11/30/06
Corner Rant:
Funny, no office, and sometimes I still feel like a trapped, caged animal. I run to be free, and still that doesn’t help. Maybe the low grade headache has to do with the pressure coming in around me…to:
Always be on, always be smiling, always try and tune out all the noise.
How does anyone really do any work in this place? There is constant chaos. No quiet moments to think. Always socializing. Always people around, on the left side, on the right side, behind, standing, hovering, floating, like bees, buzzing. Like the mosquito in the middle of the night, that you know is feeding on you, each time it buzzes in your ear. You smack it, helplessly knowing that doesn’t help. It still feeds. If only you had the strength to get up, turn the lights on and kill it. But, you doze off again, only to be woken up by the buzzing.
The constant buzzing. This is the downfall of the modern open space. This is what the future will write about, when they speak of the early part of the century. “do you believe, that people sat inches apart from each other and worked right on top of each other? Do you believe there were no doors? Do you believe, anyone get anything done?” and I will say, I was there in that open space. I was there, and tried to work. It wasn’t easy. But maybe it made me focus. Maybe it made me better. Or just the opposite.
The buzzing. It distracts the average ADD afflicted creative. Here’s a thought. Put creatives in a room, that have trouble concentrating…then see what happens. REALLY challenge them…with the sounds of tv reels in the air, chatter, gossip, coffee machines, dishes, loud headphones, more chatter, cell phones, a/c units, and more. The low din. The noise you don’t even know is there. That in the end is what might drive us mad. Because we can’t identify it. Block it out, because we DON’T know where its coming from….
Ok, my pms haze…is it lifting? Am I safe? To face? The world?
Not just yet. I’ll hide here a bit longer in from the emergency exit door. Funny. All these doors have little green men on them running outside. To remind us, that it’s possible to break free. If we ever needed to. Thanks green man. Just knowing you’re there helps, guides, makes mentally, this open space CAGE possible. By tearing down walls CEO’s want to make us more communal, more creative, together.
But I think it backfires.
It’s only when we have time alone, can we really appreciate, and take advantage of a communal state.
Down with the open space. Bring back the offices…
