What's in a workplace?

Its one of those enduring corporate myths that most successful start-ups begin life in a garage. Shortly after the alleged birthplace of Apple at 2066 Crist Drive, Los Altos, California was designated a listed historical site, co-founder Steve Wozniak admitted to Business Week that in fact no design, planning or manufacturing ever took place in what might well be the world's most famous garage. In reality he and Steve Jobs operated out of their respective homes for one simple reason "because we had no money".

Reading this article over the course of the Easter weekend got me thinking. Its an unpalatable truth that we spend more of our waking lives in our workplaces than our homes. Over the course of an eclectic career I've admittedly never operated out of a garage but have experienced pretty much everything else on a spectrum ranging from ultra basic to luxurious. Of all these places of work one remains special in my heart and this is its story.

Luton has always been and remains today (pending Brexit) the spiritual home of easyJet. In reality much of the planning and preparation for the airline's launch took place more than twenty years ago at a swanky townhouse in Mayfair's Curzon Street. When Stelios unexpectedly decided to base his start-up airline at Luton rather than Stansted, the airport's management threw in free office accommodation as part of the deal. We moved in pretty much overnight. The contrast with the opulence of Mayfair was dramatic – picture a large, shabby open-plan working space with paint peeling from the walls inside a large corrugated tin shack smelling of damp. 

The premises hadn’t been chosen on the basis of comfort or architectural merit. A polite description would be “aesthetically challenged”. It might have been a serious contender for the title of Britain’s ugliest building, inside and out. Stelios appeared oblivious. We gave the place a deep clean, bought a couple of pot plants from the local garden centre and at the earliest opportunity called in the painters. It was a modest step forward. The smell of damp had dissipated and if you half shut your eyes the office looked marginally better, but there was only so much you could do. It was a bit like putting lipstick on a pig. 

It was the summer of 1995. Forty miles away to the West of London (though it felt more like a small planet on the spiral arm of a distant galaxy) construction was underway on “Waterside” a new state-of-the-art corporate headquarters for my previous employer, British Airways. The building included six sections backing onto a 175-metre glazed atrium street; each section had a different theme based on the particular continent it represented. For instance, cherry trees were planted in the Asia-themed section and eucalyptus trees featured in the Australia-themed one. The street was paved in granite slabs and cobblestones and had bridges overhead that linked the individual buildings. Leading off the bridges were balconies that overlooked the street. The complex housed a health centre, a hairdressing salon, and a Waitrose (of course) supermarket. It was said that the design of Waterside was intended to "both facilitate a change in the way BA staff behave at work and to support a more customer-led culture”. I saw things differently. To my eyes it was a ï¿¡200m, gilt-edged, two-fingered salute to British Airway’s long-suffering shareholders. The chief executive might as well have dropped his trousers and mooned at the company’s annual general meeting.

We were too busy settling in to our new home to be distracted by what was happening at British Airways. Officially christened “easyland”, with roof and walls painted in bright orange (what else?), our building was the first thing most passengers saw when their flights touched down on the tarmac. The only two man-made constructions visible from space were the Great Wall of China and the easyJet office at Luton airport. 

As the airline expanded, the temptation to move to more spacious and less utilitarian accommodation was resisted. The demand for extra space was initially met by demolishing the public spectator’s area adjacent to easyland. There was some collateral damage. For years this annexe had been home to the local plane spotting community. They were an inoffensive group, made up almost entirely of socially challenged, middle-aged men with too much time on their hands. Several weeks following their traumatic eviction, a few individuals still lingered in the vicinity. Fashionably kitted out in bobble hats and hand-knitted scarves, binoculars hanging round their necks, they stood shivering and disconsolate, on the grassy embankment next to easyland. It was like watching displaced termites trying to coming to terms with their destruction of their mound. 

Sentimentality was a luxury easyJet couldn’t afford. It wasn’t long before more space was needed. We began stacking hideous grey portakabins on top of one another in the office car park. It reminded me of a property makeover TV programme where the project has gone horribly wrong, but those present are too polite to say anything and pretend not to notice. When the builders had finished their work, easyland had undergone a transformation. Previously it was simply an ugly building. Now it was an ugly building with a junkyard for a garden. Putting aesthetics to one side, the financial logic behind the development was undeniable. Every inch of available space on the site was used. Over a twelve year period the airline’s annual turnover grew over twenty-fold, but its headquarters remained contained within the surrounding perimeter fence. There were no personal offices. Executive management sat alongside junior staff competing for elbow room. The building was an eyesore alright but also a potent symbol of easyJet’s determination to resist a familiar manifestation of corporate vanity.

Today, the architectural eyesore is no more.  By chance I was passing through Luton airport the day the developer’s bulldozers reduced it to a smoking pile of rubble and corrugated sheeting. In death, as in life, the building was as ugly as sin. But, over time, a bit like the Elephant Man, we had come to love it. Less than two hundred metres stands its replacement.  Bearing the Orwellian sounding name “Hangar 89”, this monolith assails the eyes of arriving passengers with a silent tangerine scream as they emerge, blinking from the Luton terminal. The vast edifice hums with activity. Orange clad personnel scurry to and fro. Its easy to imagine that somewhere deep in the bowels of the building lurks an evil Bond villain, purring cat on lap, using easyJet as cover for their soon to be hatched plans of world domination.

......anyone else out there have a memorable workplace story to share?