Office Work in London

July 2005 | Kirsty Henderson

I don't know what it is about working in an office in London but I don't think I've met a single person who has had a difficult, demanding office job. I started as a temp at my office and my entire job was to put a cupboard full of binders into date order. It was the most mind numbingly boring thing I've ever done and the biggest challenge was staying awake.

Eventually the boss discovered that I was able to spell and speak and write and I was promoted to filing as well as tea making duties. If you're a semi-ambitious person then you can probably see that climbing the office ladder isn't really too difficult. Eventually I was running the office and being asked to apply for higher up (and better paid) jobs in the organisation but I'm in London for a good time, not a long time and any kind of responsibility is scary to me.

If you're of the same frame of mind as me then you can't really beat office work. Working nine to five, Monday to Friday leaves your evenings and weekends free and 9am is an early start but it's not as harsh as having to arrive by 6 or 7am if you're a labourer or builder. Plus since the work is generally pretty straightforward, being hungover won't really be too much of a hindrance - as long as you can get to work without throwing up on public transport. Best solution to this is to make sure you're still drunk from the night before.

Getting an office job is really easy as well. I applied to one agency (Roberts Knight), did the required typing and word processing tests and had the job before I walked out the door of the agency and started the following day. Mind you I don't think there are many stringent requirements of a future binder-putter-in-orderer but I wasn't complaining.

The pay started out very crap at £7.50/hour including holiday pay. If you can, try to get an agency that doesn't group your holiday pay in with your regular pay because it's not like anyone actually saves that specifically towards their holidays and whenever you take any time off it'll have a big impact on your bank account. My agency didn't pay for sickies either and I don't know of any that do so if you're the type that takes a lot of days off sick then you'll be pretty poor pretty fast.

I was eventually put on a contract with my company and then eventually made permanent with brings with it bonuses such as 27 days off a year, another 7 or 8 statutory or bank holidays, paid sickies, and the ability to work flexi time to earn another extra day off per month. Add to this the fact that the job was still pretty simple and I was earning closer to £10/hour and you'll see that it's a pretty sweet deal for someone who wants to enjoy London life. Plus a lot of offices are well stocked with fellow working holidaymakers so you'll probably have plenty people to head out with for drinks after work.