Global warming, the terrorist threat, the worldwide recession, the Middle East conflict, food safety, energy security.  All this, and more, is the daily fare of the European Parliament. Politicians from left, right, centre and elsewhere vie so that their political views may prevail and nudge the lives of ordinary Europeans in the direction they believe is right. This is the real thing. This is what politics is, the contest of ideas and the business of managing our society and our world. 

Or is it?

No. If you want REAL politics, try moving offices sometime…

Organisations, so they say, are rational enterprises, deciding their priorities and allocating resources on the basis of a cool analysis of need. Alternatively, as anyone who has ever worked in an organisation can attest, humanity imposes its own, not-always-quite-so-rational, world view on the neat theory of organisational utopia. And why not? To be human is to need a home, or at least a territory, and however footloose and post-modern-mobile we may pretend to be, I bet there’s nobody who doesn’t immediately put some proprietorial mark on their workspace, be it an office, cubicle, desk or corner of a table. 

Boxed archeological layers

In the traditions of the EU civil service, the webcom team occupies a couple of corridors of separate offices.  Some of the team share with another, some have their own office. Personally, I have always felt this traditional layout of the euro-office building to be inimical to the necessary social dimension of the creative workplace, and wonder if, especially in our line of work, we wouldn’t be better off with some sort of cool and trendy open plan arrangement à la Google. I have even attempted to move things in that direction, but must confess to concerns about whether the organisation is up to Google levels of coolness (bad open plan would be the worst outcome) and whether, deep down, the team would really be happy to leave their womb-like offices.

But I digress. The point here is that we are moving from one set of offices to another, actually very similar, set of offices one floor up. We don’t actually gain any extra space from this move, but will be configured slightly differently. The move is precipitated by the knock on effects of other moves, themselves prompted by genuine functional motives.

Anyway, to the politics. Take thirty or so individuals and tell them that they are all to change offices in the near future. Then stand back… 

Anyway, to the politics. Take thirty or so individuals and tell them that they are all to change offices in the near future. Tell them that some will be sharing, some will have their own offices. Show them them the plan and remark that there are larger offices and smaller offices, south-facing offices overlooking a garden and north-facing offices offices overlooking the street. Tell them that is your intention to be fair, to privilege those who wish/agree to share in all other possible respects. Tell them that those who have previously shared have priority not to share if that is their wish. Tell them… well, carry on in that faultlessly democratic vein.

Then stand back… 

There’s actually not much need to describe what follows, is there? It is the quintessentially political process: the resolution of conflicting claims, the confluence of practical considerations and personal affinities, notions of justice and fairness running up against the limits of available resources, irrational desire versus logical analysis, negotiation, conciliation and ultimately, inevitably a degree of imposition. The outcome? Well…, peace. Not everyone equally happy, but no-one (I think) terribly unhappy. And in the end, a situation which might have been very different actually ending up remarkably similar to before (lessons there, methinks).

For those of you who have developed a rather favourable view of the Webcom team – young, easy-going, friendly – perhaps through reading this very blog, let me tell you that … well, you’re right! From the perspective of the boss (aka power-crazed, plan-wielding office broker), I have to tell you that it went very smoothly. Enough people were happy to share; those destined for road-noisy, windswept, north facing cubby holes accepted their destiny with good grace; and there were even cases of out-and-out altruism (“no, dear colleague, you take the sunny office…”). Not perfect, but harmoniously imperfect.  So you see, even REAL politics is not all bad.

Most were quite quick, young officials, travelling light with a small infrastructural footprint. Not so the undersigned, with nearly two decades of Parliament life behind him.

And so the day has arrived. Most of us have spent a good part of the day emptying cupboards and drawers, clearing desks, packing boxes. Most were quite quick; these are young officials, travelling light with a small infrastructural footprint. Not so the undersigned, with nearly two decades of Parliament life behind him. Packing boxes was an exercise in unearthing archeological layers, rediscovering the detritus of previous jobs: files that need to be kept, copies of a report which seemed very important at the time, mug-shots of MEPs from the early nineties (…remember him?), souvenirs of a trip with a parliamentary delegation to the then highly exotic brown coalfields of northern Bohemia…

On Monday it all comes out again. Don’t ask too much of us on Monday please. For a start the network won’t work, there’ll be problems with the phones, furniture will be missing or in the wrong place, the first box you need will be at the bottom of the stack of ten others. It’ll all get sorted, of course, and the show will take to the road again. That is, as soon as everyone has staked their claim, marked their territory and sown the seeds for the politics of the next move.