Flexible Workspace
One presenter at the conference I recently attended said that her company is adopting flexible workspaces. Here’s how it works in a nutshell:
No family photos on your desk. No drawers full of catsup packets, used plastic forks, performance evaluations from 5 years ago, and crumbs (or droppings?) of indeterminate origin. No sticky notes affixed to monitors. No scented candle which you probably weren’t supposed to have anyway due to the “open flame†policy imposed by the safety committee. No stacks of magazines that you haven’t gotten around to reading but hate to throw away because you imagine you might. None of your daughter’s artwork on the wall. No Dilbert calendar (or in the case of one coworker, no Minnesota Vikings Cheerleaders calendar). No mouse with the left and right buttons reversed to spare tendon damage. No diplomas framed and hung conspicuously to reinforce your credibility. No collection of travel coffee mugs from every conference you attended, lined up on your bookshelves like Hummel figurines.
In short, you go to work with your own IP phone under your arm. Check out an office, plug in your phone, and voila: office in a box. If something other than standard computer equipment is needed, check that out too. If you normally work in Toronto, you can visit San Jose and your clients are none-the-wiser.
While this all seems cold and impersonal to me, I can see how it *could* be beneficial for certain types of workers...mainly consultants or salespeople who are highly mobile anyway. Yet, with this sort of get-up, I could finally lay to rest one of my most persistent fears: that I will be struck by a bus on the way to work and one of my coworkers will have to clean out my desk. That’s not a job I’d wish on anyone.
Coffeeshop Consultant
There was *some* reference to telecommuting in relation to the flexible workspace idea. (I wonder how much of that was to sell the concept.) In fact, with the use of Cisco's "soft phone" it could be done via a laptop at Starbuck's without having to lug your IP phone around. Clients call your usual extension and you answer via the oddly one-dimensional but otherwise convincing virtual representation of a phone.
As far as conference coverage and blogging goes, well, one can only go so far and hope to stay employed (and invited to any future conferences). Did you see the story in the news recently about the fellow who was stopped at a Canadian border while security personnel perused his blog to inspect his comings and goings?
Asteroids Do Not Concern Me
As far as conference coverage and blogging goes, well, one can only go so far and hope to stay employed (and invited to any future conferences).
Indeed. :-) That's why I thought Dr. Hunter S. Thompson would be necessary to really disrupt, subvert, and expose the absurdity. In the first Star Wars movie, as his gigantic flies into an asteroid field, Darth Vader says calmly to his hysterical pilot, "Asteroids do not concern me." Likewise, employment was not a concern of the good doctor's.
Did you see the story in the news recently about the fellow who was stopped at a Canadian border while security personnel perused his blog to inspect his comings and goings?
That seems odd. Was this person red-flagged for some other reason? Or are they just doing that routinely?
Best,
Dan
Suspicious
Concerning the blogger who was stopped at the border, I do believe he was an international who had been politically verbal (through his blogs). That's not to say he was involved in terrorist plots, but the border patrol may have had concerns of that nature.
I've always taken some comfort in the thought that I am too nondescript to be suspected of anything. However, I understand that Americans have become targets in some countries and I am afraid I would be in trouble there...if I opened my mouth there would be little doubt where I was from.
Mmmmm....cold and impersonal....
So this company was doing this for all of their employees? If that kind of arrangement came along with the freedom to come and go as I please, work from home, work from the coffee shop down the street, etc. then I'd be all for it. As you say, Donna, sounds great for certain situations (as long as they don't force me to look at any of those damn Successories posters).
If, however, this is just another way to save a few dollars, if it's the next step in the evolution of the cube farm, bringing it one step closer to being like a building full of chickens in stacked cages, then not so much. Soon they'll want to pump us full of hormones, too, make us work more efficiently.
If this were 1972 instead of 2005 and I was the editor of Rolling Stone magazine instead of developer.*, I would sign a blank check to send Hunter S. Thompson to cover this CIO conference. ;->
Dan