Talk Talk

It’s all very well for companies to malign those of us hanging around in office kitchens as malingerers and office gossips. But the truth of the matter is that most of us have no choice: how else are we going to find out in plenty of time that our company is moving to a brownfield site in Slovakia or that the girl buying our leaving present was last seen fingering rayon kilts in Marks & Spencer?

There’s no question that so-called official channels of communication just aren’t working for us ...

· Internal Communications Team
Er, their idea of effective communication is editing a staff newspaper that makes the North Korean Information Department seem a fountain of truth in comparison. We all know that any internal communications strategy is basically to inform staff how caring, unique and deeply wonderful your company is. The hope is that if this is repeated enough times it will stick somewhere, even if it is mainly in people’s gullets.

· The Intranet
Ditto, only with fewer exclamation marks.

· The Consultant’s Report
Sorry, they earn a lot more than you, can afford Ozwald Boateng suits and make recommendations that colleagues have been talking about for years in the office kitchen, but no one could be bothered to ask them.

· Team Meeting
With most people concerned about who’s been secretly stealing their banana-flavoured Complan from the office fridge there isn’t a lot of time for much else. But when this mainly consists of new management initiatives ranging from Giving Birth Under the IT Help Desk and Work Life Strategies: Getting Married in the Atrium to Managing Your Personal Development Because Frankly No One Else is Going To, it may be a blessing in disguise.

· Your Boss
How can you seriously trust someone who wants to empower you (they feel sorry for you not being stressed enough), delegate (there’s no one else they’d rather give their lousy jobs to) and facilitate (making it easy for all their work to go straight in your direction)?

· The Men in Black and Your P.45
Obviously too late.

But everyone knows that for a really juicy piece of news most of us can rely on the Chief Executive’s PA (knows who’s had sex on blotters in the boardroom) or the receptionist (can describe the Fatal Attraction moment in detail with frequent action replays). At least there’s something to get us into the office on Monday mornings.