The Great Divide

In television, as, I'm sure, in every other media industry, there is a wall between cast and crew, talent and production. Look no further for a concrete example than the staff kitchens at the station I work for:

The Marketing Kitchen
Upstairs in Heaven, the floor with carpet and windows, this kitchen has pretty vinyl tiles, marbled benchtops and a gleaming sink with a mixer tap. You can take your water chilled if you so desire. A selection of coffee and tea, a variety of sugar and sugar alternatives and stirrers and spoons are arranged tastefully in a series of little bowls. There is a choice of courtesy mug for your client or guest. You could eat your dinner off the microwave - handy, that - and the fridge boasts a range of milks, even soy, each bottle well within its use-by period.

The Tech Kitchen
Downstairs in Hell, the floor haunted by the sun-starved ghouls from Editing, the once-cream lino is scuffed, torn and grey. The tin of coffee is opened by way of the only utensil in the kitchen - a plastic spoon tied to the (empty) towel rail with a piece of string. Abandon all hope ye who enter the microwave. The milk, all full-cream, definitely requires exhaustive sniffing, and most of us choose to go black over the weekend, when the Pearly Gates are closed. The sign over the - eww - sink reads 'CLEAN UP YOUR MESS' but has gone unheeded for far too long. And it's all pointless, really, because unless you're one of the chosen few whose mugs are so tide-marked that no-one else is game to steal them, there isn't a styrofoam vessel in sight.

Today is Sunday, so it's the Devil or the deep blue sea. I'm having a Coke.