Our office didn't install focus rooms. They installed something called collaboration neighborhoods.
Three days a week now. The redesign is finished. They didn't install focus rooms because someone in leadership read an article saying focus rooms make people feel isolated. So instead they installed something called "collaboration neighborhoods."
Collaboration neighborhoods are clusters of four desks arranged in a circle with a small whiteboard in the middle. They have names like "The Brainstorm Loop" and "The Idea Garden." There is a stock photo of a woman pointing at a sticky note printed and framed on the wall above each one.
I sit in the Idea Garden on Tuesdays.
Today the Idea Garden contained me on a Zoom call with my manager who is in Atlanta, a guy from analytics on a Zoom call with someone in London, a designer reviewing Figma files with someone in Sydney, and an empty chair where the fourth person was on PTO. We did not collaborate. We could not collaborate. We rotated through three different conference rooms across the floor whenever any of us had a meeting that needed audio because we couldnt all talk on speaker at the same desk circle.
A facilities manager came by at lunch and asked us how we were liking the new setup. The designer said "it's beautiful." The designer is six months out from her green card and was not going to say anything else. I said "the chairs are nice."
The chairs are not nice.
I drove 41 miles this morning to sit in the Idea Garden and do remote work in a circle. It's like little adult cosplay but the cosplay is brain trust and the costume is a hot desk.
I'm not anti-collaboration. I'm anti being told that geography is collaboration.