Stuart Pinfold

Perks of the job

There's a lot of things wrong with working for BBC News. Layers of bureaucracy, long hours, low pay (except for The Talent, of course...), office politics, many critics ready to jump on your back and bring you down, and low job security.

But every so often, you get a real big perk. Something that makes you proud to work in journalism, or for the BBC in general. I remember thinking to myself "I'm proud to work for this organisation" a few times already this year: The broadcast of The Poles Are Coming!, the Sony awards where BBC programmes, particularly at the World Service, won for all the right public-service reasons, and just last weekend when everybody across BBC News fell silent for two minutes to mark the death and celebrate the life of two journalists, strangers to the large majority of staff, shot in Somalia and Afghanistan.

Tonight there was a different kind of perk - a live Coldplay concert at the front of the iconic, but regretfully doomed, Television Centre building in west London, home to BBC News, Five Live and the famous television studios.

I love Coldplay, and had I been on shift I would have foregone part of my lunch break in order to stand on the Star Terrace and watch the concert. However, I decided that a 3-hour round journey between home and Shepherd's Bush probably wasn't worth it for the 45-minute concert which was televised live anyway. Even the builders working on the new Hammersmith and City line Wood Lane station downed tools to watch... and got a mention from Chris Martin!

The concert is the first in a series, which over the last few years have seen the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, James Blunt and Madonna play free gigs for BBC staff, competition winners and gatecrashing members of the public (those looking through the main gates during tonight's concert, plus those builders!)

How many other organisations can boast that they could get big bands and artists to play free for their staff? Well, maybe Google - if you can drag the staff away from the games room for long enough...

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