The building where I work has two atria, one spanning
floors 6 through 8, and the other spanning floors 9 through 11. The internal staircases
in these spaces were designed to resemble the double helix of DNA, and they’re
rather cool:
The down side of these areas is the noise level, if you
happen to have an office opening into them, because they’re basically just big-old sound
chambers. But if you don’t mind that, they’re impressive meeting venues.
On 30 June, an email went out to everyone at the atrium end
of the ninth floor, advising us that they were in fact going to hold a
retirement party there yesterday:
What is interesting is that we were being given notice that
a noisy party was going to take place and:
a) We weren’t invited to it
b) If we thought we might find the noise distracting, we should anticipate it and not
noticeably close them off, because that might look like we were raining on their good time
As it happened, I did close my door when they started
setting up beforehand, but when I heard the bluegrass music, I quietly opened it, because
it wasn’t bad. To my discomfort, I discovered that the musicians had set up
almost directly in front of me, and therefore all the audience were staring
into my office. And the CEO happened to be right next to it, and he leaned in
to comment, “You didn’t think you were going to work, did you?”
Please, God—let this week be over.
2 comments:
Three words for you: Tiny. Desk. Concerts.
I take your point. I do listen to WETA from about 0900 until 1600 (when I switch back to WAMU/NPR). They cycle through the eight Beethoven symphonies (since they don't do vocal music) once a week, along with the major Mozart symphonies & concerti &...well, all the war horses. I'll look into Tiny Desk Concert.
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