The Metamorphosis of My Office
When I say I never want to return to an office, there’s a specific type I’m speaking of — if you’re not sure, just Google it
Truth be told, I’ve never worked in a proper office and have a life-long jealousy of anyone who even had their own cube. I’ve always worked in media, which favors open-office production spaces most often credited to Google — the utopia of office spaces, apparently.
Google famously creates open and fluid work spaces to encourage collaboration and discussion. So many other industries follow suit favouring these constant interactions over actual, quiet, productive spaces for workers — industries like media.
In 15+ years working in media, I have never had a space of my own. My first job, the entire team literally shared the same desk. The young and hip publisher wanted everyone to work at a ‘war desk’ (his words, not mine) which was a long piece of plywood supported by sawhorses and peppered with computers.
I’ve worked at pods, shared cubicles and generally built a career using computer workspaces, as opposed to a designated office I could tailor to my own style of concentration and productivity.
The one thing these spaces share, though, is a separate office for the executives — the big-picture thinkers in charge of strategic thinking and planning. They all got their own private spaces to work distraction-free, while I toiled away with the other worker bees in an open-concept office ready to be pulled into a problem-solving situation or brainstorming meeting.
That’s one flaw I’ve found in the Google model of constant collaboration — there’s never time or space to do the important but tedious tasks that take an idea and bring it to reality.
I don’t know how many times I’ve worked late just so I could get through a to-do list, neglected for the sake of office chatter and meetings. I would routinely go into work hours before everyone else just so I could start my day doing all of the important, but tedious, things before the office filled up and pulled at my attention.
When I started working from home though, those distractions disappeared. I just got things done and had all kinds of free time. I filled it by scheduling check-ins with staff. Sure, it wasn’t the casual run-in favoured by Google’s office design, but it was still efficient. It nurtured new ideas and planted the seeds for different ways of doing things.
Most important, it respected the time of both parties involved. I could look at my calendar and know when I’d be pulled into brainstorming sessions and when I could focus on just getting sh*t done. In the before times, I was just always expected to be available for interruption.
This kind of order also cleared up brain space for me to start doing my own strategic thinking. First, it was about the show I worked on. Then, it was about the next phase of my career I’m building.
I could start thinking like an executive because I had the quite, solitude my bosses always managed to enjoy. That’s the real benefit of working from home — and it’s why so many leaders seem to be confused and threatened by the desire to continue working remotely.
Remote working has its share of challenges, but so did open-offices. Right now, working from home has created a cocoon where I can get work done but also experiment with work I’d like to do. I worry about losing this if I go back to an old way of working.
If we’re really going to reinvent office spaces post-pandemic, maybe we can start considering the mental environment for all workers, not just execs.
