Greek dancing in the office

Much is being written at the moment about how people working from home during present times are missing out on the social interaction of working in the office.

I agree.

Its actually a while since I regularly worked in an office as I now work for an International employer headquartered in Germany, but am home based in the UK (irrespective of Covid etc.)

But back in the 1980’s (yes, I know its unbelievable I was even at work then and not at nursery school, or even just a twinkle in the eye of my parents!) I worked in an office of a small Greek Travel Company of about fifteen people above a fashion retailer in London’s trendy South Moulton Street in the West End.

London has a large Greek, mostly Greek Cypriot community and many of my colleagues were from there. It was a young and fun place to work and in fact probably some of my happiest working days were at that company as we had a great post work social life there as we really were minutes from everything in the West End.

Anyway one of my colleagues Maria was getting married and we were all invited to the wedding …but a prerequisite …we had to participate fully in the dancing at the reception of this huge event. And when I say huge, I really mean huge! So at lunchtime every day for two weeks before the wedding another colleague Georgia would teach us Greek dancing in our tiny little kitchen/staff room. Well, we learnt the basics and didn’t disgrace ourselves totally at the wedding….such fun times.

Well my career in travel and aviation has taken me back to Greece many times over the years and much as I don’t have a professional need of those skills that I learnt (I think…) , I always feel so at home when I hear the music in Tavernas and restaurants. Ευχαριστώ Georgia !

So employers and leaders, never forget the value of office life…when it can be safely provided!