Offices and alarm clocks are now appealing
Who am I?
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Room Service. Firstly, I want to say a big thank you to everyone who subscribed over the course of last week and have thus prevented me from writing into an echo chamber, as threatened. I’m so pleased that my personal writing & interests are entertaining enough to warrant a follow - so thank you all 💓.
2025 alarm bells
How to wake up less stressed
One of my 2025 resolutions is to look at my phone less. We can all agree that screen addiction is real, but for me, the affects include more than just a wasting of my limited time on planet earth. One consequence is a loss of my decision making ability – into the vortex of the iPhone I go to answer questions I could figure out the answer to alone. From a creative standpoint, my mind has become increasingly crowed and confused. I see hundreds if not thousands of images every morning before I even get to work, by which point my brain is so overstimulated that I’ve forgotten what my personal taste/opinion even is anymore. Not a great way to start the day.
Towards the end of last year I experimented with leaving my phone at home whilst I went out to work - a test which (somewhat pathetically in retrospect) seemed like a really big deal. Spoiler alert - I missed nothing. I still had a laptop with access to the internet in my studio, but my mind felt a infinitely clearer and calmer, and I was much more productive. Time felt like it slowed down to a manageable speed.
So, did I throw my phone in the bin and am I currently writing this whilst living off grid? Alas, no. But I have realised that how I start the first few hours of my day really sets the tone for its entirety - if I can keep the first few hours phone-free, my day generally goes well. Due to my lack of self restraint upon waking, I decided to finally take all the advice I’ve read and I now leave my phone in the living room whilst I sleep. This change has forced me to befriend my teenage nemesis - THE ALARM CLOCK.
On the first night of my new regime I went to bed, turned the dial on my alarm clock to 7am, read my book and eventually dozed off. Cut to 7ish hours later, I heard the beeps of the clock and desperately fumbled around in the dark to locate the psyical ‘snooze’ button. UNADULTERATED BLISS ENSUED FOR THE NEXT 4 MINUTES. I haven’t pressed snooze without looking at a phone screen for at least 15 years. And wow it felt soooo good. My mornings are changed forever.
When did our wakeup calls get so dreary?
Thinking back about the fun alarm clocks of my youth, I remembered my parents/grandparents having a Teasmade in the bedroom. I found these amazing images of the ‘Goblin’ (yes - that is the name) brand of timed tea makers that would ensure your cuppa was freshly brewed for you upon waking. I particularly love the ones with a built in lampshade.
The alarm clock was once a thing of beauty to behold on your nightstand, not a portal into doomscrolling before bed. I’m lusting after the Zeitlicht space age light below that folds up and out from a egg shape.
It’s slim pickings sadly on the modern alarm clock front, but most of the options above are available and working from Pamono. Below are some modern suggestions if you’re in the market for a more relaxing way to start your day. Let me know how you get on!
Side note
A very interesting read on a related subject:
Film: Babygirl
The only sexy thing about this was the lure of the corporate office.
To be truthful, I didn’t have overly high expectations for Nicole Kidman’s latest film Babygirl. Described as an ‘erotic thriller’ (debatable, post-viewing), the film stars Nicole Kidman as the high-powered CEO of a robot-/AI-/insert other buzzword-focused logistics company who puts her career and family on the line when she begins an affair with a much younger intern (Harris Dickinson).
My prerequisites for Babygirl were minimal.
Be entertaining enough to quell the urge of a cinema wine (and prevent me from breaking my dry January stint)
The cinema should be somewhere warm and cosy to hide in sub-zero temperature London.
It passed these two tests, but not much more. Most of the storylines felt unresolved, and I genuinely found very little erotic about Babygirl whatsoever (surely that was the whole point - nobody goes to see something described as erotic without some level of expectation of a mildly shocking sex scene…?). It would have been better suited to a Netflix series. BUT I won’t dwell on the negative too much, as I realised the biggest allure was the attraction of the corporate interior.
Maybe it’s post-Covid work from home life, or maybe I’ve just not been based in an office for so long (I’ve worked independently for the last 7+ years) that I am now delusional about what corporate life is/was BUT I find something strangely captivating/nostalgic about the office interior.
Severence, the Apple TV show now in its second season depicts the corporate office in all of its creepy glory. Production designer Jeremy Hindle took inspiration from the 1967 Jaques Tati movie Playtime and it’s dystopian depiction of corporate architecture. The exterior of the ‘Lumon’ building in the show is the recently restored Bell Labs complex in New Jersey (which now self-describes as a ‘Metroburb’ - shudder), designed by Finnish architect Eero Saarinen.
Playtime, a commercial flop at its original release but now considered a masterpiece, explores the change and commercialisation of the Parisian cityscape and daily life through the eyes of Barbara, a young American tourist and Monsieur Hulot, a befuddled Frenchman. Hulot is lost in the city - notably within the giant maze of a corporate office space, which was built specifically for the film. The Severence set design moodboard refs are clear! I could write more about the Mad Men set here (I just started re-watching the series), but I’ll restrain myself.
The late 1980s was the peak era of masculinity at the American office. Films like American Psycho and Wolf of Wall Street capture this toxic vibe in all of its vulgarity.
Despite being such a raucous environment, the overwhelming feel of these interiors is that of blandness, void of all personality. Something which, ironically, I’ve always found fascinating. Researching these film sets reminded me of the photography of the late Swedish photography Lars Tunbjörk, known for his images of offices across Stockholm, New York and Tokyo. He sought to capture that lingering sadness in what he called "the most common – but closed and secretive – place in the Western world."
Similarly, one of my favourite artist duos Emgreen & Dragset explored this same feeling in their exhibition Useless Bodies which I saw at Prada Foundation, Milan. One of the gallery spaces was transformed into a soulless office space, filled with rows of cubicles, all identical save for the odd item evoking the lives of the workers - a postcard from a holiday to Tenerife, or a kitsch gadget on the desk.
The artists wrote:
‘We can perhaps say, we won’t miss this office set-up, because it wasn’t optimal to work in that way… But on the other hand, it’s a sad memorial because we’ve lost our togetherness, the social dimension of being in a workspace together.’
I think this sums up my feelings on the office space – it was never perfect, and was often a place where we were forced to conform (a clean desk policy in a creative studio does not compute for me). However, the lack of togetherness we feel in a post-Covid world feels melancholy and lonely. I hope we find a happy medium somewhere, but my earlier rantings on the wrath of the mobile phone doesn’t fill me with confidence. Hopefully 2025 brings more in-person connection for us all.
Other (positive IRL) news:
My bookclub is up and running! Our first read is Evenings & Weekends by Oisín McKenna. Get in touch if you’d like to join, we’re meeting in East London in mid-February to discuss.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week.
Clare x
I relate so much with what you wrote. I, as well, have backed away from my phone and embraced alarm clocks again. I had a sunrise alarm clock on Christmas wishlist and it has totally changed the game for me. I wake up more peaceful versus the dread I get from auto-doomscrolling first thing in the morning.
And my sentiments exactly on Babygirl. I think if the roles were reversed in the film (a male high powered CEO pursuing a young woman intern) I doubt it would’ve had the same reception. It just feels icky when power dynamics are involved. I didn’t feel anything for Nichole Kidman’s character not feeling satisfied with her home life to pursue someone young at work lol 😒