A New Kind of Home Office

The other night, I was walking back to my desk here at Office Nomads. It was a bit after 6 pm--later than I usually work--and the office was mostly empty except for a one or two other people. As I passed through the main room I glanced over at three pods of desks that fill the area there and was struck by how lived in they all looked. Office Nomads, I realized, has become a home office of a different breed.

The first time I came in here, way back in November 2007, it was just a day or two after Jacob and Susan opened the space for the first time. The space then was huge and empty. Clumps of desks were gathered around the few electric outlets and network drops while the front desk was just another able in a tangle of wires. There were no couches.

The other night though, as I walked through it, the space looked and felt lived in, and I mean that in the best of ways. Those of us who spend our days here have made it our own. Desks, which now share the space with couches, tables and shelving, are filled with decorations and work tools. People have their own favorite desk chairs and for some reason, one chair is adorned with a sideways smiley face. In short, we've all become so comfortable here and with each other that an office--something that is generally thought of as a sterile environment--has become a home for us all in a relatively short amount of time.

Interestingly, I think this means that the physical manifestation of the coworker's desire not to work from home is fast becoming a new breed of home office.

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