In most offices, if the receptionist is having an affair with Terry from accounts, you’ll hear about it at the water cooler. Ditto when it comes to the latest update on Game of Thrones, and whether or not the new guy from marketing knows his backside from his elbow. The water cooler is the social hub of any work space.

Except at the Sydney showroom of Zenith.

At Zenith (a workplace solutions company) if you want to share some gossip about Brenda from customer service – she started pole dancing for fitness and now makes a bit of cash on the side from it and have you seen how short her skirts are – you head straight to the Totem wood lamp at the edge of the room and wait for someone else to join you. Same if you want to find out whether the young guy who delivers the muffins every morning is going through an expensive sex change. The Totem is the catalyst for social exchange; an illuminated rumour-pole as it were.

The Totem’s designers Burkhard Dammer and Marivi Calvo had no idea their towering timber veneer creation would be used in such a manner. When they designed the Totem, their only wish was that it would function as a beautiful, yet functional sculpture. Had they realised their lamp would draw gossips like moths to a flame they may have reconsidered.

Time to buy a water cooler Zenith.