Slandernonsense and propaganda from Azure Design

We’ve been privileged enough to have been involved in quite a bit of work in the build up to the World Cup this year (check out the FSF Free Lions World Cup site), work that involved short deadlines, long hours, weary eyes and stressed brains, but work that only intensified our anticipation for the competition to start…

The signs were there a few weeks ago, we just didn’t spot them. The more we worked and talked football, the more withdrawn some members of the office became. Now the Azure office is split.

I’m not talking about Designers versus Developers, (or good versus evil, as it’s more commonly known) which is a battle that has raged since the start of time (for the uneducated amongst you, a developer can spoil just about anything that looks nice just to make it work). I’m talking about the division only a World Cup can bring.

Not only are us devotees of the beautiful game subjected to constant questions in our own home on the whereabouts of Eastenders, Coronation Street, the remote control, fridge space and, on particularly good nights down the pub, our persons, it seems the football fan is now classed as a second-class citizen in the workplace.

At the mere hint of leaving the office early to catch an afternoon kick-off the football fan is branded as lazy and workshy. The suggestion of getting a TV in the office is written off with the excuse of noise and distraction.

“How can you concentrate on work if you’re watching the game?”

“Well I would be down the pub but that’s where the lazy folk are.”

I may be a simple man, but what’s wrong the philosophy of sleeping, eating, working and – if necessary – taking toilet breaks between games and between games only? Olympics apart, the World Cup is the only truly global competition there is, and 35% of the Azure office will be embracing that fact while turning a blind ear to the protests of the other 65%.

Ironically the minority of the office will be united by a bond that only football can provide, while the majority will fight back against the pain of being left out. Unfortunately it’s a game of two halves, some people will be as sick as a parrot, and that’s just football.