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Employers are rethinking open-plan office design

• SlipperySlope 6y ago
  Need private offices with UV-C lamps sterilizing the air going into each office. Less sick days will pay for the private office floor space, plus productivity increases.
  • mlthoughts2018 6y ago
    Don’t know why this is getting downvotes. It’s uncontroversially just fact that open-plan layouts do not save money, not even in the short term and not in high density urban centers. This has been written about so exhaustively for decades that at this point it’s not even worth engaging with people who say “citation needed” or “in 5 seconds of Googling I found this confirmation bias article” because it lends way too much legitimacy to the false idea that it’s even a close call at all or that there is any part of it left open for serious debate. Open plan office designs are chosen so that executives can treat their office spaces like works of art - lots of signaling and often very little practical value. They are often built at huge costs (way beyond outfitting the same space with offices or cubicles for the same number of people), often actively paying a lot of money to destroy existing privacy features, and they not only include but are completely oriented around opulent roof decks, party spaces, kitchens, game rooms, massage areas, and on and on. It’s 100% about infantilizing the workforce and swindling them to accept greater degrees of counter-productive surveillance and total lack of privacy. It is not about cost reduction, flat out.
    • karatestomp 6y ago
      There's a consistent and strong tendency of companies, owners, and managers to avoid giving their professional-class-wage-earning software developers professional-class perks & (especially) signs of status. I'm not entirely sure why that is, but it does seem to be the case. Like they're all, consciously or not, just determined on some fundamental level not to let that happen. On the flip side software folks tend not to exactly embody a professional-class aesthetic or attitude, but I think that behavior'd flip around damn fast if elevated social status became more easily available to those who did. But maybe that's not worth having private offices and assistants and deference to our professional judgement, and so on. [EDIT] relevance being, open plan offices are notable for not just avoiding giving status, but for swinging way the opposite direction. Almost like passive-aggressive compensation for having to pay developers so much. "Well, at least I can seat them like minimum-wage call center employees, since for some reason that's considered fairly normal".
      • cosmodisk 6y ago
        I've been telling this for years: an equivalent of a software developer in a different industry would be driven around in a company's car, dine on company's card and get fat bonuses every year.The problem is that developers,to most people,are well, the IT people. It doesn't matter if your code saves Netflix gazillion of money,to most people you on the same level as the guy who can connect the printer.Also sometimes almost cynical approach to anything financial or sales related doesn't help it either.
        • Hamuko 6y ago
          >an equivalent of a software developer in a different industry would be driven around in a company's car, dine on company's card and get fat bonuses every year As a software developer, this statement feel like hubris.
        • devmunchies 6y ago
          I was a growth engineer for 5+ years and even though i worked closer with marketing and sales optimizing metrics, I was still an "outsider" because I'm so technical. It's a very strange and nuanced social barrier. I'm a co-founder now (and only developer) at a small company that makes 7 figures and i still feel like a code monkey at times, though in a much better position than most.
          • karatestomp 6y ago
            It can, truly, be business-socially elevating in many companies (even "tech" ones!), to pretend to know less about technology than you do. The weird thing is it's not even like the "the CEO using bad grammar in curt emails is a power move" kind of deal, because it kicks in way down the org chart. Basically if the interview for your position isn't leetcode there's a good chance betraying you know too much about technology will lose you some status. [EDIT] It just occurred to me that this is because programming is, so far as social pecking order, perceived as blue-collar.
            • cosmodisk 6y ago
    • alkonaut 6y ago
      > do not save money, not even in the short term Well if you put more people in a smaller space that saves money on rent. If you start using "productivity" or "output" or "net savings" that's effectively economic voodoo in comparison to "the rent is $10k per month vs $20k per month".
    • jpm_sd 6y ago
      I wish I could upvote this ten times over. I worked at Google X from 2013-2015. During this time, we transitioned into a shiny tremendously expensively updated building at "The Rails" (a converted shopping mall off San Antonio Rd). You have described it perfectly. All signaling, no substance, tons of useless recreational space, engineers packed in cheek-by-jowl. I used to hide in the EE lab with my laptop so I could think. Couldn't stand sitting at my 5-foot-wide desk where my nice desktop CAD workstation was parked. Other people would just camp out in (and fight over) one of the hundreds of conference rooms, because there were zero private offices in the entire building. A building that used to contain AN ENTIRE SHOPPING MALL.
  • shostack 6y ago
    This. Isn't a divider useless if the HVAC system is recirculating and pumping virus-laden air everywhere? This has already been shown to cause some outbreaks.
• jimbob45 6y ago
  My workplace has a white noise generator built in to the ceiling (we track how long it takes new hires to figure out that it's not a really loud fan). During blackouts, it shuts off and we're amazed at the difference. Long story short, talk to your boss about investing in one of these. It helps me a lot personally.
  • servalan 6y ago
    You wouldn't know by chance what brand/model you are using?
  • jsilence 6y ago
    White noise makes me tired quickly. So YMMV.
    • beervirus 6y ago
      White noise is annoying, but ocean sounds might be nice.
    • RonanTheGrey 6y ago
      Omg I'm not the only one. I've tried and tried and tried white noise and brown noise and pink noise and yellow noise and every kind of noise people can come up with, and I can't stand them. After 10 minutes my brain is screaming for silence, it's exhausting. I've found rain sounds and ocean sounds to work alot better but of course they're easier to puncture.
  • xxs 6y ago
    White noise is used to help people fall asleep
• gregkerzhner 6y ago
  While I would prefer a private office with a window to an open office seat, I much prefer an open office to a cubicle. Not being able to see any windows and being in a small, depressing space alone for 40 hours a week sounds terrible. But above all, I like working from home, where I can have a nice space with windows and no distractions. Of course, I am lucky because not everyone has a space like this in their home.
  • OrangeMango 6y ago
    My office is in a ~95 year old skyscraper, so even when we used cubicles everyone was close to a window. Instead of the current style in which office buildings have huge rectangular floor plates with elevators in the center, new office tower construction can take design cues from the old days with H shapes or central light shafts.
    • flukus 6y ago
      > nstead of the current style in which office buildings have huge rectangular floor plates with elevators in the center I think you hit the nail on the head, this is why cubicles were hated, it wasn't the cubicle, it was the sprawling cubicle farm that was hated. Even a private office in the middle of that farm is not pleasant, so the the private offices went around the outside and made things even worse in the inner cubicles. Hopefully this campus style building dies. At least around me the trend has been towards much thinner but taller office buildings for a while now, partly out of necessity as city plots of land get smaller. These accommodate cubicles and/or offices with natural light really well. The often derided glass and steel architecture also helps because you get floor to ceiling natural light.
  • Merrill 6y ago
    I've long thought it illogical that people slave away in wretched conditions for 8 hours per day, bookended by long commutes, in order to afford a nice home that they don't actually spend many daylight hours in. Sometimes, a non-working spouse and children get to enjoy the home, but in the more normal two-income or single-parent family, even that is not the case.
• nugget 6y ago
  If the tech giants are truly ready to embrace permanent wfh for a large % of their employees I think we could see a land rush of innovation around wfh collaboration tools on the horizon, including some AR/VR applications. That is what I'm most excited about.
  • karatestomp 6y ago
    I suspect the main thing we'll get, tech-wise, if WFH expands substantially, is more and more normalized spying.
    • jrs235 6y ago
      *"productivity tracking"
      • airstrike 6y ago
        *Coding APM
    • blondin 6y ago
      not just that. remember what they say about work home balance or separation? it's only going to get worse for here. we are already having people's kids and family on conference calls...
    • rodiger 6y ago
      Comments like these continually make me happy that my place of work does no such monitoring and trusts employees to be productive.
  • brianmcc 6y ago
    Hadn't thought about this before - but you're spot on, some serious investment in innovating in this area could massively improve the whole remote working experience. Here's hoping!
  • LatteLazy 6y ago
    Don't we have everything already? We have email, audio and video calls, chat including groups and file transfer. Wfh doesn't have an unsolved problem to innovate over does it? It's human behaviour and communication skills that are lacking, not the tech imo...
• hpoe 6y ago
  So one thing that bothers me about this is they talk about not going back to cubicles and creating transparent dividers. I do not like this not one bit, I enjoy the privacy and distraction blocking of a cubicle, an office would be optimal but a cubicle is preferable to the open office hellscape that was looming before Corona stopped it. But going from open office to plexiglass dividers seems to be far worse than a cubicle in every conceivable way.
  • trhway 6y ago
    >from open office to plexiglass dividers seems to be far worse it would allow to even more increase density, even beyond open floor office, so it is "better" for a specific corporate definition of "better". The definition that has been driving the density increase during the last 3 decades from private offices to open space. If not for coronavirus, the next density increase would have taken like a decade too. Now we're going to jump straight into it. Into our personal cozy aquariums. Office dress code - goldfish. Or crabby.
    • hpoe 6y ago
      Voice over the speaker Rockstar JavaScript Software Engineer #2293 You have forgotten the cover sheet to your TPS report. A company message was sent by the corporate friendly bot on Friday regarding including cover sheets on the TPS report. We have contacted the corporate friendly bot to email you a new copy of the email. If you fail to place your cover sheet on further TPS reports this will be noted. This has been an automate message from the compliance and reporting bot Carl. We value you as an employee, you are the life blood of Initech!
      • vidanay 6y ago
        This sounds best if you read it in The Borg voice.
        • walshemj 6y ago
          No Sally from Oblivion "are we an effective team"
• KingTen 6y ago
  I wouldn’t mind open workspaces as much if I was given more space... I feel like cubicles are much bigger
  • ken 6y ago
    Here's what IBM was giving programmers in 1978, thanks to the work of architect Gerald McCue: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/IBM's-Santa-Teresa-Laboratory-Architectural-Design-McCue/f473363b09dad1fb5e423ec1781adfe481069218/figure/5 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/IBM's-Santa-Teresa-Lab...
• 29athrowaway 6y ago
  As a software engineer, I don't see offices as something necessary. Everything you do leaves a digital footprint: issue trackers, version control, instant messaging, e-mail. Everything is timestamped, everything leaves multiple copies. If you want to check if someone is working, it is not necessary to see if someone is at their desk. If you want to grab someone's attention, you can have a meeting that does not distract people in adjacent desks. You can still gather and have IRL activities. That is OK. But I don't need to that every day. Most days I need to get things done, and focus. During meetings, the most important thing I need to get from that meeting is information in order to make decisions. I need to focus my attention on what's being presented, not on how people dress, their haircut, their age, weight, stature and other superficial aspects that have no impact on the product whatsoever. Likewise, I don't want the meeting to be interrupted by someone commenting about someone's haircut. Then, there's non-verbal communication. Some will claim you need body language to perform sentiment analysis or to cross-validate what's being said, etc. But those activities take away attention from the points being discussed. Then, there's legal liability. If you want to go "off the record", then you will not like things being recorded. If you are a honest person acting within the law, you don't have strong reasons to go off the record. If your modus operandi is to gaslight people, you won't like meetings that are potentially recorded. Overall, visibility is accountability, and accountability is key to keep things healthy and legal. People's appearance and other superficial aspects of a contributor should have very little importance when compared to their deliveries. A remote culture helps people to focus on what's important.
  • airstrike 6y ago
    This is an entirely valid POV so I'd ask downvoters to add to the debate by chiming in rather than just silently clicking on the downvote arrow.
    • 29athrowaway 6y ago
      People with a low-res mind :)
  • krapht 6y ago
    I have seen many arguments like this, as if software engineers are automata that take requirements as input and produce software code. However an important part of being in a company is developing a shared team relationship where individuals feel accountable to each other and take some interest in the welfare of their co-workers and company above their own short-term interests. Since we are humans this necessarily involves some socialization and shared experiences. I don't believe in 100% remote work - maybe we can do remote 3 times a week, and that might work. The idea that workers will replace their social interactions on their own is naive. There is an epidemic of loneliness among many once they are no longer forced to socialize via school or church. (In terms of productivity, I feel like remote optimizes individual throughput over system throughput, due to degraded avenues of cross-communication.) I hope that this cheering for remote dies. Many managers read Hacker News and they might actually take it seriously. The less tightly the team is bound via social connections the more likely the job function can simply be outsourced to an external contractor. Also, speaking purely of my own self-interest, I like where my job is located and don't want to move so I can equalize my standard of living with similarly smart and dedicated developers in eastern Europe, Asia, or even the deep south or rural midwest.
• cosmodisk 6y ago
  It is unrealistic to expect that everyone could have a private office with leather chair and fish tank behind it, however it would be great if people could have smaller spaces,lets say 2-4 people per room ,which would have a door and etc. Open plan office,the way it is now, it's just a one level up from a hen battery.
  • eeZah7Ux 6y ago
    > It is unrealistic It was absolutely the norm in the '70 and '80 and before. How comes that technology improves and worker's rights regress?
    • BurningFrog 6y ago
      One reason is we stopped building buildings. So now we have to squeeze into and share the space already built. I also wonder how many people really had private offices 30-40 years ago.
      • bsder 6y ago
        > I also wonder how many people really had private offices 30-40 years ago. IBM (and presumably any other company of that ilk) certainly had one person per office up through 1990. One thing that people forget is that you had a land line phone. And you spent a lot of time on it. And haranguing people was considered a negotiation tactic. So, being able to close your door to not bother others was important.
        • fzzzy 6y ago
          I absolutely love this little piece of flavor. It takes me right back to that time. I think this is an important point I haven't heard discussed before: The cell phone kind of enabled the open office explosion. That really explains a lot. Before if you needed to be reachable in a company, you needed a physical location from which to engage in phone calls.
        • WWLink 6y ago
• itronitron 6y ago
  It would be nice if the article did the math on cost per sq. ft. of 'usable' open office space vs. cost for individual offices. When an open office can only be filled to P% capacity then private offices start to make a lot more sense.
  • alkonaut 6y ago
    Yeah the question should be "do you want an open office in this attractive location with easy access to public transit, or do you want your own office in this office park 10km outside the city that you have to drive to every day?"
• rodiger 6y ago
  I guess I'm in the minority. Whenever this discussion pops up everyone laments the horrors of the open office, but I have no difficulty focusing in that environment and find it more lively and attractive when compared to alternatives. I don't need a black box to focus, and the feeling of being social (even when I'm not) really helps my morale.
  • SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
    The focus in an open floorplan feels fragile, sitting in one I have a constant low level anxiety. I hate feeling constantly watched, as someone can see everything I do. Any time I sneeze I'm bothering a couple of dozen people. My monitors are open for display. If I eat at my desk everyone needs to suffer through that. My only sense of any sort of privacy are my headphones, which people are constantly talking over, or I'm taking off because someone is talking to me. There's no office door to close and never any promise of any sort of flow.
    • rodiger 6y ago
      I'm sure it varies based on place of employment and personal preference. I understand many people have some level of social anxiety that may be exacerbated by the open floor plan. I just personally enjoy it and hope to not see its demise. Glad we get to pick our employer!
      • ken 6y ago
        Unfortunately, that doesn't help, since 100% of software employers with offices use open floor plan offices, or some variant of the same. I always ask people in the industry what company has private offices for programmers. The only answers I've ever heard are "Fog Creek" and "maybe Microsoft?", but my friends at Microsoft say that's not so common any more.
        • pertymcpert 6y ago
          Apple still has 2 person or completely private offices.
• 0fcf8d3559a64c 6y ago
  I would take a vertical coffin of office space if it came with a door. Something to block out the audio and visual noise and supported whatever horizontal space was needed to host my monitors. I realize some people could not handle the claustrophobia, but for those that can this seems like an easy win to minimize footprints while isolating those who are bothered by the distractions of others.
  • SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
    I wouldn't mind that at all, though I'd need some way to sit for a bit - I don't intend to stand for 8 hours a day, especially not without room to walk a bit. The other advantage would be able to go "BLAAHH!" every time the manager interrupted your flow.
  • throwphoton 6y ago
    To keep it properly ventilated you'd have to have a fan blasting air directly down onto your head.
    • wenc 6y ago
      Or fan sucking air upwards -- negative pressure. Tiny floor registers may help with convection too, in order to maintain temperature. I've been running my bathroom exhaust fan while WFHing these days and it's been getting rid of all kinds of smells and vapors in my apartment without me opening the windows.
      • fyfy18 6y ago
        Just be aware of where the air is coming into your apartment from. If it's coming through the walls or attic and being 'filtered' through decades old insulation potentially filled with animal droppings or carcases it's probably not that great for you. Modern builds have HRVs which bring in fresh filtered air from outside.
    • Izkata 6y ago
      Direct head-cooling, now you can overclock your brain more comfortably!
• renewiltord 6y ago
  I like open offices. Very pleasant spaces. I also like working from home, but I like socialization too.
  • ken 6y ago
    Liking an activity doesn't mean it needs to be an integral part of your workplace every minute of the day. I like playing the drums, but I would never do it in the same room as my coworkers while they're trying to write software. I want to work at work. When I want to socialize (or do anything else which might distract others), I wait for a break and go outside.
    • renewiltord 6y ago
      Sure, sure. I like an environment where I can socialize at work. I still work fine. Fortunately, I find it easy to find companies like that.
      • turbulentic 6y ago
        I like socializing too. Heck, i can talk all day, every day. It's just that no work gets done, which might put some employers off
• zitterbewegung 6y ago
  I wonder if we will see the return of actual offices or even cubicles.
• gigatexal 6y ago
  It’s about time. The open office sucks.
• monadic2 6y ago
  Honestly as someone who grew up with "office space" on the TV and then went to work in an open office, I am dying for cubicles.
  • alatkins 6y ago
    Same! They tried to make the Initech office look as bland and dispiriting as possible, but by 2020 standards it looks pretty good :)
• lowbloodsugar 6y ago
  What if we could design a space such that it areas to accommodate those who prefer individual spaces and those who prefer group spaces? We always got to this "open" vs "closed" space opinion-match.
  • commandlinefan 6y ago
    They could try, but everybody except for one guy would pick the individual spaces and that one guy would be stuck in the group space by himself.
• Simulacra 6y ago
  "What, exactly, is so valuable about working together in the same physical space? " EXACTLY. The open office plan has never achieved the spontaneous productivity companies had hoped for. Instead it's led to misery, lower productivity, and mental and social health.
• mirimir 6y ago
  That's a hilarious title :) I can't imagine how anyone (without a death wish) would be OK now in an open-plan office. We'll know more this fall, but COVID-19 may be around indefinitely. And even if it peters out, another coronavirus or whatever could pop up at any time. Given that zoonotic events have become far more likely.
• whytaka 6y ago
  I hate having to wear anything on my face, much less a pair of screens beaming the simulacrum directly into my eyes. To me, there is so little gained in visually looking at others in presentations I find it shocking people care so much. With people I’ve never met, I do one introductory video chat to show I’m a real person. Anytime after it’s purely voice or screen sharing. All the emotional cues are there in the voice and with less lag from not having video hog up all the bandwidth, I find the smaller latency aids in smoother conversations.
  • cheerlessbog 6y ago
    I am not able to fully pick up on emotional cues without video. There is a reason we use facial expressions when talking in person. For a technical discussion it doesn't matter - for a personal connection it does. Another advantage of video is you can distinguish "thinking" from "frozen". Plus, you can tell when they're confused, or have a question.
  • GordonS 6y ago
    I also have a "thing" about putting things on my face, I don't even like touching it. I absolutely hate the idea of having to wear a mask, and having hot breath steaming up my face... makes me cringe just thinking about it. Thankfully I'm one of the lucky ones that was working from home even before COVID.
• qwerty456127 6y ago
  Open-space offices are bullshit. Everybody should be given a separate room. Whoever is not worth a room should work from home. Nevertheless an office should have a number of places where people can meet and communicate freely in groups of whatever size they want.
  • turbulentic 6y ago
    Meeting rooms can actually be great for collaborative work, it' judt that they're often used for that rigid status-update manner that makes it seem unappealing
• holidayacct 6y ago
  The open office plan is only there so that employers can control their employees. There is literally no other reason for it, it removes psychological safety which most people need in order to think while they are working. It allows obnoxious employees to create distractions in order to slow productive employees down. It allows clever employees to waste the executive function of people they don't like by flooding them with behavioral cues, gestures and body languages that has inherent meaning (This is particularly dangerous and devastating if done in a targeted fashion). I'm sure if you talked to a psychologist they could give you a million more fun games you can play with people in open office environments. They were never good for people to begin with or for getting work done. In small startups they are perfectly fine but in medium to large sized corporations they are only abused. (BTW, none of the above bothers me in particular but I know this happens on all the time and I've watched people in large corporations play psychological games with extremely good employees just to make them miserable in open office environments.)
  • 29athrowaway 6y ago
    As soon as wages get depressed and people start talking about unions, remote work will be the new hot thing.
• nine_k 6y ago
  Can't help to remind: each such cell would need proper ventilation. Open offices circulate air in broad strokes of huge air ducts on the ceiling. This is not going to easily map to a grid of smaller cells where horizontal streams are impossible. This of course can be addressed, but it seriously more expensive than just plastic walls. If you don't solve the ventilation, the workers will suffer from high CO₂ and overheating, lowering productivity and morale. If you don't separate the cells enough to block the air flow between them (that is, leave them as cubicles), then the whole point of separation as an infection-resisting measure is lost.
• carapace 6y ago
  I've said for years now that I'm willing to take a $20,000 reduction in salary for an office with a door that closes.
• ashtonkem 6y ago
  What’s very interesting is that in an era where we’ve all been shown exactly how many businesses could operate remotely, we also now have a situation where the value proposition of returning to the office is rapidly dropping at the exact same time. A lot of these more pandemic friendly offices appear to have the worst of both worlds; a total lack of privacy on top of extra restrictions on movement. My company is setting up rules for how we’ll return to the office once the govt. says its okay, and it involves basically pretending that we’re working remotely from the office, plus the need to Lysol down conference rooms once you’re done with them. A few months ago I’d be happy to return to the office, but now I’m genuinely wondering why we should bother.
  • Consultant32452 6y ago
    I work at a fortune 500 financial company (the boring conservative kind). They're not even considering coming back into the office this calendar year. Speaking only about my own department, I find the little awkward home distractions lovely. The other day in the middle of a conf call someone's kid popped into the video and asked about potato chips. It was really important because the other parent had informed them there were no chips, but they had to get a second opinion. These things are really humanizing. Instead of "Chuck from the integrations team" it's "Chuck whose kid loves chips." For what it's worth, our time to market for new integrations has improved by almost 30% with everyone working from home. And we're not the kind of shop where work from home means working all day.
• Balgair 6y ago
  Terry's back hurt. PrezsHub's entrance was that old 'Apple Store' style, but somehow more brutalist. Just glass, but at that angle that just reflects and doesn't let you see in. Faux-invitational, Terry called it. The front door was frosted glass. It was that special kind that would be clear when you put a voltage to it. The giant windows directly next to the door were like that too. Or so Terry heard. He'd never seen them frosted all at once. Some would be, some wouldn't. Faulty wiring, he guessed. Terry stood in line to get into PrezsHub. There was always a line. They got rid of the badge scanners, too unsanitary. His turn. He waited as some scanner somewhere read his face. At first Terry had smiled every time he stood in front of the door. The massive door of plate glass on tiny little hinges with a tiny little motor to swing the thing. The smiling stopped soon enough though. Terry had thought his boss actually cared to see the smile, or that maybe someone did. Nope. The scanner took it's time, you never could tell how long it would take. Terry shifted his face this way and that. Finally, the door defrosted and tried to open. Slowly, inch by inch, all the way open. Terry ducked inside long before it had taken the full three minute twenty-two seconds to complete a cycle of opening, pausing, and then closing and refrosting. After passing by the Wellness-Entrepreneur-And-Sanctuary-Expert team's front desk, the cavern opened up. PrezsHub was ultra cutting edge. The CEO was one of those unicorn people that really believed he wasn't going to die. He had escaped taxes, so why not death too? So, slowly at first, he had gotten rid of almost everything at PrezsHub. First it was the cubes. That move was nice at first, a bit more air. Long tables sure. Then the noise, the chattering, the gossip, the microwaved fish. Ghastly. After covid21 subsided, everyone came back to the office to find, well, nothing. The CEO had ripped up the floor, put in charging ports and wifi, and then covered the whole thing in hardwood. No desks, no chairs, nothing. Even the toilets had been replaced with Japanese ones, bidet and all. The walls slowly sloped up to the roof too, it made a great half pipe, but there was nowhere to put a back against. The whole company was now 'floor gang'. The CEO said it was great for your body, just you and the hardwood. He sat there for three hours in a yoga position that first day back. By the end of the week, he was working from home for a bit. He almost never came in anymore. Terry's butt had gone numb before the first 15 minutes had gone by. Everyone's had. People started bringing in camping chairs and card table desks. Then one day the Wellness-Entrepreneur-And-Sanctuary-Expert-Team said no more camping chairs. The CEO was concerned about them scrumming up the hardwood floors they had paid for. People started to bring in cushions and even more low budget camping equipment. Again, the Wellness-Entrepreneur-And-Sanctuary-Expert-Team stopped people after getting past the door. Those were creating dust and some were staining the flooring. The CEO was 'wigged out' about it. As his video address echoed off the walls of the empty building, he said everyone needed to be health conscious and just sit. So for the rest of the week, thats all Terry and the rest of PrezsHub did, they just sat. The CEO was adamant that no work be done, so that the chakras could align with Mars or something. Of course, half the company got put on a PIP for failing to meet deadlines. So Terry went to find a working outlet on the floor and sat down with his bag and personal laptop, a perk. He plugged in, saw that it wasn't working and had to go get up and hunt around the room for a working outlet. Like at the airport, but more cliquey. He found a group, the Support And Development team; they weren't too Slack-y. He could get those tickets closed, maybe. He put on his carpal tunnel splints, opened his laptop, changed his password in the system yet again, hunched over, and got to work. Terry's back hurt.