I recently attended my company’s holiday party. Like many companies, ours is planning to close their office permanently at the end of the month as all workers are now fully remote.
It’s a little sad because this office is freaking awesome. It’s on the 34th floor so it has an amazing view of downtown San Francisco.
I love elevated views of cities. There’s something so enchanting about being in a tall building in a city. The blinking lights. The hills in the distance. The amazing backdrop of the ocean and the Bay and the bridges and the vaulted sheer cliffs of Marin shooting out of the water. It’s a lovely feeling, day or night to be in a skyscraper. It feels powerful.
And then you see all the people in all the buildings, going about their duties. People upon people upon people. Floors upon floors, stories upon stories. And all those machines. Desks and chairs. Lamps. Piles and piles of telephones and staplers and printers and computers. Ephemera.
I’m reminded of a wonderful poem by Philip Larkin.
“Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices...”
Of course, Larkin was talking about death, and he does so masterfully.
“That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.
And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will...”
Brilliant. The final phone call… the one call you can’t ignore. Ha.
And now we are faced with the death of our offices. Appropriate.
What will happen to our downtowns and business districts, now that so many employers are choosing to support a remote work style? There’s so much potential. So much infrastructure.
Could it be that this is a phase? Maybe people will choose to come back, request to work from an office. I certainly like going in occasionally… just not everyday 😊 But it does provide an appreciable degree of focus, outside all the trappings of your house and living quarters.