I worked for Digital Equipment Corp and my "office" was only slightly wider than my arm span. Co-workers and bosses could “drop in” at the drop of a hat and interrupt your concentration.
I could hear all of the phone conversations emanating from my neighbors’ cubicles. Smell their gum when they unwrapped a stick and started to chew.
TEAMWORK was the watchword. And by God, we had meetings.
There was a down side, as on Thursday several people commented on the challenges of avoiding difficult co-workers when we worked packed in. (But perhaps that was the point?)
Now I see in the news that many businesses that worked virtual in the wake of COVID are not making their employees return to the office. At the same time, housing prices have skyrocketed as so many of us have discovered our homes are simply too small to accommodate us and our families AND our work spaces.
Seems like there should be some kind of AHA! Moment here. Empty offices: Housing shortage.
What do you think we could do with all that office space that’s going begging? It only took a century or more to figure out that factories in old mill buildings could be converted into loft apartments. My last office at Digital was in a converted shopping mall.
Ideas?? Any interesting projects going on in your neck of the woods to repurpose office buildings? As for me, I envision an office buildingn transformed ito an enormous chutes and ladders game with slides and ladders and pneumatic tubes to whisk players from floor to floor and place to place with wondrous refreshment stands and prizes along the way...
Hallie, your cubicle work life sounds terribly distracting . . . .
ReplyDeleteI can honestly say that the best part of working at home is not having to drive . . . of course, when you can use the commuting time to actually work instead of trying to keep from getting crunched by speeders swerving all over the parkway, it’s a whole lot easier to get so much more accomplished.
I wish I could say I knew of interesting things happening locally, but it’s pretty quiet around here. However, I’ve read about towns that are converting their now-empty malls and using them for senior housing . . . .
I’d like to live in your office building with chutes and ladders and tubes . . . . that sounds like fun!
Other plusses: less traffic and clearer skies.
DeleteOne of th digital equipment building complexes (hq in Maynard) was a former mill, and after Digital left it seems to have become senior housing. Anyone out there who can report back from Maynard?
Since I started writing fiction full-time, I LOVE my thirty-second commute upstairs to my office. No driving in snow or leaving home in the dark. Much better for the environment. My waistline? Not so much!
DeleteI think there was a stage between cubicles (which I lived through for twenty-thirty years) and empty office buildings: open floor plan, where nobody had walls around them, even four-foot high walls. That sounded like a nightmare to me.
ReplyDeleteWe have lots of old mill and carriage factory buildings in my town, being used for breweries and design studios and insurance offices and hardware stores and restaurants and yoga studios. You name it. No empty office buildings that I know of.
I've seen schools in converted retail spaces and offices in converted Victorians, but I'm not aware of housing in former offices in Cincinnati. The idea of apartments in former mall storefronts is depressing, especially the lack of privacy. The Cincinnati public library system has experienced great success converting large storefronts into library branches--lots of parking, wide sidewalks, handicapped access.
ReplyDeleteSeems like schools might be a possibility...
DeleteWhat imagination you have Hallie ! Love love love your idea for chutes and ladders game building, so funny :)
ReplyDeleteA new kind of amusement park...
DeleteYes, I'll join you with snakes and ladders please Hallie, though I realize that the US version with chutes would be my preference as I am really, really frightened by snakes. Too many years as a child in the tropics. The secretarial pods I worked in at IBM UK were small until we moved to a high rise (20 stories) building in Chiswick. There I remember, lots of floor space, and I had a window. The tiny mill here in Limerick was repurposed into small offices, a restaurant, beauty salon, gym many years ago, the housing market does seem crazed right now, but I'll bet that office space in the large cities will be morphed into living space. Perhaps some more of those pods for newly hatched workers who really only need a studio, but will have the added spared spaces of kitchens and big dens to create another community after college.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see offices repurposed as living space - hollow out the center as an atrium and have apartments all around the edges so living spaces have windows. (I remember how we coveted cubicles next to windows.
DeleteWhen I first read this blog my thoughts turned to all those lovely mill buildings and factories that have been repurposed into living and retail space. None are in my neck of the woods - all a bit further south - but just looking at them fires my imagination.
ReplyDeleteNothing locally happening, but as for office space = housing--fine if there is the infrastructure to support it--grocery store close? Parks? etc. Chutes and ladders would be fun, although I think my back is already protesting ;-)
ReplyDeleteGood point.
DeleteI love to see all the old mills turned into a beautiful loft apartments… What an interesting place to live.
ReplyDeleteI remember when I did a speech at the Google headquarters in Cambridge. Everyone was walking around with their laptops, open, like people walk around with their phones. I thought it was so fast faced and productive, but someone told me it was because no one had a desk of their own, they could just plop their laptops down at any place that was open. Don’t they call it hot desking?
For years in my newsroom, we all had desks in the open newsroom, so there was always the possibility that it would be on live TV. That led to a lot of rules, like you were not allowed to put your coat on the desk. And no eating during newscasts.
And yes, the cubicle life… My Atlanta newsroom had cubicles. And wow, no privacy whatsoever. No escape from chatty coworkers or snoopy bosses. I want to write a short story about the cubicle life in fact, which involves murder.
And Hallie, I burst out laughing at the smell of the chewing gum. Remember when people used to microwave fish? Or popcorn?
Oh, has anyone seen the movie Office Soace, speaking of the cubicle life? it is ridiculously hilarious.
Or nuke their stinky lunches
DeleteA coworker once complained because my lunch was a Stouffer's Tuna Casserole that I had microwaved.
DeleteI have often thought I’d enjoy living in an empty office - but in my head it’s a five story library and it’s mine, all mine! LOL. Side note: the housing market seems to have cooled here in AZ. Insanely overpriced houses that were sold for more than the asking price even before being listed are now sitting vacant for weeks. We’ll see…
ReplyDeleteThat's encouraging (not, I suppose if you're selling... but still that crazy spiralling feels unhealthy and first-time homeowners can't get a leg up.)
DeleteI like the idea of converting office buildings and shopping malls into housing. But I don't like the idea of living in a home without windows so there would have to be a way to get some sort of natural light into the building. There is a smaller church building in my town that has people living in it but I did not quite sure how that's set up. I know it's not just people squatting in the building, I think there's some sort of spacing that's been done but I don't know if walls have been installed. There are some older downtown buildings that have businesses/retail is in the bottom and office space is above. I used to think it would be cool to live in one of those places but now I don't, downtown is too busy for my tastes now. Oh! I just remembered about a converted office building in downtown. The building has maybe 5 or 6 stories, it was all offices -lawyers and such but now it's small apartments for low income. The only problem with the location - there is absolutely no parking. Truly no parking - no parking garage, no street parking - nothing. That might be a problem for people who actually have a car for transportation. I know when we see a home care patient there, the clinician has to park in the paid lot about a block away and haul all their medical supplies with them. The lot has a limited parking time, no overnight parking in it.
ReplyDeleteParking is the big barrier here, too, to repurposing smaller office buildings in our old downtown. That's what malls offered: parking.
DeleteAnd *natural light* - that is a huge problem with repurposing office buildings ... unless you can put in an atrium/windowed core.
Our downtown is a dead zone these days. So very sad. And frustrating. We need creative ideas and public funding to bring it back to life. I love Hallie's idea of a building with chutes and ladders!
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame, so many downtowns that were abandoned wen the malls came. If there transportation infrastructure, they can come back in new guises. But that's a big IF.
DeleteDowntown Houston has some historic office buildings that have successfully been turned into apartments and condos with restaurants at street level. If we don't tear it down we've been pretty good about repurposing buildings. And then there's the Astrodome. . . it has been sitting there waiting for its next life, whatever that will be.
ReplyDeleteHahaha! I love the Chutes and Ladders idea. I haven't seen anything innovative around here, as we are the dinosaurs of progress. I would love to see something done that would benefit others, especially children, instead of some greedy real estate project. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could turn some of that space into places of opportunity for children, places to learn music and drawing/painting and writing and whatever else can feed their soul for beauty and hope. I imagine a place to just come and read and another place to discuss books. And, it wouldn't have to be exclusively arts. Science and math could have their place, too.
ReplyDeleteWonderful idea, Kathy.
DeleteBrava, Kathy! Maybe you could suggest that idea in your town? You have a great blog and lots of experience, so perhaps that could be some influence!
Deletegreat post! I was reminded of when I worked for a company and I had a cubicle. Unfortunately I could not hear the mail delivery so we put a mirror opposite my cubicle so I could see the mail delivery cart before it hit me!
ReplyDeleteDiana
That's an occupational hazard!
DeleteHallie, such a fun post! I love your Chutes and Ladders idea. I have never had to work in a cubicle, and for that I am grateful. I don't think the housing market has fallen off any here. It is just crazy. My realtor daughter is having to put most of her clients into new constructions because there are just not any pre-owned properties available, in any price range! I love the idea of turning vacant office space into affordable housing.
ReplyDeleteOne more vote for Chutes and Ladders! Lots of smile moments on Jungle Reds this week, thanks.
ReplyDelete