The 7 types of office workers you love to hate
Hybrid working is here to stay, and our offices are now filled with different characters to those you’d find pre-pandemic. How many of these personalities can you spot?
Philosophical Phil
Since WFH started, Phil has begun to question the entire working structure around him – the office, the dress code, the calls, the concept of time – and cannot stop. So long as work is delivered and targets are met, why must he gather with colleagues in an open-plan room filled with wheelie chairs and passive aggression?
May say: “What is ‘employment’, Ian? Is it not more of a state of mind? Are we really ever clocked in or clocked out? We simply are.”
Awol Abigail
Some senior figures continue to live far, far away, regardless of what’s going on at the office. People know Awol Abigail’s still in charge, but haven’t seen her in months. It is like working for a spirit, an unknowable energy who occasionally reminds employees she’s alive by sending largely pointless emails.
May say: “If your email is urgent, please contact my deputy, Linda”.
Hazmat Harry
There he is, wandering over to the water cooler in his two masks, visor and gloves. He’ll still offer the hand sanitiser and shuffle backwards on his chair whenever anybody gets within 2m. He’s silently hoping for another lockdown.
May say: “Is it OK if I dial into the meeting from the empty room next door?”
Gus the Irrepressible Grad Spare a thought for the overly excitable graduate trainees, who never had the opportunity to get
unspeakably drunk after get-toknow-you drinks, use an expense account or stand outside a citycentre pub with colleagues, just living the dream. Well, compared to their midlife counterparts, young people are making up for lost time. Gus is filling his boots at the stationery cupboard, working his way through the coffee machine menu and joining in with every workshop he’s invited to.
May say: “Desk buddies, it’s a day ending in Y, isn’t it? Then to the City Arms we go.”
You’re Not at Home Joan
Joan is back in the office now, physically, but she’s completely forgotten how to act. She brings in her laptop because she can’t remember how to log in to the work computers, and dresses mainly in layers of towelling material.
May say: “That movement in my handbag? Oh, I brought my greyhound Jessica in today.”
Terry the TW&T
In professional parlance, Terry’s one of the Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays crowd. Wednesday’s the new Thursday, which was the new Friday. Smug, sunkissed Terry sashays in on Tuesday morning, having been impossible to reach on Monday and Friday, then soon vanishes again to spend more time cycling.
May say: “Phewee, what a week chained to the ol’ desko, eh?”
Castaway Colin
Some offices remain largely empty. But in many of them there is a lonely figure – or maybe a skeleton team – just drifting in space, manning the station while everyone else is at home. Colin sees nobody, bar the security guard on the front desk, and has named all the office mice after colleagues he once knew.
May say: “Who goes there?!”