Justify why you work in an office

Usually I hear people justifying why they should work from home. Seth Godin argues that companies should justify why you should work in the office:

If you’re a knowledge worker, your boss shouldn’t make you come to
the (expensive) office every day unless there’s something there that
makes it worth your trip. She needs to provide you with resources or
interactions or energy you can’t find at home or at Starbucks. And if
she does invite you in, don’t bother showing up if you’re just going to
sit quietly.

I’ve worked in three companies that had lots of people and lots of
cubes, and I spent the entire day walking around. I figured that was my
job. The days where I sat down and did what looked like work were my
least effective days. It’s hard for me to see why you’d bother having
someone come all the way to an office just to sit in a cube and type.

While there are some people that just need work to provide a quiet place to work as they can’t do that from home, I’m more in the "what’s in it for me?" – usually it’s the in person interactions, more effective meetings, etc that draw me in.

What about you? Why do you go into the office?

One Reply to “Justify why you work in an office”

  1. The main benefit to spending time in the office has to be the networking. I’ve changed jobs every 2-3 years within the large (blue) corporation I work for, and it was always the result of knowing people and people knowing me.
    Yes you can network electronically, but nothing beats whiteboarding, going for coffee, having lunch, etc. It would be really hard to be as career-mobile if you only interacted electronically, or with occasional face-to-face.

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