My immediate thought was "This is strange." so I responded with a "No, not at the moment I'm afraid.". He then left the building and went to the next one in our block.
Upon reflection, this is all wrong. If the man had emailed us or sent us a tweet, we would almost certainly have considered what type of work he was interested in rather than handing out a blanket "no". What's the difference? Have we disappeared so far up our own Internet bottoms that we can no longer take "in person" requests seriously? I feel awful so, if you are the man who came to our offices at about 11 this morning asking for work, then please come back and we'll take the time to talk to you properly about any opportunities we might have. But then, I suspect you aren't one of the privileged few for whom reading this is possible, otherwise you wouldn't have adopted such a hands-on approach to finding work in the first place.
This highlights the need for two things; First, that at Mint we should adopt a different approach towards people who walk into the office and second, the importance of digital inclusion and the work of Martha Lane Fox described in this article.
(Photo by thomwatson)
