Nicholas Craig column

Mar 21 2003 By Nicholas Craig, The Journal

The lengths some businesses will go to in order to impress. Office sculptures, atriums, fountains, self-consciously glazed meeting rooms, reception areas the size of the average tennis court.

Bowls of exotic fruits (one colour only), bird of paradise flowers, fashion victim colour schemes. Are we impressed? Apparently some of us are.

The latest fad is for greeters (the aristocratic version of Asda's front-of-store staff) to beam you a welcome as you enter certain London offices, and ensure that you feel extra special during your first few steps in their world.

Others give visitors a tour of their overnight inhouse accommodation for committed clients and staff. Visiting an office is fast becoming a life experience, with cafes, audio-visual conference areas, internet bars, banks, gyms and now even bed and breakfast.

It's a triumph of style over substance. For the time you are in that office, however, it works. It seduces visitors and staff. Staff work longer hours because the company culture has instilled dedication as the hallmark of the brave new super service industry.

If this one-upmanship in office design and operation continues it can lead only to madness. There will be athletic tracks, fashion shows, and cinemas as part of the package designed to attract top quality clients and employees.

Meanwhile life outside the bubble of work will dwindle, in time and quality. Why leave to confront the vagaries of family life, bad weather, domestic duties and boring telly when you could be scoring brownie points at your air-conditioned space alongside like-minded colleagues?

So before someone falls in the fountain, tries to eat the fruit or tells the greeter to get a proper job we should try to regain some control in time management, and relax.

Ironically, we are now losing more working days to stress than we did to industrial action 30 years ago. We're still protesting at unfair working practices, but now by taking a sick day than by striking.

The Government is attempting to alter work-life balance, but it will take remarkable incentives to convert the love of materialism that fuels the overwork ethic into a family friendly flexible approach.

The truth remains that real life lies outside the office, however stunning the building. The employees whose jackets remain on their chairs long into the evening are missing out, and no amount of bonus payments will make up for that.