Jennifer McPhee
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (July 30/01) - You bump your knee on your desk for the third time in an hour. Your laptop loses a crucial file. You've spent 10 minutes trying to locate the paper that's jamming the photocopier.

Helen Maher of Norland Agencies in Hay River would like a hands-free telephone - Lynn Lau/NNSL photo

Office life can be a harrowing experience and many an employee has taken a few minutes of company time to fantasize about their perfect work space.

Agnes Adams, a secretary at Rankin Inlet's Arctic College, sure has.

"Everything in my office would be gold," says Adams. "My pens would be made of a very fine gold and I'd have the finest gold-plated, five-drawer filing cabinet."

Clearly, the understated, minimalist look is not for Adams.

Her ideal office also includes a gold kettle and coffee pot, a pine oak desk with marble countertop, several polar bear rugs, expensive armchairs with sealskin covers and a matching coffee table.

But it doesn't stop there. She'd like ultra-violet blue windows with gold trimming and a gorgeous floral, ivory-coloured rug because her own carpet is old and smelly.

Adams would also install an elevator in her building.

An elevator for thirteen stairs?

"Yeah, why not?" She adds that a cart set on rollers to ride around in would be a nice touch. "I want to be spoiled."

Evidently, Adams has put a lot of thought into this. "Well, I'm a secretary and I sometimes picture my office like that. Sometimes, I think of what Queen Elizabeth's office was like."

What about new technology? Anything fit for a modern Queen?

"I'd like the most expensive computer, a fancy fax machine and the most expensive laptop," says Adams.

Palm pilots, however, do not make an appearance in her fantasy. "I do everything manually or in my head. To me, palm pilots are because you don't trust your brain. God put us here to use our brains, so you've got to use it."

Quite an admirable, colourful vision, but Adams has her doubts.

"It's just a dream," she sighs. "I doubt it will ever come true."

Most of us, like Adams, will never acquire the glorious offices of our dreams. But some fortunate individuals are content with what they've got. Well, almost.

"We work in pretty nice offices," says Helen Maher, an insurance and travel agent at Norland Agencies in Hay River. "They are bright, clean and comfortable."

"I'd probably get a bigger desk. I handle 20 to 30 files a day and I'm always running out of room."

She adds a hands-free phone would be fantastic. "I would absolutely love that because I spend half my day on the phone."

And then there are some who really do lack for nothing, but covet more anyway.

"I'm spoiled," says Jim Ramsey, who works in the Siniktarvik Hotel and is general manager of the Evaz Group in Rankin Inlet. "I've got a bar, a couch, a stereo, two fax machines and two computer systems."

Ramsey admits he could use a digital fax machine, a hands-free voice-activated telephone, more hockey memorabilia and a hot tub.

"I have pretty much everything I want," he says. "It doesn't get much better than this."