Do you have a hidden or unknown sanctuary in your workplace?

There is NO refuge in my workplace.

When I lived for a year in an old Eagles Lodge, turning it with friends into a gallery and theater, and the place had women's and men's rooms but no bathing facility, I used to use the university physical rehab patient showers an hour before any staff needed to show up for work. I was always the only one there. Which was good, that I wasn't nabbed. I supplanted that with visiting friends' places, so it wasn't every day that I hit the patient showers.

'My' microscope room, the one with the fluorescent micro, was kept dark when the mic was on. Reading slides was generally very peaceful, a sort of haven from the buzz.

ditto here.
when i need sanctuary, i leave the building...

At the publisher, they had a reading room. You could actually (almost) look like you were working by going in there and leafing through the slush pile.

Ditto squared.

At one place I worked there used to be a prayer room. It was set up for a Muslim employee - I knew some one that would frequent this room for a nap.

Currently where I work there is a mother's room. You need to have the code to get into this room - when I tried as I am a mother - they said you need to be a nursing mother. Damn them then call it the pumping room or some such thing.

I have also known a woman who used to sleep in the toliet. I heard her snoring in there one day and another that used to go to her car for a nap.

I used to work at Rockefeller Center. No place on the premises for some quiet time. But the was an underground shopping mall that did me wonders.

Now I work at home--in a corner of the living room. I go sit on the couch as sanctuary.

We have an hour and a half for lunch which is a long time unless you have work to do, and then it passes quickly.

When I don't have work to do, I go to the library and read four or five newspapers and do all the crossword and number puzzles.

If Janet's the working librarian that day, we sit in perfect silence and read.
If Sue is working, she might ask me to help her process and reshelve the returned books, dvd's and cd's.
If Penny's working - we read the papers together - talk about why Ashton Kutcher cheated on Demi Moore and who cares or marvel at how long and clawlike Angelina Jolie's hands look and figure maybe that's why Brad Pitt has to smoke pot, etc., etc... we always end up laughing hysterically.

Sometimes we look at this amazing world atlas book of huge maps together and I show her where she should go on vacation in Mexico and she shows me where I should go in Croatia.

If I'm really tired and they're having a meeting, I pull two chairs together and take a nap. They talk really softly and let me sleep.
I love my work library and the librarians- it IS sort of a sanctuary.

If there was a span of two minutes that I wasn't doing three things, needing to pee, and hurtling toward the next three things...I know I could find one. It's a cool, funky, old building with atriums, forbidden, dark unused classrooms...and who knows what else....

We have a very nice lunch room where I work, TV, music, kind of set up like a lounge but I never take my lunch, I always just want to get away from the office.

I'm with you, Boida...

my warm bed full of purring cat is almost always within 150 feet of where I'm working. during the winter the added bonus of a snapping wood fire is next to the computer desk.

I work at a small branch of a mid-sized company. There are 7 of us employees in Boston in a large space (which once held many more employees since it was acquired with another company) about 450 miles from the main office. We all get along and the workplace is casual.

The office itself is a sanctuary. This is a pretty cool environment, I don't imagine it happens in many other places.