A journalist came to Slough last week looking for David Brent.
To be fair, that was not quite how he put it. He was writing a feature to mark the 25th anniversary of The Office and
wanted to know what had changed.
It still amazes me that, 25 years after The Office and almost a century after John Betjeman’s poem, they remain the
lens through which so many people see Slough. Too many journalists still begin with the same Google search, find
David Brent and Betjeman at the top of the page, and that becomes the opening paragraph. Even the BBC always
falls into the trap. Slough has changed dramatically over the years, but the first paragraph of Slough articles has not.
For younger readers who wonder what the fuss is all about; The Office was a masterpiece because it perfectly
captured Britain’s workplace at the turn of the century. Grey offices. Fluorescent lights. Paper files. Endless
meetings. Middle managers. Hierarchies. Employees watching the clock until five o’clock. It was a brilliant caricature
of Britain’s working life. The only problem was that it happened to be set in Slough, so for millions of people that
became the image of the town itself.
That world has gone.
So instead of taking him to where Wernham Hogg once stood, I took him to Future Works, the building that houses
one of the co-working spaces, Plus X Innovation. There are four such modern working hubs within a stone throw of
each other, Plus X Innovation, Spaces, Key Point and the Regent Business Centre.
Even Crossbow House has disappeared. It was demolished years ago and replaced as part of the Buckingham Centre
development.
What he saw was a very different workplace. Bright collaborative spaces had replaced grey offices. Paper merchants
had become exciting start-ups. Middle managers had become founders. Employees had become freelancers,
creators, consultants, social entrepreneurs and business owners. Instead of trying to avoid work, people were
pitching ideas, recording reels, building AI tools and collaborating over coffee.
I introduced him to two people.
Varun, founder of the Slough start-up Know Your Dosh, whose app helps people better understand and manage
their finances. When he mentioned The Office, he smiled.
“People keep telling me I should watch it. Maybe I will find it on YouTube.”
While the journalist wanted to talk about David Brent, Varun was talking about artificial intelligence, financial
technology and building a business that could help thousands of people. That neatly summed up the generational
shift.
The second was Nilesh from VIP Consulting, a long-time Slough resident.”Oh yes,” he laughed. “David Brent, Gareth, Tim… we all watched it.”
They reminisced about the classic scenes. David Brent’s painfully awkward motivational speeches. Gareth’s
obsession with rules. Endless meetings that achieved nothing. The constant fear of redundancy. It was brilliant
because workplaces really were like that.
Then Nilesh looked around and said: “But this isn’t that.”
He was right.
Today, David Brent’s motivational speech would probably be replaced by Tuesday Start-up Pitch Day, where
founders have three minutes to convince everyone that their latest idea will change the world. And those famous
redundancy meetings? They would never happen here. Half the people are founders, freelancers or running their
own businesses. Nobody is waiting for a manager to decide their future because they are busy creating it
themselves.
I suspect David Brent would walk into a modern Slough co-working space, look around, and quietly walk back out
again.
And that is exactly the point.
