The Only Boy

I always get into stuff
Just when it's finishing being cool
I'm never quite brave enough
To take a chance on something new
That's for someone else to do

I'm never too far behind
I follow the trends
But I never take any risks
I'm not ahead of the pack
I'm just with the pack
Towards the back

Tripod - Always Get Into Stuff

Hello ScoFans!

This is something that's been happening around the bloggosphere for awhile now, and in fact I think almost everyone else has had their turn.

So when everyone else has finished, become bored with it, packed up and gone home.. then that's when I'll decide to give it a crack (although after I drafted this the first office tour for about a week went up, so I guess I'm not the only one towards the back of the pack)

Cher of The Only Girl and someone else who I'm not sure who it was started an International Workspace Tour many many weeks ago. I kept saying "I'll do it one day", and I was going to do it last week, but last week was the first of May and I had more important things to blog about (I forgot to mention anyone who liked that song can go here and download it, and about 30 of his other songs, for free- you can also pay for others if you choose to), so here is my workspace, albeit delayed by a week.

The title of this post is a play on Cher's "Only Girl", because as of last Friday I am the only boy in my office other than the boss (which means I am the only boy in "The pit".. you'll see what that's about later)

I know you're excited, you always wanted to know what an accounting office looked like right?

This is the tea room. It's the first room you see when you enter the building (from the carpark, obviously not from the street. We don't want our clients entering the building in the tea room. That's where we go to complain about them and the stupid, frustrating things they do. They can't hear that, they might think we don't value their money.)



This is the area that we affectionately refer to as "The deads". It's where we put the files of all of our clients who have moved on to a better place.. like the accountants up the road. Bam!

Ow. I hurt my own feelings.

I like referring to it as the deads. That way if someone comes looking for a file, I have a chance to say "I think we killed them", and the other person knows exactly what I mean. And they don't call the cops.



That's my desk. I'm pretty sure that file was open because I was pretending to be busy. I can tell because there is a closed file on top of the open file, so I'm not sure how I was getting any work done.

Wanna see what's in my drawers?



That's my top drawer. That's where I empty my pockets to when I arrive in the morning. That "Chewy" thing you see would be a muesli bar, which becomes afternoon tea. The purple highlighter hasn't worked in over 12 months. The "Tax Schools" brochure you see there was probably for last years seminar.


That's my bottom drawer. You can see there the book from last years Tax Schools seminar, as well as my dodgy umbrella. In a strong gust of wind, that thing is useless, and I'm better off without it. I have an umbrella at home I use on the really rainy days, that one is back up in case I get caught looking to head home during a light shower (but racing home with that thing in a storm is a far better alternative to... *shudder*.. staying at work)


These are the shelves that sit behind my desk that help to keep me organised.

Top shelf = waiting on info from the client
Second shelf = info has come in, waiting for me to start working on it
Bottom shelf = waiting on a response from the tax office / ASIC etc

As you can see, I'm very efficient. My clients and the government bodies I have to deal with.. not so much.


These are my other shelves.

Top shelf - Files that pretty much "live" at my desk for one reason or another
Second shelf - Printer paper and current tax books
Bottom shelf- Old tax books for reference

So yeah.. I'm pretty organised, right?

WRONG!

That's my desk from side on. Apparently I decided it would be fun to try and build a fort. I'm not sure at what point I realized that by building a fort around myself to lock other people out, I would at the same time be trapping myself at my desk.

But I'm not the only one to leave files just laying about.



That's our boardroom. That's where, in theory, we could be taking some of our clients with a team of us and a team of them and discussing their business and their tax situation and whatever.

Every now and then (like if we have a new client coming in that we want to land) we'll tidy the room up and put on a show.. but mostly it's just used as storage for files that my boss was looking at, at some point he's forgotten why he was looking at them, and so they've been moved there until somebody runs out of stuff to do and picks them up.

This is one of our interview rooms though.

It's where I see most of my clients. They have no idea of what's happening out the back. They wouldn't even realize there's hideous green carpet through most of the office (You all noticed that, right?). There's a few pictures there (from shows my boss has been in or just classic pictures most people have seen) which clients will use to strike up a conversation, there's a graph of the share market's performance which I can use to try and make tax clients financial planning clients, but other than that it's pretty bare.

There's also plenty of these pictures around the office.

My boss loves his trains.

And now for "The pit"

The pit is a large room that is home to eleven employees. It's the big open area at the back of the office where all the work is done.

This is the view from the front looking back..


My desk is about half way along. It might be easier to see from the back.


Yep, that one there with the monitor on.. that's me. I took these photos on a Friday morning (I'm always earliest to the office on a Friday) so that's why the place is pretty quiet.
And that's the few places up the side. Those people are lucky enough to have walls.

Some day, I hope to have walls of my very own some day.

And for anyone who was wondering what was on my background and trying to make it out over the other desks, I'll save you the trouble..

Anyone who knows what that is gets a million ScoPoints.

What are ScoPoints?

ScoPoints are the system I use to help me rank people in my mind. They'll come in handy if you're ever in a burning building with someone else I know and I'm trying to work out which one of you to save.

You're right, there's no way I'm running into a burning building. No matter how many ScoPoints you have, you're on your own.

For more ScoPoints you can also show off your workplace and join up with Cher's International Workspace Tour (if you too are towards the back of the pack).

Taking a chance
That's just not for me

If there's four levels of cool
Then I'm at level three

It goes freakishly cool people first
Cool people next, then there's me..

And then my mum (Happy mothers day mum!)

I never try to set the trend

'Cos I've been hurt before
The only time I went out on a limb
It didn't work out for the best
A bandanna round my chest
Over a vest

Tripod - Always Get Into Stuff