It recently occurred to me that every time I have changed the work that I do, the available space has reduced. If the trend continues I will be doing all my work on a laptop sitting in a chair in the corner.
This started as an undergraduate where I had an entire room. Granted it was also a bedroom as well and not very large, but it was wholly mine (shared accommodation at universitys are not common in Australia, although I gather it is standard in the US) and was my major workspace at the time. I did a lot of good focussed work in that room - as well as a bit of socialisation.
As a post-graduate, I did nearly all my work in the lab; a room about 8m x 8m with 4m ceilings. I shared with my supervisor, his research assistant and 3-4 other students. Despite not being particularly interested in the topic I was able to get a fair bit done and had close, but not intrusive, contact with everyone I need to collaborate with.
As a post-doc fellow, I had a small glass-walled office in a corner of much smaller lab. The rest of the team (more senior people) had their own offices elsewhere, but that room was the meeting place when we were working together.
My first 'real job' was in a open-plan office. Partitions were shoulder-high on a standing person and each section was about 4m square with 4 seats in it. Since teams were almost always co-located (we moved desks a lot) there was always a lot to talk about with the people in the 'pod' with me and there was not a lot of interruption from outside. Again a productive enviroment - if a little de-personalising.
That was at a client site. When we moved back to our own company offices the sections were smaller - maybe 3m on a side - with walls at waist height. It was possible to stand at one corner of the floor and look over to the other to see if someone was at their desk or not. Noisy conversations (which were not uncommon) in the next partition led to frequent interruptions and it was at this time that I really appreciated the fact that I tend to get in a couple of hours before the majority of my fellows. It was really quite difficult to do any individual work during the main part of the day.
Several years later and our company has moved to new offices and our workspaces have shrunk dramatically. No more sectioning of the space - we now have rows of desks stretching across an open space 100m across. The 'wall' between me and person in the desk facing is roughly eye-level while seated. By roughly, I mean slightly less so that I can look them in the eye if I peer around the screen.
Company management congratulate themselves on the design and how modern and efficient it is to cram as many seats as possible into the space available. I just feel like one of the cattle in a stalls - although with less room or privacy. Or more relevant, like one of a thousand monkeys banging away at a keyboard trying to produce something - even a limerick (forget about aiming for Shakespeare). I get more creative work done on the train on the way home.
I see a scene reminiscent of 1950s movies with wage-slaves, heads bent over hand-cranked calculators, under the watchful eye of the floor supervisor.
I wonder when the whole idea of a productive workplace was lost.
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