what the awful smell was. She had bleached all of the bins in the office but it was still lingering so she had contacted maintenance about checking for damp! I kept my mouth shut and quietly disposed of the offending cheese

Bad times for you op. But you could be my dd who was delighted to be moved to a gorgeous new office complete with shower, lovely kitchen, pot plants etc only to be seated in a group of four who are middle aged men who still find farting, burping and commenting on the female staff hilarious. The only reason the "banter" is not too bad is because she is sat across from her Uncles best mate.

She is made of stern stuff however as this happened previously. She decided to take action and email her female boss with the inciteful comment "Kev is a despicable arsehole...". Unfortunately she sent it to Kev.

When we moved offices, the staff unanimously voted for me to have my own office! It’s bliss

I did not take their vote as an insult (in case anyone wondered)

I wouldn't like to work in my own all day every day. Now and again it's nice if I want to concentrate on something, but generally I prefer to be with other people.
..........yes, sometimes people are annoying. But generally I enjoy the chance to bounce ideas off people and talk things through.

This!!!

I think MN is very skewed to introverts. I am always astonished at the number of people who get murderously annoyed with their office mates for really minor things . I need to talk to organise my ideas so work best in a team whwere we are all clsoe to each other so we can discuss things

In my current job I do in fact have quite a few days when I am on my own in an office, This is OK for the occasional day or period of time but I have found that , surprisingly, these persiod are often my most unproductive. I find myself getting more and more lethergic and less and less motivated to work if I am on my own in an office for too many days in a row.

Than again it takes all sort I suppose

Hell is other people, OP.

You are obviously made of sterner stuff than me. They would have to drag my cold, dead body out of that nice, private office.

And even then I would sew prawns into any curtains in the room and seed and water the carpets before I left.

if I lose my office I will look for another job - its the best thing I have (nicest one in the office with the best view)

....and this is one of the reasons why I am self employed. I hated sharing an office. the smell of peoples lunch, disgusting eating noises, talking too loudly on the phone, annoying repetitive habits like drumming a pen or swivelling a chair. Peoples perfume. people coming in and sighing a lot because they want you to ask them how they are when quite frankly you don't give a shiny shit. yep definitely meant to be a self employed person.

oh my god I have just had the most irritating office day

including the smell of what I think was mackerel...very pungent.

I've never had my own office, but I feel for you. I am going to be freelancing and working at home from late 2018 and I'd count the days but there's SO MANY OF THEM.

I do work at home a couple of days a week otherwise I'd have completely lost it by now.

if it's not more money why are you doing it?

Will someone else get your office or are they making it into a meeting room or summat?

"Worst part is I’ll be up there with 3 new starters and I’ll be their team leader. So now I have responsibilities too. Dammit"

It'll be like becoming a step-mother to 3 teens on no notice.

Time to re-read Snow White?

I work in a huge open-plan office and I am autistic so have hypersensitive hearing but still enjoy it because the people that sit all around me are really nice and friendly and we enjoy a good natter and sharing biscuits over our brews etc. Plus if I am very busy or just don't feel like joining in a conversation I can just ignore it and get on with my own stuff. I think I would be bored and lonely on my own all day but I think that's mostly just because I have such a great bunch of colleagues. I can imagine the situation would be entirely different if we didn't all get along so well.

If you're the team leader, make it clear from Day One that you don't operate in a democracy, more a benign dictatorship, and not too much of that benign sauce if you don't mind!

my colleagues are lovely

I'd just like to have space and peace and quiet

ideally there'd be a space somewhere that you could go and chat

I am terrible at tuning out other people's conversations but the office I work in at the mo is the worst I've had and the phones ring constantly and people come by constantly to see my boss - who literally sits a foot away from me.

all are people I'll happily keep in touch with but a room of my own is much better for work - I get twice as much done on work at home days.

I think id really have to enjoy my job to work on my own in a room. The only reason I can put up with my job is because of the lovely team around me.

just,
it's not really isolating at all to work at home - I think probably in the days before tech, yes, but now, not at all.

I also like that I can use my lunch time for something constructive and of course, no commute is fab!