All Lit Up

In the office building I share with a bundle of other companies, I find I have my irritations. I know, shocking.

One that regularly annoys me is the way people shove on all the lights – even in public spaces where they’re not necessary – and completely fail to then turn them off again.

At the start of the day, people come in and just automatically turn on every sodding light – regardless of the conditions outside, the time of year, or of anyone else in any other offices.  In short, the entire place is lit up like fucking fairyland – even in the height of summer, when you don’t need the lights on at all.

The same applies in the toilets – again, an area that at this time of year really doesn’t need any illumination other than daylight. But no, on go the lights, and then no other fucker turns them off again.

Of course, I don’t mind people turning on the lights when they need them. What bugs me is that they then don’t bother to turn them off when they leave the rooms/facilities.

But the thing is, everyone pays a piece of the electricity bill. You’d think that would encourage some responsibility, some desire to only use what’s necessary. But of course that’d require some vague sense of altruism, of being interested in something other than self, of just giving a shit about things.  And that’s what’s missing.

Grrrr.


Spaces

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about laziness – and noticing a lot of it, as well. As such, there’s likely to be a few more posts about it, while it’s in my head.

One thing I’ve noticed over the last few weeks is around parking on weekends. Milton Keynes, for those who don’t know, has no shortage of parking spaces. It’s basically a fucking huge car-park with added shops and housing.

And yet every weekend I see drivers queueing to get into the multi-story car-park that’s the absolute closest to one end of the shopping centre. Queueing past loads of spaces that are empty (and cheaper than that multi-storey one) and fucking up junctions, all to get to the closest (or at least perceived to be closest) parking place.

I don’t get it – but then, I’m the idiot who walks from one end of central Milton Keynes to the other, because I’m too lazy to be bothered with driving it and faffing with parking. So who am I to judge?

(Not that I’m judging, I just find it weird to queue for spaces in an expensive multi-storey when there’s tons of closer street-level parking)


No Security

As I’ve said before, I’m working on going to the gym more often, more regularly. I’m getting there twice a week, and so far it’s going well.

The gym’s a more local one, in Milton Keynes, and near a lot of offices (unsurprisingly)

My routine tends to mean I get into MK early, and go to the gym before I start work – which is also what a fair number of other people seem to do. And that’s fine – it makes sense to me, and to all involved.

What does surprise me, though, is that most of the guys who are in the gym at the same time as me seem to leave most of their work stuff in the changing room, on the racks, rather than making use of the lockers. Not just the shirts, but full suits, as well as shoes and so on.

I don’t know if it’s just people being lazy, or doing that so that work stuff isn’t creased – although some of the lockers definitely have hanging sections within them, but they are further away than the standard ones.  I suspect it’s a combination of both.

But all told it just makes me wonder about how people can be so unconscious of security – if they’re happy to leave stuff accessible to anyone with nefarious intentions (and I have no way of knowing if they’re leaving stuff in the suit pockets or not) instead of walking twenty paces extra, then I kind of despair of things.