Our lobby is very inviting, with its comfy orange “womb” chair, plethora of reading material and a rotating ensemble of friendly faces behind the front desk to welcome visitors.
But I’m starting to wonder if it’s a bit too inviting.
That revelation came to me last week when Brittany, one of our account coordinators, was "woman"ing the front desk. (You don't "man" a desk in an all-female office.)
An elderly, foreign woman – fresh out of cataract surgery (bless her heart) – wandered into our lobby, plopped herself down in the womb chair and requested that Brittany hail her a cab.
Make yourself at home. No really. It doesn't matter that you're a complete stranger. Can we call you a cab?
Now you may be thinking, “Wait a minute, I thought Vault was a PR firm?” And you’d be right. We are a PR firm….not a doctor’s office or a concierge service. (But of course Brittany helped her all the same in the name of "client service.")
And speaking of what we're not, we’re also not a Kinko's. But that didn’t stop the woman from a few months back who popped in on her way to an interview down the hall to see if she could make copies of her résumé.
And, contrary to popular belief, we are not a self-serve restaurant, as the construction worker who strolled in during lunchtime and used our microwave to heat up his Hot Pocket must have thought.
And while we’re at it, I’d also like to announce, for anyone who thought otherwise, that Vault is not a cabaret. (Although we are quite entertained by the Dancing Man who stands at our glass door entrance every-so-often and does a little jig for those lucky enough to be in the lobby).
Indeed, Vault has played host to a long list of uninvited characters ever since our new office opened. And while we may occasionally crack jokes at the expense of these uninvited visitors, the truth is, they entertain us and keep us on our toes. (During my time at the front desk, I memorized the suite numbers of every other office in our building so I could redirect wayward souls with great ease. And I got quite adept at giving directions to the hotel down the street.)
But as a fair warning to all future uninvited visitors: we recently got security.