Thursday, November 20, 2008

Coffee & cigarettes... in the office

I've made an interesting observation about offices... more specifically - about how people socialize on workplaces...
I realized that people who smoke often or at least drink coffee (for example a morning one), socialize more and get to know more people from the office, in the same way, people know more about them.
They are more successful and productive. Though i cannot prove it with any research, but i think it's not needed )

I know better the people whom i chat with in the corridors or staircase, while they smoke or drink coffee, meanwhile I know almost nothing about ones that never spend time in corridors.

In my company there are about 80 employees and in the morning, right when we arrive at work (around 10.00-10.30), the morning coffee trapeze starts :) it's always almost the same company, same people.. we share our personal and work updates, we discuss what's going on in the office etc... it's always very informative and nice (our company has its souls of fun :))).. this way we know more what every department is working on, since there's not so much interaction between our departments.
Sometimes people who didn't smoke or drink coffee, were starting to take some drinks and were joining us, so we were knowing them better also and even changing our opinions about them.

I'm not a smoker (in fact, I'm an active anti-smoking campaigner), but luckily i drink coffee :D Even if i didn't drink coffee, I'd think about smth else to drink, since i wouldn't miss the chance to get to know my co-workers).

Often it's also useful, like when you urgently need a cellphone recharger, or if smb has giveaway tickets to some events... there's always a lot of things to share :)

Sometimes we notice our CEO's not-so-approving looks, and wonder why wouldn't directors and managers approve their employees' socializing. Well, maybe they think that we lose a lot of time on 'useless' chats, but I'm ready to prove, if needed, that this way we are more productive. We work better with colleagues whom we know even a bit out-of-work.

If I was a boss (when I become one ;) I would never discourage people to socialize, instead, I would join them during the breaks :) and of course I would organize more "legal" corporate parties.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's coffee break in the office :)

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The point is that the article was not only in 2 colors, black and white, as it is supposed to be when you are going to tell about coffee&cigarettes:))). Arp jan, I definitely liked it :)) good job!

P.S.
to feel the article please try to drink a coffee during the reading;)