A fairly big room with a diamond shaped ceiling, supported by a single tapering pillar in the center. The whole floor, covered with carpet and every door and window of designer glass panes, keeps the outside sound where it belongs… Outside! Orange and Blue boards divide the room into smaller cubicles with Gray desks and Black pull out trays. On each desk stand a black monitor with a matching black keyboard is in the pull-out tray and a black metal cabinet, the intelligent CPU, stacked away in a corner under the desk. The only wire visible outside is the “tail” of the mouse with a glowing red eye that lies next to the monitor. The rest of the room is divided into small cabins furnished with designer tables and chairs. A total of 12 split air-conditioners keep this not-so-huge-nor-so-crowded place at a constant 16 degrees Celsius. The concealed lighting adds a pleasant ambience to the room.
9:30AM. One by one they start coming in. A small team of young software professionals, dressed in formals. The boss follows half an hour later. Everyone’s with their computer, designing, coding, testing, debugging. They can’t see anything beyond their monitor because the boards block the view. Except for the occasional hushed discussions between some members of the team and the tap-tapping on the keyboard, it’s largely silent inside the room. Once in a while the intercom buzzes and somebody talks. Soon, the tea guy comes in and leaves a cup of tea on every desk. The work continues. The silence in broken when the intercom buzzes at 1PM. It’s lunch time. And there’s a rush. Half the team goes for lunch, while the other half stays and continues with the works. It’s their turn when the 1st half returns.
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Tap-tap-tapp…!
A second tea comes right when they start feeling drowsy and find it hard to stare at the blinking cursor on the huge glowing screen before them. Rejuvenated, they get back to... tap-tap-tapp…!!
6PM. One by one they start leaving, only to go home, freshen up, eat and sleep and return the next morning.
This is a typical day in my office.
How boring!!!
Ha! So imagine living that life!!! Well, the story is almost the same at any software firm. We do the same thing day after day. A weekend comes, and we spend it at home doing the pending works or sleeping (which, by the way, also seems to be a pending thing these days), or go watch a movie, eat out and get back home. And some, they have to work on weekends too, ‘cause of the “project deadline”!
Work was considered necessary for living, but in today’s world, it seems we live just to work. Everybody is busy making more money so that they can go to expensive restaurants, watch movies in the expensive multiplexes, buy expensive watches and gadgets…
Slave to routine!
Am sitting in front of my computer in office right now and wondering why things are the way they are! I always wish that the place I work would be something really different from all these. A place where the routines are banned and slavery (to routine) is abolished! With the advent of wireless and other technologies today like instant messengers, VoIP (Voice over Internet) and video conferencing, it’s a breeze to stay connected to the rest of the world, no matter where you are. So then, why do we have to still go sit in the cubicles and suffocate ourselves in the name of money? Why can’t people just be given the freedom of being wherever they want to be, but just remain connected and do the work along with living their personal life?
I mean, wouldn’t it be just wonderful if we could sit at the beach and enjoy the salty breeze while we worked with an ever refreshing mind? Wouldn’t it be great if we could sit under a huge tree filled with exotic, chirping birds, with colorful butterflies fluttering by, and do the work on a laptop, listening to the stream flowing near by?
Obviously, questions arise.
Where do you get the power? (There is no power in the cities, where will you get it in the forest? Good question!)
How do you remain connected? (Net connections suck even in the metros, how will you get connected sitting under a tree, thousands of miles away from a city?? Good question again!)
How do you co-ordinate the works? (Working under the boss, you tend to ignore your work the minute boss goes out. What work will you do when you don’t have the boss anywhere around you? Hmmmm…)
Yup! True. But over a decade and a half back did we think we would be so much of a slave to technology? So, can’t there be some way to answer the simple questions? Well, am sure there are many solutions for the first two problems. But the third one? The answer could be just Robots!
I think the only reason why such relaxed “work places” would never work is, the human tendency to run away from responsibilities. Or to be too “relaxed” (read lazy) that work immediately takes a back seat. Yeah! If you were at the beach, would you be actually working or would you be sitting and looking at the horizon, wishing that someone special of yours was there next to you? And if that someone special is there with you, would you be working or…ahem… you know, be all over the beach?
I don’t think I’ll ever get to work in a place like that. Sad! But if it does, that would be my ultimate work place and (prospective employers, please note this) I’ll never quit that job.