Chaotic working practices in new office - trouble getting a

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This is a problem I'm having at work at the moment. Our company moved to a new office last week. The move has gone fairly well overall, but in the old office we all had our own personal pedestals by our desks (like a little chest of drawers) in which to keep our personal items and paperwork etc, but in the new office, we have lockers in a communal area.

On the first day in our new office, the rules said you need to choose a locker and tell the door number to the receptionist, who would then come over and set up the combination lock for you so you can actually use the locker. I did this, but the receptionist said he would be coming round all the rooms in due course to sort out everyone's lockers.

So I waited, but I heard nothing more about it. Then a few days ago I noticed that some people in my room already had their lockers set up. I think they might have set up the combination locks by themselves, even though the receptionist was supposed to do that. Then I noticed that someone else had taken the locker that I had reserved for myself!

I emailed the receptionist and the office assistant saying that I still don't have a locker set up for myself, and they merely replied saying that I would need to choose a locker and send the door number to the receptionist (which is what I had done last week!)

The thing is, now that the locker I originally chose has been taken by someone else, I can't tell which lockers have already been taken and which ones are still available. So today I emailed the receptionist and the office assistant again, asking them if there is a list showing which lockers are taken, and if not, how can I tell which ones are still free. I asked if the ones with 0000 on the combination locks are still free. But I've heard nothing back from either of them.

So now I'm worried I'm not going to get a locker. They have handled this in such a disorganised way that I just don't know how to deal with it. It would have been so much easier if the management had assigned a specific locker to each staff member, rather than it being a chaotic free-for-all! For all they know now, someone might have taken 2 lockers, even though there is supposed to be just enough for one each!

At my work there are plenty of that kind of miscommunication or disorganisation. Everyday at the lunch break I hear two or three examples of miscommunication from other colleagues, mainly from their team managers or bosses.

One example I myself can remember is the dishwasher. I am responsible to clean used cups, saucers, etc. by putting them in the dishwasher. Then I have to store them back in the cupboards. So I collect them in the kitchen part where the used stuff must be taken to, and where the dishwasher is.

So, the dishwasher is almost full so I start it. After about an hour it is ready. Then I open the door so that the heat can escape and the items in it, can cool down (so that I can touch them). I walk away and do some other tasks. After a short while I come back. Then I see that some colleagues have put dirty stuff between the clean stuff. I can of course tell them not to use the dishwasher, but there are 150 colleagues, so I think there will still be many that won't listen.

The refrigerator is a mess too. Now it is clean and almost nothing is in it. What will most colleagues do? They take their stuff to this fridge so that they can use it later on. But... my experience is that they do take their stuff there, but then forget that it's there. So the fridge is cluttered up with food. Then it starts to stink, because the the expiration date is a while ago.

A while ago the highest principal of the school hired an external bureau to do a field research about the problems that people on the work floor experience.

This information has been gathered and later on there was a speech by the principal and someone of that bureau. To summarize, our school is lagging behind, compared to other schools. I was not amazed at all to hear that. Many office procedures are outdated and there is no fast way to emplement new stuff. Because I am following a course Executive Secretary (although most of those Secretaries are women, but I don't care one bit), there are more things that I see go wrong. About the course: it consists of 5 parts. The first part, Office Management, has been done, and I passed the related exam. When I pass all 5 exams, I will get a diploma Executive Secretary. Autism and my male gender do not prevent me to find the course very interesting.

The main problem is the facility management. That supports the primary process of the organisation (in my case the school where I work). There is a lot of miscommunication, there is lack of quality, there are too few appraisal talks. At my work I do see, there are a lot of things to improve, to computerize and to modernize. And yes, I sometimes questioned the way my boss works, because as far as I can see, I would do her work more efficiently.