Lloyd Alter Treehugger.com doesn’t understand why there’s still an office to go to for work:
Honestly, after reading all the recent #metoo stories about office harassment and abuse of power, I think we have all had a bit too much body language and non-verbal channels. In fact, if you look at the history of offices, it is a history of abuse- the guys in the offices around the perimeter, the women in the steno pool in the middle. Mad Men was more of a documentary than a drama; the men got a telephone and an office; the women a typewriter and a file cabinet and a whole lot of unwanted attention.
Now the office, particularly in tech, is mostly young men in giant playgrounds and again, there is far too much non-verbal channelling and body language. As for the few women around, forty percent of American women say they have experienced unwanted sexual attention or coercion at work. A little more working from home might be helpful.
Bailenson suggests that the Next Big Thing is Virtual Reality.
When it comes to creating a virtual office so good it could eliminate the need to commute, Bailenson says, the Holy Grail is achieving what is known by psychologists as “social presence.” That’s the state of mind in VR in which users are able to experience digital avatars of people as if they’re actual people.
But maybe not. First of all, you can have too much information, too much social presence. We run TreeHugger over Skype and tried using video, and found in the end chat work best, with a voice only meeting next up. That way I don’t have to worry about what I am wearing and the state of my hair. But Bailenson thinks we need more:
“If we can nail what I call ‘the virtual handshake,’ the subtle, non-verbal pattern of eye-contact, interpersonal distance, posture, and other critical nuances of group conversations,” he says, “then we finally have a chance to put the commute in our rear-view mirror.”
What struck me was that this is all focused on how to make the office@home work, and nowhere does Lloyd address the advisability of having an office at home.
Personally speaking, I dislike the idea of working at home every day of the week because now my house, my refuge, has become my workspace. Lloyd might retort that a single room is all that’s needed, but that is actually contra-Treehugger philosophy – a room dedicated to my office? Heaven forbid!
So, yes, my office is also my personal computer room, where I work on blog posts and putter on home computing projects and even occasionally peer blearily at financial garbage. I use it once, maybe twice a week for a full workday “at the office”. As a convenience.
We already suffer from the affliction called the smartphone, that little demon that so many sleep with in order to service when your boss – or a compatriot across the waters – needs you to do something in your interrupted-REM sleep. The office serves to define your availability to work – and when your time is your time.
You don’t want an office? Become a hunter-gatherer.
