The first thing I did when we got into this office is look around Melbourne for bathroom renovations. Oh, I wasn’t about to work in here with THAT in the next room, believe you me. I liked the general feel of the office, despite the fact that it was slightly threadbare, but the bathroom? Not good enough. Nowhere close to good enough.
Some people might not have standards quite at my level, but I’m used to dealing with a toilet that DOESN’T have 90% rust coating the inside. I want a sink that actually looks clean rather than bits of it flaking off. And wallpaper is nice. Not much to ask, is it? Exposed brick can be rustic, but if you walked into this bathroom you’d know exactly what I mean. This was exposed brick because no one could be bothered to do anything about it. The icing on this sad cake is that you could hear everything from the other side of the wall, which is…mortifying. Cough gently, and the people working on the other side could hear it, let alone any louder noises. You know the ones.
So that was the very first thing I dealt with. I had a bit left in the budget for that sort of thing, and I didn’t even hesitate. Bathroom renovation don’t sound like the most necessary thing, but I feel like a lot of offices neglect that sort of thing at their peril. People have to use the bathroom. If it’s an awful place, the workplace morale plummets. I even did a bit of research around these offices; asked the PI place next door, and the online marketing place in front of us. Both had nice bathrooms. So at least I had some renovators of bathrooms in Melbourne to call upon, who I KNEW would do a good job. At the very least, the walls needed more padding. A LOT more padding.
-Jin