When you find your old school computer in the Design Museum it can trigger a number of unexpected feelings. Misery, rage, absolute shock and horror that something you used and loved is now being looked at as a relic of the past. That is exactly what happened to me this weekend at the Design Museum as I was innocently walking around admiring it’s beautifully designed collection of objects. I looked at the old BBC computer we enthusiastically took turns using at school and felt so nostalgic.
I like office stuff, I always have. I am not an expert in typewriters or a collector just an enthusiast. It started with the electric typewriter in my Dad’s office. I only went there occasionally. His secretary at the time was called Pam and if she was there working then I would sit and watch her. She was efficient, friendly and had everything in it’s place. She made cups of tea, typed things and I wasn’t allowed to get in her way. I liked her but I had no idea what she was actually doing.
If Pam wasn’t there then I would sit at her desk which felt exciting and grown up but I absolutely wasn’t allowed to touch anything on the desk. Pam was a secretary in the old sense of the word. She had a reporters note pad with lines and dots scribbled on the pages. I found out later that that was shorthand, a language I have never been able to understand. Everything on her desk was neatly arranged, in stark contrast to my Dad’s desk.
What I really wanted to get my hands on though wasn’t the notepad or the calculator but the object that sat underneath the shiny grey plastic cover.
The electric typewriter. I wasn’t allowed to touch it, it was expensive, it was for adults, it wasn’t for me. That made it worse, I wanted to hear the keys click and clack when I pushed them. I wanted to type things and work there and be part of whatever was happening. I had no idea, I just liked being in a new space and with all of this stuff that went along with it.
When I started recruitment one of the perks was going to people’s offices and seeing how other people curated and styled their spaces. In those days hedge funds had wood panelling in their offices, big leather topped desks and gold pens. The variety was staggering and it was so exciting to be able to see it all. I loved the feeling of understanding the business through its physical spaces and I still get that to a certain extent but it’s not exactly the same. Offices are like a theatre for business aren’t they? They show you what they want you to see about what they do and it’s part of a performance. I love that.
I must have worn my Dad down because I was eventually allowed to use the typewriter for short periods of time. The whir of the machine, the sound the keys made as my little hands typed out total nonsense on the page. The feeling of being at a desk, in an office with all the magical things we didn’t have at home, like a stapler and a hole punch was exciting to me. Who knows why, I will have to take that up with a professional I guess when I have some time but since then I have loved office stuff.
My enthusiasm for these things hasn’t really changed over the years. The old bubble style brightly coloured Mac that I used at Marie Claire magazine when I interned there felt like the coolest thing I had ever seen. The Dell I brought when I launched my own business and felt that I was a professional now for sure. The Acorn computer my parents got me for Christmas as a kid which I ruined by getting red nail varnish all over it after I had badly painted my nails. The first Rolodex I was given to keep all my important work contacts details in. The list goes on and on.
The things we use to do the work we want to, whether it’s write a book, an email or create a magazine feel familiar to us because they remind us of a particular time in our lives. That’s something to be celebrated I think. It’s nice to look back at them and appreciate what they did and how we felt about ourselves when we used them. The fact that some of the things I used are now in a museum makes me feel ancient but I am pleased they live somewhere so we can revisit them and remember.
Until next time,
Hen x