These hillocks of personal items are helpful as you can learn all about your co-workers. This one has asthma (there’s her Ventolin inhaler); this one (me) is taking too much Ibuprofen for his dodgy knee; and this one (neurotic!) has enough COVID masks to survive the next four pandemics.

Yes, but there’s a wall of lockers up the other end of the building – bookable by the day, just use the QR code – in which you could choose to put your Ventolin, your Ibuprofen, and your ear wax removal kit. But who can be bothered, especially when you’re so flat-out disposing of rubbish?

Bookshelves, by the way, are also forbidden due to a belief that all printed material is available online, which is a lovely idea if only it were true. The notion that there are mountains of books that have never been digitised is not an idea that strikes the modern office designer as plausible. Neither is the notion that you might have much-used books festooned with Post-it notes that you can pull from the shelf and use in an instant.

Oh, and landline phones – limited in number - have to be booked should you wish to use one. “Everyone uses their mobile anyway”. “Oh, and can you supply a company mobile for work calls?” “No, just use your own. You’ll be on a plan, so it won’t cost you anything”.

Another feature of the modern office is that everything is “self-serve”, accessible via a computer interface designed to break your spirit. Need to book a holiday? Or perhaps register a sick day, while attaching the necessary certificate from your doctor? Just hit the link in the “people hub”, and within minutes – by which I mean hours – you’ll have worked out how to do it.

You’ll collect your own mail from the mail room, of course. This is necessary since the company sacked all the people in the mailroom, along with the people who emptied the bins and – long-forgotten – the lady who used to bring everyone a cup of tea.

Loading

So senior executives, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, spend half their time walking to the bin, picking up their own mail, or trying to attach the doctor’s certificate for their sick leave.

Oh, sorry, the senior executives are exempt. They just make the rules for others. They are gluttons for the sort of efficiency that leads to less efficiency.

Is there anything that’s better about the modern office, compared to the dreary old office? Actually, the new carpet is rather good. And, for the time being, there are lots of forks in the kitchen.

All the same, who’d have thought that one day, I’d spend so much time fantasising about having a set of drawers and a rubbish bin?

Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.

To read more from Spectrum, visit our page here.