Nowadays I get three days in the office to do part of my job, editing The Asian Wall Street Journal’s print edition of the Personal Journal (great piece in tomorrow’s edition, by the way, on South Korean female blogging by Lina Yoon (I noticed the Sydney Morning Herald also did something on this earlier this month, as observed by Smartmobs’ Jim Downing).)
Anyway, three days in the office, two days doing my column. I’m not an office guy. No great idea ever occurred to me in the office. No great idea ever really occurred to me period, but especially not in the office. For me you’ve got to be outside. You’ve got to walk around, you’ve got to see things, you’ve got to talk to fresh people, observe weirdos doing their thing, be somewhere you can think. But it’s interesting how divided my colleagues are on this. They like to work late, but not take anything home with them. Others are like me, they look like they’re strangers in a cubicle, camping out until there’s a decent opportunity to flee. Others look like they live there. I find the office good for hammering things out, but mine isn’t really a hammering-things-out type job, so maybe it’s all about the kind of job you’re doing. There’s hammering, and there’s getting ideas.
Anyway, roundabout way of saying you can tell what day it is by the number of off-the-wall posts Loose Wire gets. If there are too many, it’s probably Thursday or Friday.
Not sure how I’d take to working in an office again, even 3 days/wk, but the thought of it is less than pleasant. Must be quite an odd feeling to find yourself caged up three days a week – assuming that is you weren’t office-based in
Jakarta.
This is true. I worked from home since 2001, and while I actually work with a decent team at the Personal Journal, there’s still something about the strip lights and grey cubicle decor that stunts thought. I’m all for more arm chairs, beds and stuff so long as it doesn’t look toooo dot.com.
love the site, happy to see DJ going this route.