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Published: July 17th 2007
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The tube So what is it like to be working in London everyday? I work in IT in the financial sector, for an American investment bank. This may not be typical of everybody in London, but was certainly a bit of a change for me.
To get to work, if you use the train (or the 'tube' as is it called here), the good surprise is that you don't have to worry about train times. Trains are so frequent that it doesn't matter. There is a train going the city every 3 minutes on our line. I just leave home when I'm ready and I don't have to worry about waiting for the train. Usually, I'm early enough (7:30 am), and I get a seat. After 8 am, it's much more packed. I tried to read standing up on the train & I lost my balance several times. The train moves so much laterally compared to Sydney, I'm really not used to it.
Work in the office is a little bit different to what I was used to in Sydney. The first visual shock is the absence of partitions. There is a huge row of tables, with people sitting about
2 meters apart. You can see everything around you, and everybody can see you. It is a bit difficult to focus in this environment, as you are exposed to any conversation around you. Many people listen to their iPods to isolate themselves a bit from the noise. The floors are huge as well. There are easily several hundred peoples sitting in one floor, in an open area. You don't get to know the names of many of the people who are working on the same floor. What surprised me even more was the ambience. It is not a place to say hello or chat. People are far too busy. Communications and meetings are kept to a minimum.
What I found nice at work is to have two monitors connected to your computer. I have seen it most places I have interviewed, so it seems to be quite common. You have two monitors side by side, so you can, for example, put to a document you need to refer to one monitor while doing your work using the other monitor. It took me a while to get used to it, but I find now that it is really useful. I
get things done quicker as I rarely have to switch between two windows like I often had to with a single screen. I can understand why many companies are willing to do this as it make people more productive, easily paying off the cost of another monitor. Some people on our floor even have 3 or 4 monitors connected to their computer
Lunchtime is brief. Most people eat at the local cafeteria, within the office building, then get back to work. There are no social lunches. There many French people working here, but even them seem to have given up their tradition of a social lunch. People tend to socialize at the pub after work, usually on Thursday and Friday evening.
Sometimes during lunchtime I go for a quick walk. That is when it is not raining or things aren't too busy. I often walk around the Tames river on the river banks. It is quite nice, although it is not as pretty as Paris or Sydney.
Working hours can be long sometimes. For me, it is longer than it was in Sydney. Having said this, it depends on the luck of the draw of the contract.
Typically when you are looking for a contract you must take what is available at the time unless you can afford to wait for another few weeks hoping to find the ideal role. I know other contractors who have a more social and casual work environment. It all depends on the timing.
There is free coffee at work. Not just the instant coffee, but the coffee machines that serves cappuccino, espresso, or anything you fancy. I find it a difficult temptation to deal with. I manage to limit myself to two coffees a day though. There are still many people who find this not good enough for them and insist on getting their coffees from Starbucks for example, who are widespread throughout London.
In terms of pace, this is a high pressure environment. You have to work fast, accurately, and be very focused on delivering value. There is not much time for training, R&D, or anything not directly related to getting the essential work done. However this is the nature of contracting so not really surprising.
Since I start early in the morning, I still get home early enough in the evenings to take the girls to the park or go for a walk along the river with Fran, especially now in Summer when the sun sets so late.
The weather has been really bad recently. We had a nice start of the year, with a winter not very cold and spring fairly warm and sunny. We felt that the London weather wasn't as bad as we thought. That perception changed recently. Since June, it has been mostly raining. The temperature has been around 20 degrees, not very warm for summer! We are back to going to the museums during week-ends. At least there are some great museums here. In early June, I got a cold from the wet weather. It's been lingering ever since as I seem to be much more sensitive to hay fever here as I was in Sydney. I'll be happy to be back to the Sydney weather!
Herve
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