Proud Mancunian and Salfordian, Anthony Shephard, has been exploring the recent research highlighting Manchester as one of the happiest places to work in the country.
To coincide with our rebrand to Mustard in 2012, we also decided it was time to freshen up our work space and in January 2013 we moved into our new office at Princess Street, central Manchester.
I lived in Manchester City Centre at the time and I was understandably very happy with this move as it meant no more arduous train journeys to Wilmslow, followed by a 20 minute walk to our office. In fact I could be door-to-door in 12 minutes (yes, I timed it!).
Aside from being happy with the much shorter commute, I was just happy to be working in the city. And it is no surprise really as a recent article claims that Manchester has been named as one of the top 10 happiest UK cities to work in (coming in at respectable 8th!).
I wanted to see what my colleagues thought of this, so I posed the question to them “What do you love about working in Manchester?”
As you might imagine some of my colleagues were less helpful than others (particular mention should go to David Darby, for his extremely sarcastic response!), with many an ironic reason provided (yes, it rains in Manchester – get over it!).
However, it wasn’t all bad, so here is a selection of some of the more positive reasons received for loving working in Manchester:
“I love the walk from Piccadilly to our offices – over the arch bridge and past a host of new contemporary designed buildings which sit alongside Victorian warehouses, now used as offices or bars. It reminds me of a continental city – not at all what you’d imagine darkest Manchester to be like… And that’s from a scouser.” (Ian Font)
“I love that within a 5 minute walk from the office we can be in some of the best bars in the world and when you’re in there, you are bound to have a friendly chat with the other punters! I love the pubs – The Castle on Oldham Street (which has a brilliant jukebox and little rooms to watch gigs in), Marble Arch (which also serves delicious food – the scotch egg is amazing) and The Ox! I love the excitement and buzz in the city as areas like Ancoats see new life injected in to the city – looking forward to trying Ancoats’ new Pizza joint, Rudy’s!” (Amy Harrod)
“I love walking along the canal to work and being able to breathe in the non-polluted (unlike London) air. It’s an invigorating and head-clearing way to start and end the day. I’m sure the day will come when I can’t get in to work because of an over-protective goose blocking the canal path, but until then I am thoroughly enjoying my ‘commuting’! Also, it’s impossible to describe how much nicer the people in Manchester are compared to London! Very refreshing.” (Victoria Bennett)
“It’s all about being able to get a nice lunch, and there is such a good choice being in the city centre. Also having the option to go out for a few drinks after work and still be able to get home relatively easily.” (Colin Auton)
“I love working in Manchester. The craft beer scene has caught up with Leeds, and we are close to our many of our partners and collaborators.” (Richard Walker)
“The people here are really friendly and welcoming, they’ll just have a chat with you when you’re out and about, all in all, it’s a pretty friendly environment to live and work in!” (Jennifer Monaghan)
If you want to share reasons as to why you love working in Manchester let us know on Twitter @MustardResearch or @MustardAnthony or better still, why not pop in and say hi – 56 Princess Street Manchester.
