The problem with having an office is that people expect you to be in it.
Worse, it fills up with paper, much of it needing attention.
And if you’re unfortunate enough to work for an organisation with an I.T. department, it will likely be ordained that the most secure way for you to work is to use the networked desktop P.C. in said office, rather banging away at your laptop from a bar or a beach.
However, that is not a problem in a small business.
Which is why you may have seen me sat on a stool in the corridor of our Italian school balancing a computer on my knees.
Or perhaps not, as not having an I.T. Department to worry about, I might have decided to work from home or from the boat.
Lucky, huh?
It wasn’t always this way, though.
Years back I DID have an office and was condemned to sit in it, at least when I wasn’t teaching.
People would always be dropping by to tell me something ‘important’. Or just to pass the time of day.
Actually it was more like a cave than an office.
There was no natural light at all.
And as time passed, the corners were piled high with box files, old floppy discs, broken computers and anything else that couldn’t be left lying about in public.
Everything got extraordinarily dusty, perhaps because I had once told the cleaning lady not to bother me.
Fortunately, one day a boiler burst on the floor above and my lair was flooded!
Drying it out meant chucking away all the junk, then redecorating.
Once the space was semi-habitable again, we decided it could make a passable Teachers’ Room – a place for colleagues to gossip and eat their microwaved soup.
And me?
I went ‘paperless’ and was thus free to roam.
I’ve never looked back.
Corridors are lighter and airier. And if it’s draughty, I keep my coat on.
For private conversations, there’s a pub around the corner.
Back then when I DID have an office, however, I used to tell our Italian staff…
‘La mia porta è sempre aperta!’
Which happens to be one of the phrases from Marika’s new Italian lesson:
This one is the third in the series.
There are seven more to come, so keep opening the emails.
As I publish them, I’m linking to them from this page, which you can easily find again by looking for the New! link in the menu of the club website.
Bene, allora.
Buono studio e buon fine settimana!
Ci sentiamo lunedì.