5 ms·
Tech workers seem to agree: permanent work from office isn't what most of us want. Fair enough. But here's a fun question: If you aren't permanently in the off
by mabbo 6y ago
Tech workers seem to agree: permanent work from office isn't what most of us want. Fair enough.
But here's a fun question: If you aren't permanently in the office, do you need a personal, permanent desk in the office? Because that is going to be the first cut that comes when we all "go back, some of the time". And half the people I pose this question to get upset about it.
My own prediction is that teams are going to book sets of desks together the same way we book meeting rooms. They're shared and you'd better have a reservation.
But "your" desk with your photo of the spouse and kids, your knick-knacks, your notebooks and "your" monitor? I doubt you'll ever have that again.
- zzbzq 6y agoIf I'm part-time in the office I expect nothing from the company and some "shared space" type tables or desks where I can plug in.
- ipaddr 6y agoThe benefits of coming in quickly fade away with shared spacing. It often makes sense to work in the coffee shop below your office.
- bluefirebrand 6y agoBut I'm told that the benefits of coming in is the face to face, networking opportunities! It's actually amazing how everyone in favor of offices only ever talks about how it's better for socializing!
- ipaddr 6y agoWhen your team is elsewhere the networking opportunities are more with whoever else came in from other departments. Which can be informative but rarely does it directly relate.
- raldi 6y agoWhy wouldn't you have notebooks? It worked be easy for the Facilities team to have your box of stuff (or rolling set of drawers) waiting at your assigned desk when you arrive.
- zerkten 6y ago> be easy for the Facilities team Have you ever worked on a facilities team? When a company removes a provision like an personal office and moves to open office layouts they also rationalize their facilities spending. Theoretically, it's easier to clean and maintain the space. More often it's an excuse to find a way to pay less. I'm not convinced that employees or facility operators are motivated enough to deliver your vision of your stuff being at your desk in any sort of reasonable way. I can't imagine folks being comfortable with packing and unpacking their stuff regularly. For a lot of people, although not me, having people touch their stuff is the root problem. Having different people pack and unpack this regularly would be a nightmare for them.
- raldi 6y agoThat's not what I'm proposing. At the end of the day, desk workers would put their favorite mouse and notebooks in a drawer or box, and at the start of the next day in the office they would pull them out at the new desk. Nobody else would be touching their stuff. In fact, the mouse and main notebook would probably go in their backpack.
- davio 6y agoBack in the 2016 era, my megacorp started building out the tech facilities this way. No assigned seats. There were reservable bullpens for NOC style teams that were persistent. Rest of the floor was divided into quiet and social areas with various seating and work stations. They already had a heavy work from home presence, but it was typically 2-3 days a week with some scheduled collab time for teams in the office.
- ekianjo 6y agoFree seating in the norm in a few big corps already. The era of assigned seats and desks is pretty much in the past except for old style orgs.
- colinmhayes 6y agoMy org tried open seating and switched back. I've heard Intel did the same.
- ryandrake 6y agoNot valid for everyone, but for me, in the office, I'm almost never at my desk anyway. I'm usually booked solid in meetings back to back all day, so I'm simply carrying a laptop from meeting room to meeting room until I sign off for the day. I don't care about having my own desk or even my own workstation.
- beforeolives 6y agoI'm still for the full-time office model with maybe an optional day a week to WFH and with dedicated office space and necessary equipment for each employee. The hybrid models aren't going to work. Especially if by hybrid model we mean - here are some tables, carry your laptop with you all the time and plug in wherever you want on the days when you come in.
- jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 6y agoI personally am more than happy to give up a personal, permanent desk, to be able to WFH most days. Carting around photos, notebooks or knick knacks is an extremely small price to pay.
- Viliam1234 6y agoAlso, if your family is near you during the day, you don't need their photo as a reminder.
- tehjoker 6y agoThey'll have managed to totally wipe away any personal attachment people have to the space and even further treat people as commodity labor units. Just keep moving, don't stop working, and no space is stable or at all personal. What is the quote again? "Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind. " -- Karl Marx and Frederick Engels
- birdyrooster 6y agoIf you work at Google, this is already pretty much your life. You will get moved up to a dozen times in your five year career there. Companies that feel they can work like this are already doing it, and companies that cannot handle the morale hit aren't. Google can do this kind of thing because they offer really good amenities in virtually any office that you work from that somewhat make up for the ephemeral nature of your desk.
- necrotic_comp 6y agoThis was my experience at a large corp as well. You just had your desk packed up and moved whenever there was a re-org or someone decided that your team needed to move elsewhere. Thankfully they took your knick-knacks and set them up for you, so it wasn't a really big deal, but the idea of a permanent seat seems crazy to me.
- oblio 6y agoIt's one thing to do that * gasp * 10 times in 5 years, and to do that * daily *.
- bjohnson225 6y agoNot having a permanent desk means that you need to find somewhere to sit when you arrive, and you need to leave the desk completely clear when you’ve finished for the day. This was how the last company I worked at functioned, and it was a nightmare (also pretty common in expensive cities like London). Companies will not want to spend money on office space to seat 100% of employees when the hybrid model means that on any given day there’s only ~50% in the office.
- 01100011 6y agoAs a senior software engineer in the embedded space, I haven't had to work full-time from an office since... 2003? AFAICT, most engineers have the option to put in 1-2 days a week remotely, and in-office days can be significantly shifted(i.e. I know a guy who works 6am-3pm). FWIW, I might personalize an office, but if I have a cubicle I keep it pretty sterile. I'd be happy to share a cube with another engineer provided there was a way to switch the configuration(monitor positioning, keyboard, mouse) fairly quickly.
- hvocode 6y agoNot applicable to me since I've been 100% remote for 3+ years, but prior to that I stopped personalizing my desk when I moved from a regular private office around 2008 to a gig with an open office. If someone was to have said that giving up personalization was the price to pay for being mostly remote, I wouldn't have blinked and just asked where the garbage can was to dump my desk trinkets.
- fukmbas 6y agoPerm wfh is the future