Bogs and food
I think I’ve worked at around fifteen agencies over the last year or so, so I think it’s about time I rated them on the most important criteria: lavs and lunch.
Rather than go through them all, I thought it would more gentlemanly only to mention the best bits:
The best loos: this is a toss-up between Grey London and JWT. The first round of judging eliminated any where you are able to hear anyone else going through their motions (particularly on Friday morning after a Thursday on the beerz). There were also marks off for those with a dog-eared copy of Metro or Shortlist. I believe that in the era of the smartphone, those who require on-pan entertainment should play Angry Birds or Bejeweled with the sound off.
The winner, by a short turd is JWT for having a good, swanky set of loos at both ends of each floor. I would also add that their shower policy is second to none: big towels and soap provided by the agency and a good roomy, clean shower. Special mention goes to Saatchi and Saatchi, which has two fancy loos with Dyson hand dryers (I won’t mention its location. Popularity means a greater likelihood of a locked door just when you’re getting the turtle’s head).
Lunch: I have simple tastes, which are amply catered for by EAT. Fortunately there is a branch on literally every single street in London, sometimes nine or ten. However, I am a big fan of this new craze for burritos, and excellent examples can be found at Grey (the van behind the agency), Saatchi and Saatchi (Benito’s Hat, which also has Margaritas Happy Hour on Friday at 5), Anomaly (can’t remember the name) and This Is Real Art (Burrito Bros.). Double however, I find nothing can beat the turkey and cranberry sandwich at Verde in Spitalfields, which is nice and close to…Wieden and Kennedy London. Congrats to them. They also have a fridge with free Coke/Diet Coke/Coke Zero, saving me 65p a day which I could then donate to Amnesty International or blow on scratchcards, depending on my mood.
On that subject, 180 Amsterdam has two fridges full of Coke, Dr Pepper, Fanta and others along with limitless lollipops, snack biscuits and crisps, so that’s a big plus, along with the very good but expensive soup shop whose name escapes me.
If you need to go shopping at lunchtime, JWT gets another big tick because it’s two minutes from Harrods. It’s also above a five star restaurant that serves very good cocktails. Then again, it’s difficult to beat M&C Saatchi/DHM who have all the benefits of prime Soho on their doorstep.
Lowe has a fine lunchtime curry house literally across the road. The agency are such regular customers that the manager kindly gives a free Cobra at the end of your meal.
So that’s the important stuff. If you want to know what they’re like to work in, I would never be so indiscreet (rather boringly, I’ve enjoyed them all, including the ones I haven’t mentioned, such as RKCR/Y&R).
Does your place have an unsung loo that needs a song? Or a brilliant lunchery that we could all clog up?
Tell us of the bogs of BBH, the fajitas of Fallon, the water closets of WCRS, the onion bhajis of Ogilvy etc. etc.
DDB has the worst bogs. Open top and..ahem…bottom. Thin partitions. They’re large and echoey, cold and draughty (mind you the draught does help to get rid of the terrible dame judy if the boys have been out on a ruby and the Rawalpindi Express is approaching the station without any brakes. They have the old pull down hand cotton towel machine where the used bit goes back up into the guts of the machine, partially dries and is fed straight back out again. Or simply dispenses more and more towel without sucking it back in at the back.
I did find a really nice one in the building but, naturally, I’m not saying where it is. I might be going back there and I’m on the non stop Firenze-Brindisi boat train (don’t like curry).
I agree about the Grey bogs. The only quibble I’d have is that the bog roll is of a very poor quality.
VCCP has a limitless supply of chocolate biscuits. I would regularly eat an entire 6 p-p-p-pack of p-p-p-p-p-penguins. The biscuit, not the animal. Too fishy. And the beak’s a bit crunchy.
leagas delaney – a fully stocked fridge of the glass bottled coca cola. bottles of peroni and asahi beers and a cupboard full of crisps and biscuits… which i only discovered on my final fucking week.
toilets are nice too, just don’t forget the close the window if you’re in the end stall or the building across the street can see you easily… maybe i’m being paranoid.
Saatchi and Saatchi have the staff boozer/canteen ‘The Pregnant Man’ where you can get a pint of lager for ¬£2 and watch some Emo rock on flat screen tvs or stand in the car park.
Farm always had a good fridge full of booze. Any sort you wanted. And there was always a handy bottle of Vodka in the freezer.
ITIABTWC – 1
campaign”live” – nil
http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/1026936/Laurence-Green-Richard-Flintham-leave-Fallon-launch-start-up/
AND they want you to buy a copy of the printed edition tomorrow to read the full story.
what more is there to know? that’s it. nothing. wankers.
(campaign, not ex-fallon lot. good luck to ’em, not that they’ll be needing much).
Lowe Vienna’s freezer was stacked with booze. STACKED.
If anyone has any further details of the Fallon story, stick ’em up here and hopefully no one will need to surreptitiously rip off the inevitable cellophane wrapper of Campaign in order to read it for free in the newsagents.
Iris has running taps. You get a choice of hot or cold, pretty sweet eh?
Mediaedge:CIA had shitty shit houses but good coffee machines. Sadly no sales reps willing to issue gobblejobs for late deals.
I’ve freelanced at a fair few places too and would agree that the loos at Grey are the finest of any agency I’ve been to. You can fart away, angry birds in one hand, cock in the other, in your very own shit-smelling, cocooned world. I double-fold the loo paper so can’t attest to its quality. BBH loos are ok, but I found it hard to hold a conversation with Hegs at the washbasin, when my finger had only just gone through the bogroll. Saatchis Floor 2 are fucking awful. Hilariously stinky and the door is open top and bottom. Found a copy of Recycling News in there recently. Pitiful. Followed your advice Ben and found the secret ‘quality’ management bogs downstairs. DDB’s loos are always freezing and hearing someone in the next trap, through the balsa thin walls, dropping melons down a well is really rather depressing. And, unless they’ve won a pitch, the biscuits in the kitchen are non-chocolate Happy Shopper specials. The ones that plop into your tea after minimum dunking.
Thanks for that, Mr. Turner.
Would you by any chance be able to reveal the loo scene at Fallon? Is it part of the reason Flintham wants to leave?
Ogilvy loos are dreadful – you might as well be sitting in an open plan shitter such is the extent to which you can hear your neighbour. Canteen distinctly average too.
Ben – what are your thoughts on unisex toilets?
I think they are awful. And no-one is a winner.
I’ve made my mark in most agencies, but I can only reveal the loos open to the public in reception areas. JWT is definitely up there, McCanns have got those glass bowl stand alone sinks, which are a bit poncy and wanky. I was delighted to find that Saatchis had the Dyson Blade dryer, but was put off the whole experience when a girl exited from one of the cubicles – they are unisex, which I am NOT good with. AMV are ok – firm wooden doors, rather than flimsy partitions. Similar at Ogilvy. Mother are decent, if a little cold – I am a bit of a girl, and like using emasculating Cowshed products, and they have plenty of that on offer. Leo Burnett’s loos are just a little close to reception – you feel that when you open the door the whole waiting area can see right in, and if you’ve done a stinker, all those clients, reps and teams showing their book can smell it (and they know it was you). I also like M&C Saatchi – they have Molton Brown.
Unisex loos aren’t really fair on the girls.
True. But it’s no rose garden going in after some girls either…
Francis,
I work at VCCP and I haven’t seen any Penguin biscuits. Where are they kept?
The Fallon loos at Beak Street were out in the courtyard opposite the main meeting room. Very little chance of loitering in there for a nifty hand shandy, or killing 5 minutes with a copy of the current bun. Perhaps Rich, Laurence and Phil had heard from the other bloke about the horrific state of Saatchi’s 2nd Floor H Block loos. Even if a SSF merger was a myth, just the thought of a daily visit to those horrors would be enough to spark a rebellion. Fallon always had post-meeting sandwiches in the kitchen. First time I experienced Brie with Cranberry sauce. And the last. Still, it saved a good ¬£5 a day. Even if you looked well pikey sticking a slightly stale french stick in your pocket.
Girl’s shit stinks too.
On the subject of unisex lavs, do you remember the ones in Ally McBeal (do you remember Ally McBeal?)?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYUavFaQwEw
Very glam, but can you imagine the reality of the melons down the well and the backfiring Ford Anglia heard by everyone in the office?
Damo
In the plastic boxes under the sort of table thing in recep. The far end, opposite the taps. I don’t think they really like people rummaging in them. Didn’t stop me though. Go for it.
Also, something that I find irritating in some conveniences, is the lighting. Lift your right cheek to look at what you’ve just deposited on the quilted double velvet, only to find that you can’t see a bloody thing. You don’t actually know when you have finished, so you just have to hazard a guess based on how easily the paper glides over your anus. And while I’m on the subject of Quilted Double Velvet, avoid it at all costs! There’s no purchase there, and the quilted effect only act as multiple perforations, allowing the finger to easily break through.
My review of iris toilets:
You try your best to do good shits, but there is so much standing in your way – so you cant.
And even if you do, they don’t give you your paper on time.*
*This wasn’t about shits.
PPM’s where a plate full of biscuits turns up. Covered in clingfilm. Nobody takes the clingfilm off. Biscuits swept away at the end of the meeting. Probably to go into another PPM.
I don’t think this agency would score very highly on your lunch chart either Ben.
Ages ago I heard Trevor Beattie dropping his guts in TBWA’s loos.
The bastard didn’t even flush.
Vaguely off-topic, but JWT also has THE BEST LIFTS IN THE FUCKING UNIVERSE.
There are four of them and they arrive quickly, the doors open and close quickly and the lift moves like shit off a shovel.
And yes, the more quilty a bog roll is the harder it is to use. Imagine trying to wipe with a duvet. It’s never going to happen.
Worst loos in the universe?
Heathrow Airport.
It’s like everyone decides to evacuate their johnnies full of coke all at the same time.
Francis
In here? No, this is just napkins and shit. Am I looking in the wrong place or have they been moved?
Publicis’ toilets are bollocks. Half the men’s don’t flush and they always stink of shit. It’s like being in a fucking dodgy Northern nightclub. Fucking horrible.
Damo
That’s where they were in my day. Maybe the austerity cuts have put paid to the heady days of Penguins. They occasionally used to put a big box of Kit Kats in the fridge.
Erm, sorry, did you reference Ally McBeal?
Bottom Inspectors are full of shit. Real Northern Clubs still have their bogs outside.
http://bit.ly/5jiJUI
“Paired with a quirky vintage style toilet and wall-hung basin, the space-saving design (of Wieden + Kennedy’s bogs) ensures you’ll never miss an opportunity to record those brilliant ideas whenever ‚Äî and wherever ‚Äî inspiration strikes.”
All agency shitters should have loud, half decent music piped into them. That way you can let rip to your fart’s content and don’t have to suffer the ignominy of hearing the lad in the adjacent trap ferociously offloading last night’s excesses.
Neil, Wiedens individual loos are nice, but the second floor one at 16 (nearest to where I worked) was disappointingly prosaic, hence no mention.
Francis,
Found ’em! Thanks mate.
Since they are now making us work open plan, open plan toilets can’t be far off.
You can check in to the Anomaly Loo on foursquare, if you’re into that sort of dirty behaviour.
Nathan Cooper (rubbishcorp.com) has the dubious pleasure of being the current Mayor…